"Out with the Old (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)", Thad Yessa | 12/28/25

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 | 12/28/25 | Thad Yessa

At the turn of a year, we often take inventory. We look back at the moments we’d relive, and the moments we’d rather forget.
We make resolutions, goals, and promises to ourselves: next year will be different. Many at the beginning of the year told themselves that 2025 was going to be their year.  But if we are honest we look back over this past year and find ourselves perhaps encouraged in some ways and discouraged in others: I didn’t get the job I had hoped for, we didn’t get pregnant, I didn’t find love, I gained more weight than I lost, I wasn’t able to kick that addiction, I didn’t consistently read my Bible, I didn’t share the Gospel with anyone, and the list goes on and on…perhaps we are even nervous to say that 2026 will be different because we think the probability of something actually changing is slim. 

But the good news is Scripture invites us to something far deeper than self-improvement.
The gospel offers more than just a fresh start, but a new heart.
It’s not about trying harder but about trusting Christ, who makes all things new.

Paul’s words to the Corinthians remind us who we once were, and who, by grace, we now are.

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. 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 6:9-11

This passage invites us to look honestly at our past, celebrates what Christ has done, and calls us to live in the newness of His grace.

1. Reject Who You Were (vv. 9-10)

Context: The book of 1 Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul while he was ministering in Ephesus during his third missionary journey (Acts 19). Paul had previously spent about eighteen months in Corinth, where he planted the church and taught them the foundations of the Christian faith (Acts 18:1–11). After leaving Corinth, Paul remained deeply concerned for the spiritual health of this young and struggling congregation.

Corinth was a prominent and influential city in the Roman world. As a major commercial hub with two ports, it was marked by wealth, ethnic diversity, philosophical pride, and pervasive moral compromise. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians after receiving reports of serious issues within the church: divisions over leaders, tolerance of sexual immorality, lawsuits between believers, confusion regarding marriage and singleness, abuses of Christian freedom, disorder in worship, and misuse of spiritual gifts. At the root of many of these problems was a failure to understand how the gospel reshapes identity.

Rather than offering simple moral advice, Paul addresses these issues by reorienting the church around the message of Christ crucified.

Paul begins with a sharp and unsettling question: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” This is not a rhetorical question. It is meant to wake the church up. The Corinthians knew this truth intellectually, but they were beginning to live as if it were no longer urgent or relevant. Paul confronts the dangerous assumption that people drift into heaven on good intentions. Scripture consistently teaches otherwise. Jesus Himself warns, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction” (Matthew 7:13).

Paul is trying to awaken this group of believers who have seemingly fallen asleep in their sanctification. The nature of sin is deception. Sin convinces us that what we are doing is not that serious, not that costly, not that dangerous. That is why Paul pleads with the Corinthians, and with us, not to allow deception to dilute the severity of what is happening among them. He issues a clear command: “Do not be deceived.” It is possible to claim Christ while refusing Christ’s authority, to enjoy grace while clinging to a life shaped by sin. Scripture repeatedly warns about this danger. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9). James echoes this warning when he says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

Verses 9 and 10 contain what theologians often call a vice list. Similar lists appear throughout the New Testament, in Romans 1, Galatians 5, and Colossians 3, and they all serve the same purpose. Paul is not cataloging every possible sin, nor is he claiming that believers never stumble or wrestle with sin. He is describing settled patterns of life, ways of living that flow from an unredeemed heart. Jesus says, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). Paul’s concern is not that a believer has ever committed one of these sins, but that they characterize a person’s life without repentance.

Paul then lists behaviors that define those who remain unrighteous, not regenerated, not reconciled to God. 

• Sexual immorality (porneia): a broad term covering all sexual activity outside God’s design for marriage between one man and one woman.

• Idolatry: giving ultimate loyalty, affection, or trust to anything other than God. 

• Adultery: covenant unfaithfulness that betrays both spouse and God.

• Homosexual practice: describing both passive and active participation, consistently presented in Scripture as contrary to God’s created order.

• Theft and greed: sins of taking and desiring what God has not given.

• Drunkenness: surrendering self-control rather than living soberly under the Spirit’s rule.

• Reviling and swindling:  sins of speech and power that destroy others for personal gain.

These are not momentary failures; they are identity-defining patterns. Paul does not know a hierarchy of sin. Greed and reviling stand alongside sexual sin without distinction. All of them reveal hearts that resist God’s rule. Scripture frames sin not merely as behavior but as bondage. Jesus says, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Peter adds, “For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19). Sin is not just a mistake; it is a master. It enslaves. It blinds. It distorts our loves.

