The Glory of Sticking It Out
Sermon Manuscript: 1 Corinthians 7:8-16
Introduction
Paul gives us clear commands for singleness and marriage, in 1 Cor. 7.
Now, these subjects can feel - now and then - very complicated. How many books have been written on marriage alone? Yet I can summarize Paul’s governing principle in one sentence:
Defer to the interests of your S/spouse, for that is the path to glory.
Which is total foolishness, according the wisdom of this world. For we think we are autonomous. Therefore deferring to the other feels like death.
But these commands are made by one who created us, and eroticism and marriage. And he himself has already walked the path to glory, deferring his own interests to that of His Father, and therefore going to the foolish, ignoble cross.
But on the other side of the cross came the crown.
So then,
Two commands, and then thirdly, the glory of obedience.
Singles: Know your calling, and run hard after it
This comes from v. 8-9. We touched on this last week. Those who are single or widowed, Paul says, should first ask themselves, can I, should I remain this way?
Because, v. 8, it is GOOD to remain single. Marriage is NOT the highest level of existence. After all Jesus and Paul both remained single.
Now, how do you KNOW if you are called or GIFTED, v. 7, to singleness?
The tell-tale sign is whether or not, v. 9, you BURN with passion.
That is, if the sexual fire within you spills out of the fireplace into sexual activity that God forbids - like fornication, graphic fantasies, habitual self-gratification, porn, reading Fifty Shades-style books, etc. etc., then you can KNOW that you are NOT gifted for singleness.
The same is true if you are dating. The word “fornication” sounds old-fashioned, but it’s actually older than that. It violates God’s design from the Garden itself.
Thus there is NO neutral middle, no third way. God made sexuality and sensual pleasure and eroticism - and He made them to burn HOT on purpose, according to the specs of the fireplace He also designed - the fireplace of marriage. And He did it that way, because if the fire spills out of the fireplace, it burns and destroys. It turns homes into wreckage, people burned up, even while they’re alive.
Thus the choice is a binary one: we either bow our bodies and our sexuality and our relationships to Christ, or we have chaos, like . . . well, like right now.
So then, if you are NOT gifted for singleness, in our Corinthian, sex-drenched culture, then you should run hard after getting married. This means LABORING
To BE marriageABLE
To find a Christian mate to marry.
Which in our culture is HARD.
There’s a lot of fake-Christian creepers and gold-diggers on the dating sites. And then you may struggle with anxiety, whether you will find someone. And then there are the Christmas’s and the Valentine’s Day’s, when you are alone, and it seems that everyone else is not. That’s a deep kind of pain. And then there is the run-of-the-mill Friday night, when perhaps sexual temptation burns hotter.
These trials are just plain hard. It is NO gift to be single, when you are not gifted to be single.
Thus this teaching is crucial for ALL of us to hear, not just unmarried people. We should NEVER assume that just because someone IS single right now - maybe for a long time - that they are GIFTED for it.
We don’t know why God calls some to one trial and another to others. So instead of seeking superficial solutions, we who are married need to realize the depth of the trial, and ENFOLD single folks into their ordinary lives. Especially on the Hallmark Holy Days. Unmarried folks should know where the silverware is in your house, and where THEIR spot is on YOUR sofa. Single folks don’t need to hear “well, just do this . . .” They need to hear, “Hey, would you like to join us on our trip? Our timeshare has an extra bedroom. Wanna come?”
And lastly, married folks should be eyes and ears for the unmarried who are called to marriage, to help find them a mate.
Now, one more thing. Just because someone IS called to singleness does not therefore make THAT life easy, either. Sometimes it doesn’t seem plausible. Faith can wane. That’s why we need each other. The 20-year old who repents of his homosexual lifestyle and comes to Christ may start to ask himself,
“Maybe I’m not homosexual. Maybe I’m simply gifted for celibacy. But is that PLAUSIBLE, in our sex-drenched world?” He answers that question in the CHURCH, as he bonds with the 50-year old unmarried woman. And in that unlikely bond, the two feed each other grace, to be consumed by FAITH. They point each other to Christ,
Who never married, who walked the most solitary path, and yet achieved the greatest glory, and who now has as many children and friends as there are stars in the sky.
