“Pure in Heart and Mind”
FORGOTTEN VIRTUES SERIES
1 Corinthians 6:12-20; 2 Corinthians 7:1
From series by Lifechurch.tv
Sunday, March 20, 2011

Introduction: Last week we talked about the virtue of honor. We talked about how we are called to honor God in His holiness, and as part of honoring God we are called to honor others. We talked about how the top 3 ways we are to show honor is to honor our parents, those who are in authority over us, and our spiritual leaders. We honor God when we honor others, and when we honor others they often will begin to live their lives with more honor!
This week we continue our series in “The Forgotten Virtues” by looking at the virtue of purity.
Example: A number of years ago when I was the Director of Student Ministries at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Camarillo, we developed a game called Guerilla Warfare. This game was really just a glorified food fight outdoors. We had this big open field which allowed us to do this game and not have to worry about any clean-up. We divided the 50 high school kids into 2 teams, and then armed them with spaghetti, outmeal, juicy juice, tomatoes, and more, and then we set them loose. You can imagine the chaos, and screaming, and pandemonium that occurred! And when they were done, they were covered with food. They were so bad, that we simply hosed them off and sent them to the bathrooms to change into the other clothes they had bought.
Of course, we can understand that what they looked like, and smelled like after the game is not an example of purity. In fact, it is the opposite. In our world we are more and more aware of the germs that exist. There is hand sanitizer everywhere now: at check out stands; at hospitals; I have some under my lectern. We do not want to get sick, so we try to get rid of the germs that are passed on to us.
I believe it represents the impurity of our bodies that is caused by our sinfulness! Maybe before we were Christians we were worse sinners, but the consequences of sin are great. Today we want to talk about pursuing the mission of purity.

I. The Bride and the Bridegroom- (Isaiah 6:5; Ephesians 1:4; John 3:29a; Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 1:14-15; Romans 12:1-2; James 1:22; Proverbs 11:22)
a. Impurity- The prophet Isaiah had an understanding or his own
impurity, and a desire to be rid of it. Isaiah said in Isaiah 6:5, “‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’” If we want to avoid the pollutants of spiritual impurity, then we need to work as hard at this as we do at trying to avoid getting sick.
When we know who we are, we know what to do. If we understand that we are Christians, then we come to know what we are to do. When we become Christians, we begin to have eyes to see things as God sees them. We begin to understand our sin and how our sin corrupts our lives. We are told by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:4, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight...” As believers we are created new. I don’t know about you, but when I get something new I want to keep it clean. For example, when I got my car after my dad died, I was careful how close I parked to other cars because I didn’t want to get any scratches. Once you get some scratches, and maybe a ding, you start to care less about keeping it all clean.
Isn’t this all too true of our lives as well. As we become new Christians, we try and live a clean and pure life. But then as time goes on we don’t worry about it as much. BUT WE SHOULD. We should seek to be ‘holy and blameless’ in God’s sight! We have to keep the old self, dead in our lives. We are chosen by God, and we are loved.
The Bible also tells us that we are the bride of Christ. The calling for a bride is that she is on a mission to prepare herself and planning for her wedding. Our lives here on earth should be our preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ. A bride doesn’t go out and sleep around before her wedding. She keeps herself pure for her groom. So why would we allow things in our lives that make us impure?
John 3:29a tells us: “The bride belongs to the bridegroom…” Part of understanding who we are, is understanding that we are not our own. As believers we are not our own. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ. And now we are not the same. We have a call on our lives that is not our own. Our call is to be like Christ.
b. The standard of purity- Jesus Christ is the standard of purity. It is
not enough to compare ourselves to others around us. You might look at someone who is a greater sinner than you and rationalize that you are not so bad. No, we are to set our eyes on Jesus. As we are told in Hebrews 12:2, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith...” Jesus is the sanctifier and the purifier. We cannot make ourselves pure, only Jesus can do this.
1 Peter 1:14-15 tells us: “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” We are called to be holy in all that we do. We might not be able to live up to this 100% of the time, but if I try, in Christ, I sure will do a better job of living a pure life than I will if I don’t focus on being pure in Christ.
EX. When I was in high school, I would go to youth group every week. And there was this girl there that told me one time that she thought I was perfect. She wasn’t joking when she said this; she said it with seriousness. Now of course, I knew that I wasn’t perfect, and anyone who knew me at all knew I wasn’t perfect. But maybe, just maybe, because I was trying to ‘be holy in all I did’ I came across as being more and more like Christ. That is pretty cool!!
We become righteous, because Christ makes us righteous by imparting His righteousness to us. But we can also do this by renewing our minds. Romans 12:1-2 tells us, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” As you renew your mind you don’t want to start contaminating it with filth.
Just waking up we can be bombarded with temptations. The computer, the TV, the billboards, the strip joints, the commercialization of our world. The impurity is all around us. We have to protect our purity. We have to guard our minds and hearts. Protect what we see and what we hear.
We are called to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. When we are told in James 1:22, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” We need to make sure we do just this; live out our faith!! When you read God’s word and hear God’s word, live it out. God’s word lived out is what makes life wonderful. This is the way we can be led to purity, by living according to God’s word. It is God’s word that reminds us of what hinders us, and what leads us to impurity, and then we can guard ourselves all the more and seek to be living a more pure life.
People will then see the righteousness of Christ manifested in our lives.
I know it can be a challenge. Maybe we want to be more successful. Maybe we want to be loved by others. Maybe we want to be more accepted. Maybe we think life will be more exciting when we live according to the world. Whatever it is, it leads us to compromise. But the truth is, when we compromise it is because we have taken our eyes off of Christ. We have forgotten we are preparing ourselves for the groom; Jesus Christ.
c. How we dress- Proverbs 11:22- “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is
a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.” Now men, don’t miss what this is saying. I believe this has an important word for women and men alike. Discretion is having good sense and good judgment. We need to wake up and realize we are following the world’s standards, and when we do this we are looking like a pig with a gold ring in its snout. This does not look good at all and does not fit. If you saw a gold ring in a pig’s snout you would think that it is a waste of a gold ring. The gold ring does not make the pig more beautiful. The same is true of us. When we do not show discretion, when we do not exercise common sense, when we do not live up to God’s standards, it is not fitting.
Let’s think about the clothes that we wear. Some clothes, we wear to make us look more sexy. Some clothes say “I’m hiding.” Some we wear to look cool as we wear all the latest styles. Some are worn to make us feel more important. Some clothes are saying “I’m easy.” But some clothes say, “I’m holy.” “I belong to God.”
We are to represent Christ, not just with how we behave, but how we dress. Now this tends to be an issue with women more than men, because the clothes for women have gotten shorter, and tighter, and sexier. But we have to ask ourselves if our dress is a temptation for others. Our clothes shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. It is to be a part of how we live.