Disordered Loves (What We Worship) - Disordered loves show up when people build their identity on success, money, influence, or image; when comfort and self-fulfillment become ultimate; when Christ is confessed with the lips but displaced in practice.

Sexual Brokenness (What We Do With Our Bodies) - Sexual brokenness appears when sex is treated as recreation rather than covenant, when intimacy is porn-driven and hidden, when sexuality is reduced to self-expression rather than received as God’s design. 

Power & Exploitation (How We Use Others) - Power and exploitation surface when people manipulate others to get ahead, using authority, money, or charisma to dominate rather than serve.

Greed & Consumption (What We Take) - Greed and consumption appear when we never have enough, live beyond our means to maintain appearances, hoard resources, and treat generosity as optional. 

Substance & Escape (How We Numb) - Substance and escape show up when drunkenness is normalized as stress relief, when substances replace repentance, prayer, and help, when life revolves around the weekend instead of eternal purpose.

• Doom scrolling

• TV binging

Relational Sin (How We Speak & Treat People) - Relational sin appears through gossip, sarcasm, slander, online cruelty, and rage disguised as conviction, despite Scripture’s command: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths” (Ephesians 4:29). 

• Sarcasm is excused as humor, even though it wounds.

Deception & Self-Justification (How We See Ourselves) - Deception and self-justification show up when sin is redefined to avoid repentance, when we compare ourselves to worse people, when accountability is labeled oppressive, and when grace is treated as permission. 

That is why Paul repeats twice that such people “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” The repetition brackets the passage and underscores its gravity. Scripture is unambiguous. Unrepentant sin excludes a person from God’s kingdom, not because God is cruel, but because such a life rejects His rule.

Paul’s central concern in this passage is the call to put off the old life and live out the new life we have received in Christ. The sins he lists belong to a former way of existence, not to the new identity God gives His people. These patterns characterize life apart from God and lead away from the kingdom, not toward it. Believers, by contrast, have been called into righteousness. The gospel never invites us to manage sin or coexist with it, but to decisively turn from the destructive ways that once defined us.

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  The Christian life is fundamentally different from life apart from Christ. Christians still struggle with sin, but they now possess a God-given power to resist it. Those without the Spirit remain enslaved to sin, unable to escape its dominion. Scripture does not support the idea that someone can persist indefinitely in unrepentant, habitual sin while belonging to Christ. When sin becomes a settled pattern rather than a resisted enemy, it gives evidence that redemption has not yet taken place. At the same time, believers who stumble are drawn back by the Spirit into repentance, and the struggle against sin continues as part of genuine faith.

  A Christian’s posture toward sin is one of hatred, repentance, and resistance. Though sin remains present, it no longer reigns. By the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, believers grow in holiness and experience sin’s weakening grip over time. Like Paul, we grieve the ongoing presence of sin in our flesh and look to Christ for deliverance. The sobering truth is that those who live actively, persistently, and unrepentantly in sinful patterns will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

  Paul’s warning is not only about individual salvation but about the church’s witness. In the immediate context, the Corinthians are taking lawsuits before unbelievers. The very existence of these lawsuits calls the community into question. Instead of living as a distinct people, they are functioning no differently than the surrounding culture. A church that affirms unrepentant sin lies about salvation and cheapens grace. The church is meant to be a present glimpse of God’s future kingdom. Have I hurt the witness of the church this past year? 

  At the heart of the problem is forgetfulness. The Corinthians are living as though their God-given identity does not matter. They are forgetting the gospel. They are saints who act like non-saints. They are righteous in Christ, yet they live as though they are unrighteous. Their community, meant to display the transforming power of the gospel, has nothing distinctive to offer the world. Scripture warns, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent” (Revelation 2:5).

  The temptation is rarely open rebellion. More often, it is a quiet compromise. As D.A. Carson puts it, “Holiness isn't accidental; it requires intentional, consistent effort and discipline, people naturally drift towards compromise, not Christ.” We manage appearances, justify patterns, and baptize cultural norms with Christian language. Paul’s warning presses a searching question upon us: has my life this past year been more shaped by who I was, or by who Christ says I am?

  Paul’s declaration in his next letter to the Corinthians: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. The gospel does not merely improve us, manage our sin, or inspire us. It ends one life and begins another. That truth comes to a climax in Paul’s words: “And such were some of you.” That is who you were, but that is not who you are anymore.

  Rejecting who you were is about clarity. You cannot cling to an old identity without slowly surrendering the joy and assurance of the new one. The Corinthian believers had been rescued from a culture that celebrated what God condemned. And so have we. Whether our sins were public or private, respectable or rebellious, we were unrighteous and cut off from the kingdom of God. But grace has intervened.

