Sermon Transcript
Like, uh, last week, our message this morning comes, uh, with a content warning, which we’ve been including in our last several newsletters. If you’re, if you’re not signed up for our newsletter, you can head to bridges.info and then scroll all the way to the bottom. You’ll see a link. You can sign up for our newsletter, and then you’ll be in the loop for all of our important information, like when a sermon comes with a content warning. Um, but this morning’s message is, uh, certainly rated at least PG-13, um, because we’re still in a section of 1 Corinthians.
We’ve been working our way through that ancient letter, and today we’re in the second half of chapter 6 and all of chapter 7. That addresses appropriate and inappropriate relationships. Today we’re specifically looking at God’s plan for singleness, the relationship between husband and wife, and what is meant only for marriage, and therefore why it is inappropriate to take what is only for marriage and then incorporate it into any other relationship. So that’s where we’re headed today. We did not read the scripture passage up front like we usually do, just in case there are any parents who missed our content warning and believe it’s best for, for their kids to hear about those topics at a later time.
So, um, like last week, our strong advice would be that it’s better for elementary school students and younger to be in our kids programming right now, but of course that’s up to you as parents. If you’re not familiar with the last half of 1 Corinthians 6 and all of chapter 7, you have several minutes to scan it before we talk about anything dicey, okay? In the meantime, before that, We’ll look at how this passage addresses singleness, unmarried people, and the high Christian view of singleness, which is celebrated, esteemed, and possibly even preferred. Unlike pretty much every other culture that has ever existed, Christianity elevated the status of single people. 1st century Rome, women especially, with only a few exceptions like some nobility, women had especially limited options.
Their choices were: 1, be married; 2, continue to live in their father’s house; or 3, beg for food or worse. There weren’t many, you know, independent women entrepreneurs. So if you were a single woman and couldn’t live at home with dad anymore, maybe he had passed away, you were almost always trapped in only bad options. But Christianity comes along and says, if you’re widowed, you’re not out on the street. We’re going to treat you like you are our mother.
And if you’ve never been married, you don’t need to be married to have status in our community. It’s like you’re our sister. You can work, you can live among us, you can have a role in the church. So for instance, Paul in entrusted the letter of Romans to a woman named Phoebe. Phoebe probably delivered Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, and in that letter Paul calls Phoebe a deaconess.
So she has a title. It’s an amazing status for the time period. But Christianity didn’t only elevate single women. Paul actually says he wishes everyone could be single like he is, women or men, he says, this is from our passage today, to the unmarried and to the widows I say it is good for them to remain single as I am. And then he continues that idea all throughout the passage.
He says, so then he who marries his betrothed does well. I mean, it’s okay to get married. And he who refrains from marriage will do even better. Then he circles back to the widows again and he says, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet it is my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is, which is single.
So over and over again, Paul says marriage is fine, but really in his view, and he explicitly kind of carves out these are his thoughts, not the Lord’s thoughts, but he thinks it’s better to be single, which no one had ever said. So why is Paul saying that? Well, he observes when people get married, and especially when they have children, their focus is mostly on taking care of their family. Most of their energy is spent on the family, and that’s good, and that’s needed, right? That is your responsibility.
But single people Because they don’t have responsibilities to a spouse and children, they can focus much more on God’s wider mission in the world. He says, starting in verse 32 of chapter 7, I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. Like, an unmarried person can focus on the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife.
That is what we should focus on, husbands, how to please our wife. And his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. That is what wives should focus on.
I say this to your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. His observation is married people focus on their spouse and family if they have it, but single people can have an undivided attention on God’s mission in the world. Notice this is in either case, single or married, the focus is never on self. That will be a common thread in everything we talk about today. Whatever your relation status what your relationship status is.
Yourself is never the priority. The Christian view is always outward focused. Your life is not for you, your life is for others. Just as Jesus said he didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and give his life as a ransom for many, so, so also we, we never aim for our own personal gratification, whether we’re single or married, either way, it’s always about others. And actually, if you haven’t figured this out yet, this is a life tip, okay?
