If you would please open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. If you would remain standing. 1 Corinthians chapter 7. This morning we'll be starting Paul's instructions on marriage. We'll be reading verses 1 through 7. So if you would follow along with me. Paul writes. Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote, It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman because of the temptation to sexual immorality. Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and, likewise, the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Now, as a concession, not a commandment, I say this, I wish that all were as myself am, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Let us pray. Father, we approach this text today with humility. We ask that you would send the Spirit to teach us and that we would look at this text and we would hear you speak. And we ask that you would convict us of our sin, that you would encourage us where we need to be encouraged and that you would change us. And that we would be spurred on to live lives that are righteous and holy because it brings honor to the Lord Jesus. Father, we ask that even in passages like this, that we would seek to honor you and to please you as we apply this in our lives. We would not take it flippantly. We would not ignore it, but that we would take it as your word. Father, we ask that you would come and meet with us today. That you would speak to us. And pray all this in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Okay. Well, if you before we begin, if you had hopefully read ahead, if you've been coming regularly and you knew what the passage was going to be this week, you would have known there's some material that is sensitive in nature. And I'm fully aware of that. And I'll do my best to keep it in that context. But it is in scripture and we are not going to skip over. We are going to preach through this text faithfully. And so, as we begin, know that this is a sensitive topic and one that we need to make sure that we speak of in a loving and sensitive manner when we speak around those that are younger in here and those that may have struggled through these things over the years. We need to approach this with the humility and love that we should have. So let's begin. When I was in college, I had the privilege of working two sports my sophomore year with the athletic department. And actually, it wasn't much of a privilege. They told me, if you have the privilege of working two in-season sports, But because I didn't have an off-season to load up on more demanding classes, it actually made my year a lot more difficult. You see, when you are in any kind of a sporting activity, which many of you have been and still participate in activities. season is very busy and takes up a lot of time. And you look for the off seasons. If you have kids that play soccer or flag football or whatever, softball, you enjoy those off seasons to catch up on other things that may get neglected while you're participating in that activity. And so I was given the privilege of not having that off season. And I was told I was going to be working in-season track as well as off-season football. So not only did I get the full in-season, I also got the busy off-season stuff in that one sport. But during my time with the in-season track team, I had the opportunity to learn many things. And one of the things that I really enjoyed is getting to know other people. It was a totally different environment than what I had been in before. I had the opportunity to meet a lot of people from other schools. I had the opportunity to get to know different parts of the coaching staff that I never got to meet before. And I got to know some of them very, very well. We spent a lot of time together. We traveled together. And two of the most unlikely people that I got to know were a married couple that served as track and field officials. Now up to that point, I knew that they were people who certified times and races, but these two that were married, they were in charge of certifying the weights and measurements for all of the field implements. I didn't even know that job existed until I started working with the track team. They weighed the shot put. They made sure the javelins met code. They looked at the discus to make sure they hadn't been tampered with. They made sure the poles for pole vaulting were safe and that they met all the legal requirements of the NCAA. And having done that for a very long time, and having worked almost every major track event in the world, they have some really interesting stories. And so we would go and visit with them and listen to the things that were going on. And as we saw them at all of our meets and at other major events we would go to, they would drive there in their pickup. And we started to get to know them on a more personal level. It moved from just getting to know them in the work environment to learning about their personal lives and their children and the places that they lived and the things that they were doing. But I remember one day, as I walked up to the area where they were doing weights and measures, this gentleman was talking about the new house that he and his wife were building. And I remember very clearly, as I walked up, he starts unrolling the building plans out on his red Chevy pickup. It's a very vivid memory to me. And everybody's holding it out, and he's giving us a virtual tour of his home. Those of you that have built houses, you've probably done this before, showed people where everything is on the map. And he's talking about, this is our living room and this is our kitchen. And as he goes on around, he said, this is my bedroom. And across the hall is my wife's bedroom. And at that point, everyone standing around the pickup got a little uncomfortable. You could tell visibly. We were uncomfortable and people were looking around and you could tell that his wife was also uncomfortable as he spoke about this. And he went on like it was a normal thing for them to have their separate living quarters. And the way that he spoke about it... was that they had, in their marriage, grown to the point where