We invite you to take your Bibles out this morning and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. We're going to be looking at the first seven verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 7 this morning. If you have not brought a Bible with you, our passage this morning is found on page 955 in your pew Bibles. continue in 1 Corinthians to deal with a whole host of issues, a whole variety of issues, many of which are quite modern as well as quite old. First century issues are now 21st century issues. And in chapter 7, Paul is going to move to a number of issues that have to do with marriage. Marriage itself, sex within marriage, singleness, and divorce. Those are going to be the primary issues that we are going to see here in 1 Corinthians 7 as we work our way through this long chapter together. This morning focusing just on the first seven verses, hear the Word of the Lord. Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But 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 as a command, I say this, I wish that all were as I myself But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. And thus far, God's holy word, may He teach us from it this morning by His Holy Spirit with us. Let's pray. Our God, how we thank You that You created all things good. How we thank You, O God, that You have given to each one of us a variety of gifts, oftentimes different gifts. But all for our good and all for Your glory. Teach us, we pray. Write Your Word on our hearts this morning, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. There is, once again, as we've already seen, great confusion in the church over sexuality and sexual issues. Paul has been dealing with them for two chapters now, chapter 5. Again in chapter 6 and now even here in chapter 7, but a different kind of issue. Confusion over sexuality, confusion over the body, and the nature of the body in Corinth. And again, as we've seen in previous weeks, this very suitably reflects the great confusion over the body and over sexuality in our world today. today. I read a recent, or saw a survey, the results of a Christian Mingle survey, I believe that's a Christian dating site. I know nothing about it. All I know is the results. Yeah, I have not been on there, just want you to know. All right. Saw this write-up on this survey in a book I was reading. And this Christian Mingle survey, here are the results of the survey, 61% of those who call themselves Christians on this Christian dating site said they were willing to have casual sex without love, 61%. 23% said they were willing to have sex, but they had to be in love. Only 11% said they were waiting to get married first. before having sexual relations. The Christian culture is reflecting the larger culture, a hook-up culture. I almost said hiccup. Maybe that's what it is, too. A hook-up culture where we see sex be separated from relationships. seen as we have in previous weeks as simply fulfilling a bodily need. The Bible teaches us that sexual relations are good. Sex is good. One of the things we talk about in premarital counseling that I talk about with couples who are heading toward marriage is sex itself. And one of the questions in the book that I use is a question that asks the couple, how do you think God viewed Adam and Eve when He saw them having intimate relations in the garden? That's an important question. It's a good question. Sexual relations are not the result of the fall. It was created by God. It's part of creation that God called good. It's good within marriage, and yet it is destructive outside the bonds of marriage. God created it to function in one way, in one setting, God as the Creator of all things knows how We best function in a way that brings about our happiness, our flourishing, or our godliness if we are God's people in particular. So it's destructive. It's detrimental in every way outside of the bonds of marriage. But within the bonds of marriage, as our text tells us this morning, it is good and it is right. It leads to children, pregnancies, as we've seen this morning and announced already this morning. But God seems to indicate and the Bible seems to indicate that there are other purposes as well, and that's what we're going to see this morning. We're going to look at, really going to make just two points today. And the first is, I want to return to a theme that we've already looked at in the past, but is important also for this passage here at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 7. The first point is this, we see the goodness of the body. The goodness of the body. We saw it in chapter 6. We see it here again in a different way. Now, let's look at verse 1. Paul now begins to answer some questions that the Corinthians themselves had written to him about. And he says, now consider concerning the manners about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. Now you see that in the ESV in quotes, and most scholars are in agreement that this is a quote that most likely came from the Corinthians themselves. It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. In other words, they were advocating abstaining altogether, even within marriage. These were what we might call sexual ascetics who thought that it was less than spiritual to indulge our bodily desires, even within