The more you focus on yourself, the less happy you will be. The more you scrape and claw to get yourself noticed, you know, the more you worry about if you are sufficiently recognized, the less recognized you will feel. Yeah, did I get enough likes on that social media post? Right, if you’re all caught up in that, it will never be enough. But the more you are concerned if others are noticed, you know, if others are recognized enough, the more your focus is outward, unconcerned about yourself, then you will feel more content overall.
Okay, because we are designed, we are wired to be outward focused. That’s how this whole thing is supposed to work. But who those others are changes depending on whether you are married or single. If you’re married, your others focus is primarily your spouse and family, but if you’re single, your others focus can primarily be serving like in the wider world, furthering God’s mission. And Paul thinks that’s better, which was a brand new concept in world history.
For the first time, single people not only had a purpose but maybe a higher purpose. Up to that point, the standard traditional view in order for your life to have meaning was you must be married so you can have children so you can leave a legacy, preserve your family line. It was everything in basically every culture. So of course, if you were single, if you didn’t have a family, it felt like you had failed at the point of life. And if you read the Old Testament, you see that all over the place, like the despair people felt if they couldn’t have children, you know, couldn’t leave a legacy.
Or Book of Ruth, for instance, you know, whoever married Ruth, needed to continue the family line of Elimelech, and one guy doesn’t want to do that because it’ll jeopardize his own family line, but Boaz steps in. He was willing to do it, and it’s portrayed as this big deal that Boaz was willing to do that, right? Your legacy was everything. But then Christianity comes along and says, we’re not concerned about our own legacy. We’re concerned about Christ’s legacy.
We want his name to endure far more than our own. You know, preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. Great life, well lived. And to accomplish that, you didn’t need to be married. So singles, it’s really for the first time in world history, rather than feeling like they were missing out on something, they actually saw they had opportunities that married people and especially family people really, really didn’t have, right?
For the first time they felt esteemed in their singleness, as they should today, right? Single people today in the church should feel vital, honored, needed, elevated, and I hope our singles do. It’s one reason why we’re talking about this. I’d actually love feedback from our single people. Do we make it easy for you to find places for you to use your gift, for you to use your time for the sake of others?
Do we make that easy? I’d love feedback. One simple but incredibly meaningful way that Beth and I have been grateful for our single friends is when our kids were infants. When we first had a baby, right, and he started sleeping through the night, we would put him to bed at like 7 PM, right? And then for the rest of the time that we’re awake, we felt like we were trapped inside of our house.
We couldn’t go out, we couldn’t leave the house because we couldn’t leave the kid. And all of our other friends who already had kids, all of them were also trapped inside of their houses, right? They couldn’t go anywhere either. Which made it much harder for all of us to see each other who had kids. So our socialization took a big hit.
And for us, you know, especially Beth, right, who needs a lot of adult interaction, when that adult interaction went to zero, it was hard. But what started happening was our single friends would come hang out with us in our house after we, like, put our son to bed. You know, it was only 7 PM, we’re going to be up, what, another 3 or 4 hours? So our single friends would come over, we’d play games, we’d talk. It was so helpful to us.
Like, we absolutely needed those friends, and we needed them to be single. They gave us our sanity, right? They ministered to us. Which they couldn’t have done if they had also had a family and were also trapped inside of their house. So look, if you’re single, you have all kinds of opportunities like that to serve others and make much of Jesus, all kinds of opportunities that married people, and especially married with kids, they just don’t have as much.
So that’s the elevated esteemed, possibly even preferred Christian view of singleness.
Now you’ll notice, especially when we read a longer section of our passage in just a second, what was not part of singleness, what was explicitly reserved only for marriage. And it’s what people often ask about, it’s what people often have questions about. It’s certainly countercultural to our current moment, and hopefully we’ve given enough time for parents to decide what to do with their kids in service because time’s up.