So the singles, the command is this:
Singles: Know your calling, and run hard after it, by grace, through faith
Married? As far as it depends on you, stay that way . . .
Now, to the married, the Lord commands: don’t get divorced. If you are married, stay that way, v. 10-12.
If you must separate, v. 11, that is PERMISSIBLE, if not ideal, and if you do, you are commanded to NOT divorce and remarry. If you burn with passion while you are separated, then (back to the logic of the previous point) you must be reconciled back to your lawfully wedded spouse.
Now, you might be asking, why would Paul have to teach this? Why would two Christians be asking - with GOOD motives - if they should get divorced?
First, Paul has just said that it is GOOD to not be married. They may simply be taking Paul at his word.
But secondly, then and throughout history, it has been common for married couples to have the separate for economic reasons. And then, when you became a Christian, you might suffer consequences, and need to seek work elsewhere. This is very common in third-world countries today like Haiti.
But whatever the reason, the basic command, the default position for Christians and marriage is this: if you are married, stay that way.
To the Particular Problem of Marriage to an Unbeliever
Now, to those married to an unbeliever - most likely those who were saved but their spouse was not, Paul commands a variation of the above command, in v. 12-16:
As far as it depends on you, stay married.
Now, it is noteworthy that Paul says in v. 12, “I, not the Lord.” What does this mean? Does this mean we can or cannot obey it?
No, not at all. It’s simply Paul’s way of keying us in on what he’s doing.
On the one hand, this entire section has simply been a riff of off, 6:16, where he quotes Genesis 2:24. He has been alternating between making direct commands from that passage, and then applying it to particular situations.
So then the rest of chapter 6 - clear command, flee sexual immorality. Chapter 7, v. 1-5 sexuality in marriage. But then, 7:6-9, he APPLIES those principles to the particular problem of singleness.
Then, v. 10-12, back to the clear command from Genesis 2:24, regarding marriage and divorce. And now, v. 12-16, he applies it the particular problem of mixed marriages.
It’s ALL to be obeyed. He’s simply letting us in on what he’s doing - that WE would do the same - applying the basic truths of Genesis 2:24 to our own specific questions, as we will see him do in a moment.
So then, the command: v. 12-13 - if get saved, and your unbelieving spouse consents to still live with you, then stay married.
Now, the glorious grace for this is in v. 14 and 16. But I want to skip over v. 14 for just a moment, because in v. 15 Paul continues to apply the general to the specific.
If the unbelieving spouse is repulsed and repelled by your faith - not because you’re being a moralistic jerk and drove them to it, but because of your newfound faith - then let them go.
In this situation, the peace that brings is more preferable to an intact marriage filled with clattering conflict.
And in this case, the believing spouse is not ENSLAVED - meaning, they are not bound to the marriage covenant, because the unbelieving spouse broke it. They may receive the divorce, and remarry.
Now, the big question: How does Paul feel free to ADD another exception clause, to the one Jesus had already given. And that in a section where he clearly says “I, not the LORD”?
After all, in Matt. 5:32, Jesus said,
32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
What makes Paul so bold as to add another exception? And the answer, I think, is that Paul is simply applying Genesis 2:24.
Which gives TWO parts to a marriage covenant. The SECOND part we focused on LAST week is the sexual part:
24 . . . and they shall become one flesh.
Therefore sexual immorality breaks that. But here Paul is thinking about the first part of the marriage covenant:
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife
When two people are married they enter not just into a SEXUAL relationship but also an EXCLUSIVE relationship - one that excludes ALL others. And so when one spouse ABANDONS the marriage, they break the FIRST “side” of the marriage covenant.
When the unbelieving spouse wants to break that covenant, because of the believer’s faith, let them go, Paul says. God has called you to peace.