marriage. Now, what is the thinking that undergirds this? What kind of thinking undergirds this? Well, it's the exact same thinking that undergirds what we've seen in chapters 5 and 6. It's the exact same thinking that undergirds a sexual license, sexual hedonism. It's the thinking that says, my body is separate from who I am. It's the thinking that says, my body is not really important to me. What's important is the spirit. What's important is the soul. It is a low view of the body. And we actually see this tendency in some of the philosophical schools of Paul's own day. Philosophical schools which all generally tended to have a low view of the body and see that the ultimate goal and purpose was the release of the spirit or the release of the soul. The body did not matter. In fact, the body was bad for many of them. We often see these two tendencies. Some moved into absolute hedonism. And some were what we would call complete ascetics. It's wrong to do things with our bodies, particularly sexual things with them. So both are an outworking of a low view of the body. Paul again says here, as we've seen over the past several weeks, your body matters. What you do with your body matters. You are a whole person, body and spirit united together. You cannot separate the two. I'll raise the issue in this way. What was Paul's response to sexual immorality in chapter 5 and chapter 6. Paul's response was not to go on and argue that sexual pleasure was bad. What was his response to sexual immorality? He responds by upholding the goodness of the body. That's why we need to treat it in the way that God has designed and not in the way that God has not designed. Because when we treat it in a way that God has not designed, we are not fulfilling the way God has created us to function, and what leads to true joy and holiness. Our bodies, Paul says, will be raised. Our bodies are members of Christ. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and these same things undergird. Paul's argument here in chapter 7. So let's look more closely at the particular issue as Paul addresses it. Paul quotes in verse 1 what the Corinthians have said, it's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, and Paul goes on to say this, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own The word have here is a euphemism, and it is a euphemism that we sometimes hear today about having someone. It is a euphemism for sexual relations. And so what Paul is saying here in verse 2 is the husband and wife should give themselves to one another. Give yourselves to one another sexually. Now it is interesting here that Paul says because of the temptation to sexual immorality, husbands and wives should come together sexually. Doesn't in some way, doesn't that give us a kind of a low view of human sexuality? Well, I don't think it does at all. It's a spiritual realism, a spiritual realism. Now there are many reasons for why husbands and wives don't come together, can't come together. There are physical reasons, there are a variety of things. But God has created us with desires, and God says those desires are to be properly realized, properly exercised, and that is only within the bonds of marriage. And when we're not, the temptation is to fulfill them outside, especially in a place like Corinth, a place filled with immorality, prostitutes and all kinds of things in in Corinth. The temptations are real in the city of Charlotte as well. What happens in this relationship to have, to be together with one another? Paul has already described it back in chapter 6 verse 16 as two becoming one flesh. Elsewhere in Scripture, sexual relations are described as knowing. Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore a son, for instance. The idea of knowing. What does sex within marriage do? It gives us a deeper, more intimate knowledge of the other, of the partner. It binds more closely together those who are already bound together in the covenant of marriage. The marriage vows that I use in the giving of the ring, as I did yesterday, we see these words, all that I am I give to you and all that I have I share with you within the love of God. The ring is a symbol of that. In marriage, it is the giving of the whole self to the other. Tim Keller puts it this way, sex is God's appointed way for two people to say reciprocally to one another, I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you. That's what it says, a way to say to one another, reciprocally, I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you. And when we engage in this outside of marriage, we are lying. We are lying with our bodies. Science, recent science actually proves this. There are chemicals that are released in both the man and the woman that bring about an emotional attachment. As one writer puts it, an involuntary chemical commitment. There is no such thing as no strings attached sex. And the only place where this can be engaged in is within the covenant of marriage, a lifetime commitment to one another. Again, Paul said earlier, the one who sins sexually, 618, sins against his own body, not just with his own body, against his own body. In other words, he's saying here the whole person is involved in this. And so it is, and can only be maintained within the mutuality of marriage. This was countercultural