It’s the question of sexual intimacy, that sexual intimacy is only for marriage, and we’re going to see why. So we’ll read this passage and then we’ll look at 2 prevalent views of sex in Corinth and in the Corinthian church. How both those views are still around today and how they are both really deficient. Then we will look at the high Christian view of sex, how that fits into a bigger picture of what marriage is and God’s design for marriage, and then we will see where the Christian view of sex and marriage points. So, 2 Corinthian views, the Christian view, and where that view points.
Okay, let’s read our passage. Starting in verse 12, chapter 6, I have the right to do anything, you say, but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything, but I will not be mastered by anything. You say, food for the stomach and stomach for the food, and God will destroy them both. The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 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! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?
For it is said, the 2 will become one flesh. But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. 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; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. Now for the matters that you wrote about: it is not good for a man to have sexual relations with a woman. But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, husbands— the husband does not have authority over his own body, but he yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command.
I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has your own gift from God. One has this gift, another has that. It’s God’s Word.
Now, first, the 2 prevalent views of sex in the Corinthian church. One, what I want when I want it, or 2, Avoid sex at all costs. What I want when I want it or avoid it at all costs. Both of those are deficient, but you may recognize those 2 views are still around today. We see the first view, what I want when I want it, when Paul quotes something they’ve said, which was a phrase from their culture, food for the stomach, stomach for the food, which means, you know, when I’m hungry, I eat.
When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I have the urge to have sex, I have sex. Nothing more to it than that. It’s no different, which reduces sex to a bodily impulse. You know, you have an itch, you scratch it.
And if that’s all it is, if it doesn’t mean anything more than that, then sure, visit a prostitute. Why not? I mean, in Corinth there was a temple to Aphrodite, goddess of so-called love, thousands of prostitutes associated with that temple. Common practice, just like going out to dinner.
And even people in the church, not all of them, we will see, but some people in the church continued that casual view of sex, which you may wonder, how? How could anyone in the church think sex is that casual? You know, weren’t they taught our monogamous ethic? Well, yes, they were, but then they turned around and said, if I’m forgiven in Christ no matter what, if I’m justified by what he’s done and not by what I do, then I’m free to do whatever I want. I can live however I want.
I’m forgiven no matter what, right? Which is what Paul quotes here. He repeats their phrase, their idea, which was all things are permissible for me because I’m forgiven anyway, right?
It’s a justification, it was their justification to disregard any sort of wisdom or boundary whatsoever, right? I mean, all things are permissible for me so I’m always forgiven, I’m free to live any way that I choose but Paul calls them out on that thinking. He says, well, wait, not everything is beneficial, not everything is constructive, you will face a consequence for this kind of behavior because it’s out of bounds from God’s Good design. You will reap what you sow.
We may be like the people of Corinth. Whatever I want, whenever I want it, with whoever I want it with. It’s casual. It doesn’t mean anything. And we may put a Christian spin on it.
We may say, well, I’m forgiven no matter what, so it’s okay.
I’ll challenge you. If you hold that view, that sex doesn’t mean anything more than when I’m hungry, I eat, okay, if that’s you, don’t you sometimes realize there should be more to it than that?
More than just getting a release? More than only appetite fulfillment?
Doesn’t it seem like you’re missing something when you walk away from one of those encounters? Is there ever an emptiness?
Like you’re satisfied in one way but you’re not satisfied.
Listen, there is more to it than just what I want when I want it. There’s more to it than that. But that was one view. And it’s still around today. The other view, which was probably a response to this free, open, anytime with anyone view, is probably a reaction to that, which was avoid sex at all costs, never do it, abstain, which you might think is the Christian view, but it is not.