Now, we immediately have questions, about this situation or that one. But Paul does not stop to answer further specific situations - like when it’s a purported Christian who abandons the marriage.
The key is the end of v. 15. If your unbelieving spouse wants to go, let them. God has called you to peace. But if not - then God has called you to peace - to be an instrument of the gospel, through which, Rom. 5:1, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And this leads us to the glory of obedience.
The glory of sticking it out: the salvation of our families and the world
Paul gives the reason FOR staying married, in v. 14:
That both the unbelieving spouse and the children of the family are MADE HOLY by the believing spouse.
Now, what does this mean?
It CANNOT mean salvation - at least not at first. It can’t LOGICALLY, since the spouse who is UNBELIEVING is also called HOLY. And salvation always comes by FAITH.
At a minimum, Paul seems to be saying, YOUR marriage just as HOLY a matrimony, as is two Christians being married. Your marriage is not LESS, compared to wholly Christian marriages.
This principle also applies for those in this room who might have gotten married in adulterous circumstances, or after an unlawful divorce. Be that as it may, God does NOT see your marriage today as any LESS a marriage than everybody else. You may need to repent of what led up TO the divorce, or the unlawful divorce itself. But regardless your present marriage has no Scarlet S on it. And as we will see, He will still pursue His greater glory from it. God’s glory is not limited by YOUR sin.
But clearly this is not ALL that Paul has in mind, because at the end of v. 14, he mentions children, and not only that, but - and remember he’s talking mostly to Gentiles, non-Jews - he uses the Old Testament word “unclean.”
Now this connects us back to why God commanded in the OT for the Jews to not intermarry with the other nations - to remain pure and clean.
But now, something has changed.
And that which as changed, v. 16, brings the POTENTIAL for salvation, THROUGH the believing spouse.
And when we put these two verses together, it seems that that POTENTIAL for salvation is DECIDEDLY GREATER than it was beforethe spouse got saved, or entered the family.
We get another picture about this from Romans 11, where Paul uses the same “made holy” phrasing. In v. 16, he describes Israel as an olive tree, that WE Gentile Christians are grafted INTO. His logic is this: that WE are made holy, by the preexisting holiness - created by God’s grace to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - that WE are then grafted into.
So here’s the point: now that Christ has come and won victory over sin and guilt and death on the cross, the light has overcome and DOES even now overcome the darkness. Yes uncleanliness, sin, is contagious. But now the LIGHT is MORE contagious.
Before, the Jews said, stay away from the nations. But now, the nations say, stay away from those Christians.
IN Christ, the scales have tipped the other way.
So what this means in marriage is that when a spouse gets saved, they now - 1 Cor. 3:16 and 6:19 - are a vessel that brings the HOLY Spirit right into the marriage. And now, just as in the second verse of the Bible, the Spirit hovers over that household, like a hen over her brood.
It is very similar to being a Jew versus any other person, BEFORE Christ. Yes, the Gentiles could be saved. But the Jew has the testimony, and the sacrifices, and the history, and imagery - it was a blessed heritage - an awesome privilege - a tremendous mercy - one that, Romans 2:4 - was meant to lead them to repentance.
Thus the spouses and children of believers are MASSIVELY privileged.
We, however, treat it almost like a handicap - to have RECEIVED faith NOT through some crazy, drug-filled crash and burn story, but simply by being raised in a Christian home. But that in FACT is JUST as glorious. That was God’s point all along - godly offspring - Mal. 2:15.
The way we obey in the hard thing today is by grace, through faith. The grace is the Spirit of God which we carry within us, in our families. And the faith is the confidence that that HOLY power WILL overcome the darkness.
Thus we don’t need to GIVE our spouse and kids the chance to NOT obey, let alone leave the marriage. Instead we stay, confident in the power of God for salvation, in the gospel, through the Spirit.
We are called to peace - the same peace we were GIVEN, in Christ, we are called to be instruments of - as we ENJOY that peace before our families. Then we will live as living parables that Psalm 34:8 is really true:
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.