in Paul's day. Absolutely countercultural to think this way. Even though many professing Christians were were caught up in the ideas of the culture. And it is once again counter-cultural today. And Christians need to be reminded of these basic biblical truths for the glory of God and for their own good. But also counter-cultural is what Paul goes on to say in verses 3 and 4, that the husband should give his wife her conjugal rights, the wife to the husband. The wife does not have authority over her body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. That is absolutely counter-cultural, this kind of mutuality in marriage that each spouse's body belongs to the other. This is against the attitude of Paul's day. One Roman rhetorician and philosopher actually wrote these words, we keep mistresses for pleasure, concubines for daily concubinage, but wives in order to produce children legitimately and to have a trustworthy guardian of our domestic property. What were wives for? to guard our property. Is there any doubt why women flooded to the church in the first three centuries of the life of the church? Paul says here, each body belongs to the other. He says, He gives them a concession in verses 5 and 6, a concession for you really super spiritual Corinthians out there, if you want to abstain for a while and devote yourselves to prayer, that's okay. That's a concession, not a command. If that's what you want to do, if that's what you think you need to do, go ahead and do it, but make sure it doesn't last too long, is what Paul says. Come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Once again, there is a realism here. Sexual temptation is real, even though it is always unsatisfying outside the bonds of marriage. It always promises more than it can deliver. One body, one flesh, the two become, God says in Genesis chapter 2, fully united with one another in every way. Sex is a good gift, a good gift of God. We need to recognize that. But only within the bonds of marriage. We hear over and over again, and many people say that the church is against sex, or the church is against pleasure. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, said we need to be free from the constraints of Christians and biblical Christianity, which she called the cruel morality of self-denial. and quote, sin. The cruel morality of self-denial and quote, sin. She went on to write this, through unbridled sex, we can attain spiritual illumination, which will transform the world into an earthly paradise. That's why we need abortion. The consequences of sex can't stand in the way of earthly paradise, now can it? Isn't it interesting, this religious language? And when people abandon religion, or abandon historic Christianity, they just create another religion of their own. The Puritans have often been criticized as being, well, Puritanical. One 20th century writer put it, a Puritan is one who is afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. Well, listen to what one Puritan pastor, a well-known Puritan pastor, William Perkins, wrote. He said, sex is as spiritual as preaching. Sex is as spiritual as preaching. He went on to say, the acts of marriage are pure and spiritual, and whatsoever is done within the laws of God, even if it be done with the body, are sanctified. It's good, he says. They're good. And of course, all we need to do is open up our Bibles. and turn to a book like the Song of Solomon, which celebrates the erotic love between a man and a woman, to see that Scripture celebrates this union of a husband and a wife, the two being one flesh. If I were to have a third point tonight, I told you today, I told you I only have two. But if I were to have a third point, here's what it would be. The third point would be the gifts of God, because you will notice that Paul ends this passage in verse 7 by saying, 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. Paul is going to go on to make clear to us that that what he means here is he wishes that all had the gift of singleness, the way he does. And so as I preach these passages on sex and sex within marriage and on marriage itself, I do want our singles to be reminded that you are not second-class citizens. Marriage and sex is not the be-all and end-all. Paul was single. Jesus was single. Paul's gonna tell us that some are called to be single. Although Jesus also recognizes in Matthew 19 that most people are not called to that particular calling, but some are. So we rejoice in all the gifts and we will continue as we work our way through this chapter to rejoice in all of the gifts that God has given to His people, whether that be singleness, whether that be marriage, whether that be sex within marriage, and all to the glory of God. Let's pray. Our God, how we thank You and praise You that You have created us, male and female, in Your image. How we praise You, O God, that You looked on all that Your Hands have made and you said it is good. So God how we thank you for our bodies. How we thank you for our spirits. We thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit who makes our bodies into a temple. In the lives of those who trust Christ and trust Christ alone for their salvation. And so God help us to honor you in all ways with our bodies. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.