  Think of a name that once described you: “angry,” “addicted,” “anxious,” “arrogant.” In Christ, that label has been peeled off and replaced with “beloved.” God says, “I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12). The world may remember your past, but Christ remembers it no more.

  2. Remember What Christ Has Done (v. 11)

  If verses 9-10 tell us who we were, verse 11 tells us who we now are because of what Christ has done. Paul does not leave the Corinthians suspended under warning. He moves them decisively to gospel ground. The command to reject the old life only makes sense if there is a new life already in place. Otherwise, Christianity becomes nothing more than moral renovation. Paul will not allow that.

  Verse 11 begins with one of the most hope-filled phrases in all of Scripture:
  “And such were some of you.”

  Paul does not minimize sin, but he refuses to let sin have the final word. The identity described in verses 9-10 belongs to the past tense for those who are in Christ. The gospel does not merely call us away from certain behaviors; it announces that a decisive break has already occurred. The story has changed. A death has happened. A resurrection has begun.

  This is why remembering what Christ has done is not optional for the Christian life, which is inpart why Jesus left the command to partake in the Lord’s Supper: “do this in remembrance of me.” When we forget the gospel, we do not drift into holiness; we drift into confusion, compromise, or despair. The Christian life is sustained not by self-discovery but by gospel memory. Who God says I am is the most important thing about me, and I need to be reminded of these realities every single day.

  Paul then gives us three verbs that summarize the entirety of salvation: washed, sanctified, and justified. These are not aspirations. They are declarations.

  “You were washed.”
  This speaks to cleansing and shame. Sin does not only leave us guilty; it leaves us defiled. Many of us live as though the stain still remains, replaying past failures, rehearsing old labels, and managing how much of ourselves others are allowed to see. But Paul says the filth has been removed. Objectively. Finally. Completely. At the cross, Christ accomplished what no amount of effort or regret could ever achieve. We are clean. This means we do not approach God as contaminated people hoping for tolerance, but as cleansed people welcomed home.

  “You were sanctified.”
  This speaks to belonging and transformation. To be sanctified is to be set apart for God. It means your life now has a new orientation. You no longer belong to yourself. You are no longer defined by what you desire most naturally. You belong to the Lord. Sanctification does not mean instant perfection, but it does mean real change. The power of sin has been broken. The grip has been loosened. You are now empowered by the Spirit to say no to sin and yes to righteousness, not in your own strength, but in newness of life.

  “You were justified.”
  This speaks to verdict and status. To be justified is to be declared righteous in God’s courtroom. Christ took our guilty record and gave us His perfect one. This means the verdict over your life is no longer “condemned,” but “accepted.” You are not on probation. You are not barely forgiven. The final judgment has already been rendered in your favor because it fell fully on Christ. Nothing remains to be paid.

  Paul grounds all of this in the work of the Triune God:
  “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
  The Father planned salvation. The Son accomplished it. The Spirit applied it. From beginning to end, this is grace.

  This gospel reality reshapes how we understand ourselves. The Christian life is not built on self-definition but on divine declaration. Who God says I am is the truest thing about me.

  Because of Christ:

  I am united to Christ by the miraculous work of God. I am spiritually, vitally, and permanently bonded to Him. His life is my life. His death counts as my death. His resurrection defines my future. I am represented by Christ, renewed in Christ, and secure because I am in Christ.

  I am a new creation. I have been given a new heart, a new spirit, and a new identity. I have been purchased by God, delivered from darkness, reoriented toward light, empowered to resist temptation, and welcomed at the cross when I fail. My failures do not eject me from grace; they drive me back to it.

  I am a son or daughter—an adopted child of the King and an heir of an everlasting inheritance. I do not relate to God as a nervous employee or a reluctant servant, but as a beloved child. I approach Him with expectant hope, trusting the heart of a gracious Father who delights to give good gifts.

  I am a sinner still, called to wage war against the rebellion that remains. Sin no longer reigns, but it still resists. I seek to grow in holiness, not to earn acceptance, but to live in alignment with my new identity. I draw daily from wells of grace and mercy that are bottomless because I am in Christ.

  I am a saint, categorically and decisively. God has declared me holy. I am being reconfigured from the inside out, conformed to the image of Christ, made into my truest self. Sanctification is not the denial of who I am; it is the fulfillment of who I was created to be.

  I am being shaped by the living God into a certain kind of person. My thoughts, desires, habits, and loves are caught up in a lifelong process of dying and rising, being slain and made alive by the gospel again and again.

  I am royalty, unfathomably grafted into Christ’s royal line. I share the King’s table and will share in His reign. I am summoned to live with dignity, humility, and honor befitting the upward call of God in Christ.