II. Pursuing God- (1 Corinthians 6:12-20; 1 Peter 2:15-16; Matthew 5:27-28)
Another important aspect of purity is pursuing God with how we honor God with our bodies. Our text this morning from 1 Corinthians speaks a powerful message to us. So let’s close up our time by picking apart this verse a little…
a. Not everything is beneficial- This passage starts off by telling us, “I have
the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.” There are many things that we do that might not seem wrong, but it is not beneficial for me in living a life of purity. For example, it is a very common thing for friends to joke around with each other. I remember that I used to pride myself on my sarcasm, Sarcasm takes some thought, because you are joking when you are sarcastic, but you include a hint of truth in it. When I was in college I had a friend who he and I would always go back and forth with our sarcastic comments. Then one day I began to wonder if it was all joking around, or if there was indeed a hint of truth in his words. Some of the things he said to me began to hurt a little. And I wondered if anything I said hurt him. So we talked about it one day, and decided that we weren’t going to be sarcastic anymore. We decided to CHANGE HOW WE TALKED!
There was nothing particular that told us we had to change. It was in a sense okay to do, but not beneficial. In the end, we decided that it was not a “pure” way to converse and to express our thoughts.
What are the areas in your life that might seem to be okay, but as a Christian might be looked upon in a wrong manner by others?
To be pure means to rid yourselves of these actions!
b. Sexual immorality- Next Paul talks about sexual immorality. Paul hits
the hardest in this passage with this topic. Even back then sexual immorality was a great problem. This is really fitting for our world right now, because there is so much immorality that exists. Let us read again 1 Corinthians 6:13-20,
“The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 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! 16 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.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
Paul’s battlecry here is: “Honor God with your body.” There were many in Paul’s time who believed that the body was sinful, and the spirit was holy. This was called “gnosticism.” Because of this thinking, they believed that they could do anything with their body and it didn’t matter, because if they kept their spirit pure they were okay.
EX. When I was in high school I had a friend who was Catholic, and we were talking one day about drugs and premarital sex. And he said to me that it didn’t matter what he did during the week, because come Sunday he would go to confession and confess his sins, and then he would be forgiven.
Peter warns us against this kind of thinking when he says to us in 1 Peter 2:15-16, “For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.” While we are given forgiveness through the blood of Christ, we are not to pursue sinful living, but rather pursue God. Just because the world is promiscuous does not mean that we have to be promiscuous.
Paul is not writing a theological treatise here. Paul is pleading from the heart for the Corinthians to see their lives in “holy” terms. Paul is trying to help them understand that they have been bought with a price; the price of the life of Jesus Christ. Because of this, he was telling them that they need to honor God with their bodies; which included their thoughts and fantasies.
Jesus Himself challenged us all the more when He said in Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Our eyes and our minds are part of our body!
I believe that to be a people of God, pure before God, we need to make sure that we are faithful to our spouse, and that we refrain from sexual relations until married, and that sexual relations is honored for what it was created to be, something special and beautiful between a man and his wife.

Conclusion: The wikipedia dictionary tells us that purity is “the absence of impurity or contaminants in a substance or abstinence from vices and/or abundance of virtue. When we think of things that are pure we might think of “pure” white snow. Snow that is fresh from the sky, not containing any impure elements. OR maybe we think of a little baby, who is free from the impurities of the world.
But once we have been touched by the impurities of our sinfulness, what are we to do to become pure? As we have talked about this morning, we have a wonderful savior, Jesus Christ, who gave His life for us, so that we could be forgiven. As we are told in 1 John 1;9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to fogive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all our iniquities.” In Christ, we can be made pure.
Let us not only understand this in our mind, but seek to live it out in our lives, as we seek to live a more pure life. Let us be pure in our minds, our dress, our relationships, our speech. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And if we do this, we will indeed bring back the virtue of purity. Amen.