they were almost just legally married and they lived almost separate lives. Now, and I don't claim to know the ins and outs of their marriage. I don't. I don't know what their marriage was like in their house outside of what he would tell us in this situation. I remember trying to interpret what he said in the best possible light, but as I've dwelt on that conversation over the years, I keep coming back to the point that this is a very unhealthy relationship. And as they moved away from each other, a married couple moving away from each other and from the intimate part of a relationship, what I saw is that they were putting themselves up for failure. They were setting themselves up for a major failure in areas where sin can come rushing in. Well, today we're going to see Paul teaching the Corinthians on marriage. And he's going to begin to answer some of the questions that they wrote to him. And the first topic that he writes about is the sexual relationship between the husband and the wife. And as I was reading this passage and preparing for this sermon, this couple immediately came into my mind and I saw that what they were doing is exactly what Paul is telling the married couples not to do. And it never occurred to me until I was studying this passage that they were setting themselves up for major sin. I fully anticipated that their marriage was going to fail after I heard that. But I never saw the connection from this moving away in their relationship to the sin that can come rushing in. And so as we look at chapter 7, at least the first part of it, the first 16 verses specifically, and even some after that, we're going to see Paul giving some principles of marriage. And he's going to be claiming that marriage is very good. But specifically in this passage, he's going to be giving us instructions as to the sexual relationship between men and women. And so I'll tell you, I was a bit uncomfortable as I prepared for this, because you've probably got the mailers from big churches in the area or seen advertisements for the ways that they teach about that. And I promise we are not going to handle it in that manner. We're not going to have a bed on the roof for an extended period of time to draw attention to ourselves or any of that. We're going to plainly look at the text and see what Paul has to teach us. But before we get to the meat of it, And we see what God's Word has to say about this part of the marriage relationship. We need to see that there's a shift in Paul's letter going on. I think that's going to help us understand the rest of the letter till he ends. And so they apparently had written him another letter. We talked about that a long time ago. They've written Paul a letter and they've asked him questions and now he seems to be getting to that portion of this letter where he wants to address what they've asked. So up to this point he said things like, I have heard. What is going on? All these people have told me about the fracturing and about the lawsuits. And we have all of these things that we've seen Paul write about. And I says, now concerning the matters about which you wrote, and I read immediately as I was preparing for this, I thought, well, maybe there's an inkling in this church's body that they really want to know what's right. But as I thought about it more, I think that they probably were writing to Paul to see not what was the correct thing from God, but who was right. Which fractured part of the congregation had things right? And so they've written him this letter. And we're going to see this construction that Paul starts with over and over the rest of the letter. He's going to say, now concerning. He'll say it in chapter 7 and 8 and 12 and 16. We're going to see this over and over where he says, not concerning the thing that you've written. And so Paul is going to start with this question that they seem to have asked him or that we know they've asked him because he said that the matters about what you wrote. And it flows naturally from him talking about fleeing from sexual immorality. So he's going to jump right into that portion of the questions that they've written to him. And then he's going to go on and talk about marriage after that. So we read that Paul writes, starting in verse 1. Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. So they seem to, not seem, I have written to him and asked him about this. They probably asked directly, Paul, is it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman? And so he's answering them, yes, it is good. Now, we don't have their original letter, but we can reconstruct what they've asked because of the way that he's answered the questions. They've asked if married men and women should stop this activity. Is it good not to participate that in general? You see in Corinth, there was a large amount of this immorality going on. We've talked about that as we preach through First Corinthians. It comes up over and over again. As we've learned, you've seen about Corinth, it was a bad place. And so for us, the question may seem odd. Why would you ask Paul that? Of course, in this room, we're probably thinking, of course you don't. Married couples don't stop this. That's absurd. But I think they were looking. the outside world. And they were seeing this sexual immorality that was going on, and they were thinking, if we're going to be opposite of that as a church, then maybe we should flee from that completely. and stop everything the world is doing, we should stop completely. And so they asked Paul, is it good for a man and a woman to stop their sexual relations completely? And Paul answers, in a general sense, it's okay, it's good for a man and a woman not to participate in that. And it's true. Generally speaking, outside of any other context, that is generally true. However, Paul goes on. Paul goes on and he tells us that it's good to stay sexually active in a marriage. That's our first major point. He says it's good for a man and woman in general not to have relations. I think he's really also pointing towards singleness. But then he goes on. I find it very interesting that he doesn't just leave it at that. He wants to explain his answer. And so we pick up in verse 2. This is good, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. So Paul says, while it is a bad in and of itself to abstain, it's good for married people to continue to participate in this. I think he fears that if he leaves it at that, and I would fear this, if he leaves it at that, his people are going to completely stop. They're going to stop this part of their marriage, and then they're going to end up falling into temptation and being just like the world. And Paul says, while it's okay for two people not to do that, there's nothing sinful about that per se, it's good for married people to participate. Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Don't stop, he's saying. because of this temptation. So we see that Paul says, while it's okay to stop, it's actually good, and he's going to tell us that you should continue that within the marriage context. But why? And he gives us a why. And that's our second point. Marriage keeps us from sexual immorality. And Paul says, in verse 2, look with me again, but Because of. So he's telling us the reason why. I'm telling you it's good to continue on because the temptation to sexual immorality is strong. And because it's strong, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. See, Paul understands that a married couple should continue in this relationship together because it's beneficial, because it protects them from sin. It protects them for immorality. This is a gift that comes in marriage. Now, before we go on too far, we need to look at how all of this relates together a little bit with the marriage. I don't think marriage in and of itself is the thing that protects us from adultery. It's not. You can go through a ceremony. You can put on a wedding ring. You can share a house together. You can sign a marriage license for the state of Texas. And those things in and of itself will not keep you from sexual immorality. They won't do it. So when Paul's talking about marriage, he's meaning more than just the ceremonial act and the legal act that we go through. That's not what Paul's saying here. Because we see marriages falling apart all around us. We see sexual immorality all of the time. It happens in the world around us. It happens to your neighbors. It happens to your family members. It happens to church people, Christians. In fact, recently, there, well, this is more than just recently, I guess. I recently found out that there is a website that was devoted to connecting people who desire to cheat on their spouses. And someone hacked into that website and they stole all of the data. They stole the names and the email addresses and posted them online for everyone to see. I'm not making a comment on if that's a good thing to do or not to hack into people. I'm not making that comment. But what came out of that is the people on the list were not just folks that we would see as carnal and lost. But there were Christians on that list. There were faithful church members. They were deacons. They were elders and pastors and not of some far remote, remote churches you never heard of. They were well-known people that were on that list. Being married, going through a ceremony, putting on a ring and sharing a house will not keep you from the sexual immorality. We see that all around us. What Paul is saying is that within the marriage relationship, there is a place for a woman and a man to come together sexually. And when they do that, the desires for outside fulfillments are diminished. One pastor I heard say it like this. One time he said, a marriage works as a dam against adultery. And what he meant by that is that it weakens the temptation of adultery. When you're married and have a healthy, intimate relationship, it weakens the temptation of the outside. And I really like this analogy of the dam. Because if you're not careful, what happens to the dam? It breaks. So while this is a gift and an act of the dam, we have to make sure that we don't understand it as the marriage being the thing that's going to save us from this. So, I think by necessity, that if you are married here today, that you need to work to make this portion of your marriage strong. That is very uncomfortable for me to say, alright, talking about this. But you need to work to make this portion of your marriage strong, and I want you to hear me correctly. I don't want to tell you the specifics of how you should do that, but I do think it means that you need to be communicating with each other about this topic. If you're in a married relationship and you are not communicating with your spouse about this topic, you need to do so. You need to work on that dam that holds back adultery so it doesn't bust. You need to talk with your spouse about the ways in which the Lord works through that and His goodness. You need to spend time praying with your spouse. You need to spend time building your marriage. That's both men and women. I'm not talking to one or the other. What I love about this section is that in churches today, I hear people talking about this topic and oftentimes it's directed solely at men. That's not what Paul says. That's not what he says. He talks about men and women both. We need to be disciplined in our marriage to love the other person and to work on this section. Because Paul says, this is a gift to keep us from the temptation of sexual immorality. So let me encourage you, if you haven't talked about this with your spouse, to do so. Now, for those of you who are not married, if you are engaged or you are in a relationship with someone, you still need to talk about these things. Maybe you need to talk about it differently, but you need to talk about the expectations of the sexual relationship within a marriage before you get married. And for those of you that think, not only am I not married, I'm not dating anyone, there's no prospects on the line, I'm just living my life. Don't tune out. Learn these things now. Pray about these things and ask that the Lord would keep you pure till you get to your marriage day. Pray that the Lord would help you have an understanding of this now versus having to deal with it later on in your marriage. So, Paul