Even though it’s understandable why some Corinthian Christians could have thought that, I mean, it’s likely they had been burned badly with the no-limits culture that they were coming out of, right, where the only sexual relationships they’d ever had any experience with were these, like, wildly unhealthy ones, you know. But then they found Jesus, and they realized they needed to leave that culture. And so, it seems maybe some of them just wanted to get as far away from their previous life as they possibly could. And if that’s what they’re doing, right, that’s understandable. And so, they write Paul, and they ask him, which Paul again quotes, chapter 7, verse 1, they had asked him, isn’t it better to have no sexual relationships at all?
Isn’t it better to just have nothing to do with this whatsoever? Like, let’s just don’t handle, don’t touch, you know, if you want to be a good person, don’t I just need to stay away from this?
It’s an overreaction. It’s an understandable overreaction given what they were coming out of, but it’s an overreaction.
Which is still around today, maybe not so much where we live, but some of us might have been raised that way. You know, some of us weren’t told anything about sex except, don’t do it!
Which, if that’s all you were ever told, if that was your entire sex education in adolescence, It is hard to reprogram that, and it can cause problems in your marriage. Because if it was drilled into your head, don’t handle, don’t touch, it’s not what good people do, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, right? It’s difficult to switch from no to go on your wedding night.
And for some people, There’s something that always feels wrong or dirty about sex for their entire lives because the only thing they were ever told is good people stay away from it. Right? So that view of sex, the avoid at all costs, that lacks something as well. It’s deficient, but it’s still around. So we need some help, just like the Corinthians did, to understand God’s good plan for sex, why he gave it to us, what it’s for.
Which brings us to the high Christian view of sex, which is a display of total life union. Sex is a display of total life union. When Paul gives his instruction, you know, don’t you know when you unite yourself to someone, You need to unite yourself, meaning like in every way. Like when you become physically one during sex, the purpose of that is to display that your whole life is united to this person, not just your body, though it includes your body. You know, your everything needs to be integrated with this person.
That’s what sex is meant to display. You’re becoming one flesh, one entity, Paul says, which is a reference all the way back to the beginning of the biblical narrative, right? The first man, the first woman. God says man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. It’s one flesh union, but that union is not just an interlocking of bodies with the first man, first woman.
He’s talking about marriage, right? It’s when a man leaves his father and mother, united to his wife. It’s an interlocking of your entire life. The picture is total union of lives. Giving everything of yourself fully away to another in every way.
And Paul’s point is we mustn’t do something with our bodies that we’re not also holistically doing with the rest of our being. Sex is meant to be a way to say, I’m totally surrendering my whole self to you. Everything I have is for you. It’s a picture of I’m making myself completely yours. I’m giving up the rights of my life.
Those now belong to you. So it’s, you know, you get married and you’re thinking my career is no longer for me. My career is for the benefit of my spouse. My bank account is for the benefit of my spouse. My calendar is now to elevate my spouse.
All my energy, all my hopes, all my dreams, all my everything. It’s now all about you all the time, fully. I’m making myself vulnerable and available to you with no qualifications whatsoever. Paul says here, right, the husband’s body no longer belongs to him. It belongs to his wife.
And the wife’s body belongs to the husband. It’s total surrender of self.
Sex is meant to be a way to say, you have me, mind, body, and soul. I’m yours.
Which can’t happen with more than one person because by definition you can’t give your whole self like that to more than one person. You can’t completely surrender to multiple parties. And it’s why sex must only be in marriage. Because unless you’re married, you are not completely surrendered to the other. You know, it doesn’t really matter how much you say you love each other, that person does not have a deep claim on your life until you are married, until you are legally bound, until the force of the law ensures, right, husbands and wives have rights over one another.
And until you have bound yourself like that, you haven’t really fully given yourself to the other person, right? You’ve left yourself an escape hatch, which is not total surrender. Total surrender is, I’ve left myself no options. I am for you. My body is yours.
My life is yours. My everything is yours. There’s no way to reverse this, and the law ensures there’s no way to reverse it without significant cost and difficulty. I am really giving you everything. Nothing is for me.