  And I am a servant of Christ by God’s grace. I belong to God, not to myself. I honor Him by serving others in the roles He has assigned me and with the gifts He has entrusted to me.

  This identity reshapes everything: how we fight sin, how we respond to injustice, how we forgive, how we endure suffering, and how we live together as the church. Because God has already rendered His final verdict over us in Christ, we no longer need to secure ourselves through self-protection or retaliation. We are free to absorb wrong, pursue reconciliation, and walk in humility because our standing is secure.

  As theologian John Webster puts it, “To be a Christian is to have our center not in ourselves but in Christ: to be raised with him and to live in expectation of the consummation of our new life in him.”

  This is why Paul can call us to reject who we were and to rember what Christ has done. Not because we are strong enough to change ourselves, not because we have enough willpower, but because Christ has already changed our story. The old life has been put off because a new life has been put on.

  Reject who you were.
  Remember what Christ has done.
  
  

  3. Live Like You Are New

  When our identity is secure in Christ, our failures and our wounds no longer have the final word. Because we belong to Jesus, the things that happen to us do not get to define us. If we are financially wronged, we remember that our worth is not measured by what we possess. If we are relationally wounded, we remember that our most important relationship is eternally secure. Christ endured every imaginable wrong so that we might receive every imaginable right. Our identity is no longer fragile because it is anchored in Him.

  That same gospel-shaped identity also transforms how we deal with our own sin. When we remember what Christ has done, the extent to which he went to secure our salvation because of our sin, we no longer minimize, excuse, or defend our wrongdoing. Instead, we freely confess and sorrowfully repent. The cross reminds us that sin is far more serious than we like to admit, so serious that it required the death of the Son of God. And yet, that same cross assures us that forgiveness is real and complete. Because of this, the Christian posture is not self-justification but humility. We stop chasing self-protection and begin admitting weakness, failure, and our tendency to fall short. 

  This is what shapes a healthy Christian community. The church takes sin seriously because God takes holiness seriously. We do not ignore wrongdoing or excuse it, but neither do we crush people under the weight of their failures. The church is a community where justice and grace meet, where repentant sinners are forgiven and broken people are restored. Discipline is exercised not to destroy but to heal. This is what it looks like to live in light of who we now are in Christ.

  At the heart of all of this, Paul knows the real danger is gospel forgetfulness. When we forget who we are and what Christ has done, identity crises quickly follow. We become guarded, defensive, and slow to forgive. We may still be present physically, but in our hearts, we begin excluding people rather than embracing them. Paul’s call is simple and relentless. Remember who you were. Remember what Christ has done. And live in step with who you now are.

  That remembrance leads us directly into application, not as self-improvement but as gospel-shaped obedience.

  First, stop defining yourself by what Christ has already buried.
  Paul’s words, such were some of you, mean that your past is no longer your identity. The gospel does not invite you to endlessly rehearse who you used to be. It calls you to refuse to live as if that identity still has authority. Shame, regret, and old labels may resurface, but they no longer tell the truth about you. Rejecting who you were means refusing to let yesterday’s sin write today’s story.
  Ask yourself, what old identity am I still carrying that Christ has already put to death? 

  Second, confess your sin quickly rather than defending yourself.
  Living like someone made new means your instincts begin to change. Rather than minimizing, justifying, or hiding sin, you bring it into the light. The cross proves both the seriousness of your sin and the certainty of your forgiveness. Because you are already justified, confession is no longer threatening. It is freeing.
  Ask, where have I been more concerned with appearing right than being honest? What sin have I explained away instead of repenting of?

  Third, commit to a community that takes sin seriously and grace seriously.
  The gospel forms a church that neither ignores sin nor crushes sinners. If you live like you are new, you will both pursue holiness and extend mercy. You will welcome correction without fear and offer forgiveness without superiority. This kind of community becomes a living display of the gospel’s power.
  Ask, am I helping create a culture of repentance and restoration or avoidance and judgment? Do my relationships reflect the grace I claim to believe?

  Fourth, walk forward in direction, not perfection.
  Being washed, sanctified, and justified does not mean instant maturity. It means real change over time. Living like you are new looks like daily repentance, steady obedience, and continual dependence on the Spirit. The Christian life is not about becoming someone else. It is about increasingly living as who you already are in Christ.
  Ask what old patterns need to be put off because they no longer fit who I am? What new obedience is the Spirit inviting me into this year?

  As this year comes to a close, resist the pressure to reinvent yourself. Instead, remember yourself as God has already declared you to be in Christ.

  You are washed.
  You are sanctified.
  You are justified.

  So put off the old.
  Put on Christ.
  And walk forward, not trying to become new, but living like you already are.

  “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.” - 2 Corinthians 5:17