says the reason we should make this portion of our marriage strong is because it keeps us from the temptation of sexual immorality. The things I want to take away from this is that marriage is the proper place for the sexual relationship. Nowhere else. Marriage is that place. We should work to make sure that this is part of our marriage relationships and that it's a strong part of our relationships. Let me tell you again. This alone cannot, just being married, alone, by itself, cannot and will not save you from sin. If you put your trust simply in the marriage relationship and in the sexual part of the marriage relationship, what you do is that you make the gift, the thing you put your faith in and not the giver, the one who has given that to you, becomes an idol. Do not worship the idol of marriage. Worship the Lord Jesus and the gift that he has given us in marriage, celebrate that. So in the marriage relationship, we need to strengthen this, but we need to be trusting in Christ. We need to be looking for his return and we need to be savoring his goodness to us. All right, so we've seen that Paul calls marriage good. And that Paul says that marriage is a gift from God. And it works, I like the analogy, it works as a dam to keep us from adultery and sexual immorality. And thirdly, he teaches us that marriage relationships, specifically this portion in the sexual relationship, are selfless. Pick up with me in verse 3. Listen to Paul's words. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights. And likewise, the woman to her husband, for the wife does not have authority over her own body, but her husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps for arrangement, for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, but then come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. So Paul goes on and he says and he explains to us that husbands should not deprive their wives. You don't hear that often in our culture. But then he goes and he says it the other way too. Husbands should not deprive their wives, wives you should not deprive your husband, except perhaps for an arranged period of time for prayer. Why is this? Paul is pointing to the fact that being married means that there's a certain amount of selflessness involved. One of those places that this is very true is in the sexual relationship within a marriage. Now Paul is not pointing, I want to make this clear, I think there's been some misunderstanding in me hearing people talk about this throughout the years. that Paul's not pointing towards any sort of control issue when he mentions authority over each other's bodies in a marriage relationship. But what he means is that you should have a willingness to mutually submit to each other in this way and to love each other in this way. Not to demand and have authority and be domineering over your spouse. That's not what Paul is talking about. He's saying it is the right of a spouse to have this relationship. And therefore, that means they have authority over the other person's body. And that person should be loving and willing to submit to that. Brothers and sisters that are married here today, our call is to love our spouse in this way and to help each other. single people in the room. This for you means that you should be prepared for marriage and to help those around you that are married when they are struggling. Even though you may not be married, I understand that you can still help by understanding these points of scripture. Now, Paul says something very interesting in verse five. And I kept coming back to this. Why did he reiterate this? He says, do not deprive one another. Summing it up, he comes back to that. Why does he say that? And as I thought about it, prayed about it more, I realized that the assumption here is that there is a desire for one another. He says, do not deprive one another, which means that they desire to be with the other person. It's not depriving someone if they don't want a certain thing. For example, if you were to serve me lunch and leave celery off, you are not depriving me from celery. I don't like celery. I'll just tell you that. I just don't care for it. But if you serve me lunch and you deprive me from the steak, that's deprivation. I desire to have the red meat. I like that. So I think Paul is assuming here when he says, do not deprive one another, that there's this relationship where they desire to be with one another, which means that they are loving each other. And if they are in a marriage where they are getting along, which means for us today, the implication from this is, is that we have to work to love one another. That doesn't mean there won't be times where you argue. That doesn't mean that there won't be times when you get really angry with your spouse. And I'm not saying that this is okay, but there will be times when you will raise your voice. Or you will just have to walk away. It happens. It's sinful, but it happens. But we need to work through those things and build our relationship to the point where we still desire each other. Where we're not abstaining. And the reason for that is, Marriage and the sexual relationship specifically in a marriage acts like a dam to hold back the waters of this sexual sin that is out there. And we must actively be working and building to maintain that dam. I like to periodically, over the years, when it comes up, read about the Hoover Dam. I don't know why it's fascinating to me. I've never got to see it. One of these days I'm going to go see it if I'm ever in that part of the country. And I've heard people mention it. I always go back and re-read how it's built and how there's cracks in it and leaks and some of the stuff that's kind of scary, but they're always working on it. There's a team of people who work there all the time to keep excuse me, to keep that dam from falling. In the same way, we need to work in our marriage so that the dam doesn't come down and we fall into sexual sin. Now, Paul does make one exception to this. I found this really curious, but he does make an exception. He says, now there is an exception, maybe, or he says perhaps. Doesn't mean that you have to do