It’s all for you.
And if you’re thinking about that during sex, that this is a display of, I am fully surrendered to you in every possible way, sex becomes a totally different thing.
It’s not for personal gratification. It’s not about you.
It’s about giving yourself away, your whole self. It’s an outworking with our bodies what we have pledged of our lives in the marriage commitment. That’s the context of sex. That’s what it’s meant to display.
And if you’re not willing to surrender your whole self to someone like that, then you are not ready for sex.
But if you have committed yourself to someone like that, sex is a way to say, I am fully yours.
Which is, of course, is way more gratifying than just getting a release.
It’s way better. The Christian view is a much higher, much higher view of sex than what I want when I want it or no at all costs.
Okay, now lastly, where the Christian viewpoint It’s Christ’s union with the church. Paul makes these incredible statements that our bodies are members of Christ himself, verse 15, chapter 6. Whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit, verse 17. He is using the same total union language of husband and wife becoming one. He uses that same language to describe our relationship to Christ.
Which in the letter to the Corinthians, he only makes a passing reference to us being united to Christ like husbands and wives are, but he develops it much more in Ephesians 5 if you want to check it out. Husbands and wives, the giving of themselves fully to one another, it’s a picture, it’s a pointer, it’s a shadow of Christ’s relationship with His church, which means even the best, highest moments of joy we might experience with a spouse, those are only a faint glimmer of the delight that we will experience being united with Christ. Because anytime the Bible uses a metaphor of something in this world to describe what God is like or our relationship is like, the reality of God is always far better, far exceeds the picture or the pointer. You know, I mean, the Bible pictures God as king, But no king that has ever existed has ever come close to the, you know, level of good, sacrificial, just type of king that God is. Or the Bible pictures God as Father, but he’s the perfect Father, right?
He’s infinitely better than any father on earth has ever been. So when the Bible pictures our union with Christ as we are the bride, he is the groom, it means our union with him will be far better far deeper with levels of glory, you know, that no marriage on earth has ever dreamed of. So it is comparable to marriage, but it also exceeds even the best moments of any marriage on earth. And we, we have a foretaste of it already because Jesus has already fully surrendered himself for our benefit. He was totally vulnerable and exposed for our sake on the cross.
He gave up everything he has for us— his very life, his status, his power, his righteousness— all for us. He emptied himself for us. He leveraged his infinite resources in order to make much of us. He has already committed himself to us. He paid our debts.
He’s all in. As a groom does when he steps into marriage. Jesus is already there. We aren’t yet.
Our lives are not fully surrendered to him yet. We haven’t leveraged everything we have for him. We haven’t poured out our whole selves to make much of him.
But that is our future, Christians. That is where he’s bringing us. And the day will come when we will let go of all of our other allegiances and we will give ourselves fully to him as he has already given himself fully to us. The end of the biblical story is a wedding feast. Where he is the groom and we are the bride.
And in our complete surrender of all that we are on that day, we will find an infinitely greater gratification than anything we have ever experienced before. That is our ultimate hope, united with him forever and ever, where death will never do us part.
The real union for which all of us have always longed is with Him. Whether we are married or single now, our ultimate wedding day that will change us forever and make us whole, it’s with Him.
And that day is coming.
May we look forward to it with great anticipation.
Let’s pray. Father, thank You for Your good plan for this world and everything in it, including our bodies, our relationship statuses, everything we have, Lord. You have a good plan, and You tell us that plan because You love us, and You forgive us when we fail to follow because of what Jesus did on the cross. And so, Lord, I pray for all of us that we would find redemption in you, that you will lift us out of whatever deficient view we may be swimming in right now, Lord, and that we may rejoice in the good plan that you have for us. Help us all look forward to our ultimate wedding day, Lord, which will be with you a celebration like no other, um, and a joy like no other.
We pray all those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