this, but perhaps by mutual agreement here, you decide that you want to not come together sexually for a very limited time. He says limited time there for a reason. And then when that time of prayer is over, you come back together again so that Satan may not tempt you. So I think Paul is telling us there, there is a time when you can decide to spend time praying together instead of coming together sexually. However, when that time is over, don't neglect this part of your marriage because guess what? Satan is there and he's ready to tempt you. In our sinful state, we are capable of being tempted into sexual immorality. Even if our marriage generally looks healthy and this goes away for a time. We don't have different times for other people, but Paul says a limited time because he understands even in a marriage that someone is stopping for prayer, that sexual immorality can sneak in because the temptation to sin is strong. Do not be fooled into thinking that you cannot be tempted into this. I remember sitting in premarital counseling and the guy, he's a dear friend of mine, who did our wedding, sat there and he told me, he said, do not be fooled into thinking that you can't fall into this. And I thought the man was crazy. He's not crazy. I had a low view of sin. Sin is dangerous. It is dangerous. Which brings us to our fourth point. We've seen that sexual relations are good in a marriage. There are gifts that can keep us from sin. That marriages are to be selfless, I think, as a protection for sin. And then we see that Satan is the great tempter. And that this sin is dangerous. Because of our sinful state, we are, all of us in this room, capable of sexual immorality. And if you think you're not capable of that, you're wrong. The desire for sin is strong in our lives, but there is a way out of that. Look what Paul says. Paul says that, come together again, he says this in verse 5, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This is shocking to me, that after a period that dedicated a prayer, you can still fall into sin. Do not think that you can beat Satan on your own. You will fail, even after a time of prayer. Never let your guard down. Paul is saying, after this time, come together again because of your lack of self-control in this area. Do not allow Satan to tempt us. I think over the years a lot of people have this idea, cartoonish idea, of Satan being the guy that's under the ground, just right under the surface, and he's kind of a red, cartoony, cute character with little horns, and he's got his pitchfork, and, you know, cartoon characters go there, and he pokes them, and it's all, you know, whatever, not very scary. That is not the picture that we have of Satan. It's not. Here's what Scripture tells us about Satan. Peter writes, in 1 Peter chapter 5, starting in verse 8, Peter says, be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. I don't know if you've been to the zoo before and seen a lion, but you should do that next time you're at the zoo. If you're ever at the Houston Zoo, go find the lions. They're generally laying up against the glass. Like 90% of the times I've been there, they're right up against the glass. And being three feet away from a lion, even though there's glass in between you, is terrifying. It is absolutely terrifying. You see the power and the bigness of that sleeping creature, even when it's sleeping. And you know that given the chance, it could make your end very quickly. And this is a picture we have of Satan. He prowls around, seeking someone to devour. And He will. If Satan can get his claws into you, he will, and cause you to stumble and fall into sin. We see sin also talked about in strong words in Genesis chapter 4, starting in verse 7. This is after the Cain and Abel episode. God tells Cain, if you do well, will not you be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you. In Hebrew, what he's talking about, the desire for you is to kill you. That's the sense of the language there. It's like there's sin right on the other side of the door and you can't see it. And if you're not on guard when you walk through, sin will kill you. Satan wants us to fall. He wants us to fail in this area of sexual immorality if we're married. He wants us to fail in it if we're single. Do not think this is just for married people. Single folks, He wants you to fail too. And even if you don't fail before you get married, He wants you to fail when you get married. And at every opportunity, there will be an opportunity presented for you to fail. He is going to try hard. Sin is there. Because Satan desires to destroy all that God has created. God has created the sexual relationship within a marriage. He's created it to be good and to serve a purpose. I heard one commentator, I read one commentator say this. Satan does not create sexual desire. I'll stop there for a minute. That is how it's portrayed from time to time. I've heard it growing up as a teenager. It's wrong. It's a bad thing. And when you get married, it just has to be good then. But it's really a bad thing. That is not true. Satan did not create sexual desire. He does not create. Going on. It is good and he never produces anything good. His whole aim is to ruin what God created to be good. There are two ways you can ruin a pearl. You can cut it out of the oyster before it matures, or you can feed it to the swan. Satan does his best to cut off sexual desire from the oyster of God's grace and truth. If he can get people to oscillate sex from the reality of God, he has virtually destroyed its true meaning and beauty. He also does his best to take the pearl of sexual desire and instead of putting it in the pendant of marriage, Alright, I love that. Decorating marriage with this sexual union. He goes on, instead feeding it to the swine of fornication, adultery, pornography, incest, and child abuse and homosexuality. I thought that was a very good way of explaining it. Satan is looking to destroy this gift that God has given. Do not flippantly read what Paul is saying in verse 5. Satan is not a pushover. He's not. He is the prince of this world and if you look around, he has millions and millions and millions of people in his bondage. You can't and you won't defeat him by yourself. So if you get to this section in teaching on marriage and that you think you will defeat him, you will defeat sexual immorality on your own power, you are terribly mistaken. But there is one. There is one who has defeated Satan for us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. John writes in 1 John 3.8, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. So the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared, here's the reason, was to destroy the works of the devil. In his redemptive work, you know what Christ has done? He's defeated Satan. To fend off Satan, and to fend off these sins, this desire for sexual immorality, We have to get to know and trust our Lord Jesus more. He has done this work for us. So yes, you are not to deprive one another in a marriage. But that in and of itself is not a strong enough dam. You need another one too. You need to be trusting in the Lord Jesus as you do that and seeing it as a gift that it is. Peter writes in 2 Peter 1-3, we saw this some months ago working through this book. His divine power has granted to us all the things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." You see, we have been granted all that Christ has earned. As believers in the Lord Jesus, all of His glory and His excellences and His righteousness have been given to us, and we've become partakers in that. So, I think these are the things that we should be dwelling on. As we work through marriage relationships, as we work before we get married and we deal with sexual temptation that's out there, we should be dwelling on God's glory and the excellence that Christ has earned for us. And we need not trust in ourselves. You see, this sexual relationship is like a dam against immorality. But trusting in that alone will set you up for failure. It's a gift that's been given to protect us, but we need not replace, we must not replace the giver with the gift and place our trust in the gift and trust in it alone. So we've seen that Paul has called these sexual relations and marriage good. He said that they're a gift to quell our desires to keep us from sexual sin. We've seen that Paul said that the marriage relationships, specifically sexual relationships, are selfless. We've seen that he said that Satan is the tempter. And lastly, he's going to tell us that marriage and singleness is a gift from God. We get to the last portion. Verse 6, Paul says this. Now, as a concession, not a commandment, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. This last section, Paul says that he wishes that all were as he is, which is single. But, He understands that this may not be an option for everyone. You see, God has gifted each person in different ways. One kind, which would be singleness, and one of another, which would be marriage. These are states of our life where God has gifted us to be. No one ever told me that when I was single. that it is a gift from God to be single. If you are single here today, this is a gift from God to you for this point in time, and that may change it later on. For those of you who are married, this is a gift of God to you. I think the main point in this is that know, know this, that the Lord Jesus has walked these roads before you. He's walked these roads before you. He was single during His time on earth. And you can identify with Him in that way. And He can identify with you. And when you struggle as a single person, you can go to Him because He too struggled and went through all the temptations that we go through. Except He didn't fall into sin. So as you single people struggle with worrying about marriage and specifically sexual immorality and sin, You can go to your Lord Jesus and you can dwell on his glory and excellence that has been given to you because he too has walked this road. Now, married people, Christ also has a bride and that bride is the church. And when you struggle in your marriage relationship, you can go to him in prayer. You can go to Him and you can trust in Him even in those things because He too understands what it's like to be in a marriage that is difficult. He too understands what it's like to be in a marriage where a church that is unsafeful to Him, that goes through infidelity, that has sexual sin, that is abandoned, that speaks unkindly to Him, that does all of these things that bring Him dishonor. And you can go to Him and trust in Him because He is a compassionate Savior. So brothers and sisters, as we walk through this part of life, married or single, and we deal with these sexual temptations, know that you can trust in the Lord Jesus because He has been there before you and He has gone down that path and He has conquered sin. So as we leave today, I think our charge from this is a couple of folds. Alright? Let us all trust in Christ as the giver of the gift of singleness of marriage. And let us work in our gift of singleness of marriage hard to be faithful to Him within these gifts. One of one kind, one of the other. If you're married, work hard in your marriage relationships. Build them. Talk about the sexual part of it and work to protect and to build a strong dam against this immorality. If you were single, learn about these things now and strive to keep yourself pure until you get married. Let's pray. Oh Father, we are so thankful that you love us enough that you found it good to even write and instruct us about these things. These difficult things that we all work through. Father, we ask that you would give your hand of protection over our marriages. We ask that you would restore relationships. Father, we thank you that we have all seen this work at various times in our lives. That we have seen redemption on the other side of sin. Father, we ask that you would protect us. And that when those around us do fall, that You would provide redemption. And through all of that, Lord, we ask that You would help us to see the Lord Jesus. And that we would dwell on His excellencies and His goodness. And that we would strive to love our spouses. And that we would work hard in our marriages. We would work hard in our singleness to bring You honor and glory. Amen.