And I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. We are continuing our Sunday morning sermon series through Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth. We're in chapter 7 looking at verses 8 through 16. If you haven't brought a Bible with you this morning, there are pew Bibles in the pew racks in front of you. And our passage today is found on page 955 in those few Bibles. As we continue to see as we work our way through this letter, Paul deals with a number of issues in the culture and especially in the church in Corinth that are also issues in our world today. And so we are seeing the church today wrestle with a number of these very issues or related issues. There is confusion today about the body, and there was confusion in the church in Corinth about the body, the goodness of the body. The body and its relationship to the whole person. The body and its relationship to the spirit. And Paul tells us that those things are one. The body and the person are one. The body and spirit or soul are one. They're not to be detached in some way. And we've seen a series of issues that all revolve around that confusion in the church in Corinth. It's confusion that works its way out in terms of sexuality and immorality, what we do with our bodies. And Paul says, since the body is part of the person and created by God and tied to your spirit and your soul, what you do with your body matters. It's not just an indifferent lump of matter. Immorality, but then we also see Paul addressing Problems with regard to marriage, that same philosophy that what we do with our bodies doesn't matter seems to have played out in what we can call platonic marriages, where husbands and wives are together, but they don't give themselves in body fully to one another. They don't give themselves sexually to one another. So Paul has addressed that in the first part of chapter 7, basically saying, husbands, give yourselves to your wives. Wives, give yourselves to your husbands. There's a mutuality in Paul's address there in the first seven verses of 1 Corinthians 7. He's also now going on to address a similar and related issue And that is, well, if the body doesn't matter, singleness must be the higher spiritual state. And so if we're married, we might as well just get divorced, leave our spouse. And what Paul is going to tell us this morning is there is no higher spiritual state. Singleness is good and a gift from God. Marriage is good and a gift from God. And if you're married, live like a married couple. That's the bottom line in our passage this morning. So we're going to look at 1 Corinthians 7, focusing on verses 8 through 16. I'm going to begin reading, however, in verse 7. Hear the word of the Lord, the Eternal. Word of God. 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. To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest, I say, I, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?" Thus far, God's holy, inspired, and inerrant Word. Let's go to Him in prayer. Our God, we do pray that You would teach us. Pray that You would write Your Word on our hearts today, and we pray in an age of such moral confusion that You would make us faithful. That's our prayer this morning, O God, make us faithful and make us bold to speak Your Word in truth. We also pray for love. Loving spirits, loving hearts that desire to see those who are confused come to a knowledge of the truth. So, oh God, we pray that you would be with us. Bless this reading and preaching of your word today. Not to us, oh God, not to us, but to your name be glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Dr. Albert Mohler, in his wonderfully helpful book, We Cannot Be Silent, actually points to no-fault divorce as one key factor that set the stage for our current moral revolution. No-fault divorce, a key factor that set the stage for our moral revolution. The history, in the history of the Western tradition, divorce has been a big deal. It required typically a long, difficult, legal process. There had to be some guilt found there, oftentimes adultery, to justify a divorce. But the basic message of this long, difficult process was the value of marriage, that every breakup of a marriage is a disaster. As Pat Conroy, the writer, once put it, divorce is the death of a small civilization. It's expensive, excruciating, painful. At some level, every divorce is, but especially the long process that has marked divorces in Western cultures. Because of that, however, no-fault divorce was seen to be more humane. People didn't have to be necessarily raked over the coals. They didn't have to spend tons and tons of money for the divorce, etc., etc. Humane. Actually, one of my political heroes, Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California, I think, signed the first No Fault Divorce Bill in 1969. What has happened since then has been a skyrocketing divorce rate, actually somewhat leveled off now, but skyrocketing. It undercut marriage. Marriage was no longer a covenant, a biblical binding covenant. It now became a contract between two people. And it was, in effect, as long as the two agreed to to maintain the contract. Dr. Mohler actually points out that the church through the years was complicit in large part by not standing firm, by not exercising church discipline in the midst of this skyrocketing divorce rate, even in the church. The church has been complicit. We have played a part. in the rise of this current moral revolution in our country and around the world. God speaks fairly clearly. As the New American Standard Version puts it of Malachi 2.16, God says, I hate divorce. I hate divorce. That's pretty clear. God does give. Biblical reasons for divorce, biblical allowances for divorce. We'll look at that as we move along this morning to specific conditions, but at the heart of it, God says, I hate divorce. As we get into this passage this morning, I really want us to see just basically two things. Today, I'm not even going to throw in a small little third thing at the end like I did last Sunday. Two basic things, that there are different gifts and different marital situations. That's what he lays out for us in this passage. Different gifts, different marital situations. First of all, there are different gifts. And Paul addresses this in verses 7 to 9. He says, I wish that all were as I myself am in verse 7. What does he mean by that? Verse 8, it is good for the unmarried and the widows or widowers to remain single as I am. But as he says here in verse 7, each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Some are gifted and called to singleness. That is the reality. Some are gifted and called to singleness. Paul himself appears to have had the gift and the call to singleness. And we're going to come back to this because Paul deals with this issue again later in chapter 7. So again, we're only going to deal with it in somewhat of a surface way this morning because he deals with it at length later in this same chapter. But later he's going to tell us that he believes single people are better equipped to fully serve the Lord in whatever calling or whatever vocation God calls them to. Better equipped. They don't have to worry about loving and caring for their spouse, which is a good thing. I don't want to play down that. It's a good thing to do that, but there are these extra responsibilities. As Paul says, the single person can be fully devoted to the Lord as long as they have the gift of singleness. So it's good. Singleness is good. As I said last week, singles should not be made or made to feel as second-class citizens in the church. Some churches do impose this kind of stigma, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. And it does make us ask the question, how do we treat singles in the church? How do we reach out to singles in the church? Do we make sure they're included in our gatherings, in our times together? Do we let them know that they are a valuable and important part of our community? Sometimes singles impose their own stigma. Sometimes they withdraw themselves from the community of faith. Perhaps sometimes feeling, well, I'm not married, I don't have children, I don't really fit in well. Let me encourage you to seek to fit in. You are where God has placed you. You may want to be married. Some of you do who are single, some of you don't who are single. You may want to be married, but God has placed you where you are right now. You can pray for change, but be content and be a part of the body of Christ. We are better off for your being an active part of the body of Christ. The flip side is some who have held historically that being single is the higher spiritual state, the higher spiritual state. Perhaps that comes out of verse 9, or a certain reading of verse 9, where Paul says, if they, singles, cannot exercise self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Some have said, well, marriage is only for those who can't exercise self-control. It's a lesser state. The higher state is the single state in marriage. You know, actually, the word cannot in the ESV and in, I think, most translations is not actually in the original Greek. It's not in the Greek text. But the idea I think is pretty much the same. All of us at one level wrestle with self-control. We all have our various issues of self-control and our sexual desires, our desire for intimacy are a part of who we are. And one of the points that Paul is making here is the strength of those sexual desires and desire for intimacy is one determining factor in determining our gifts. I knew that I did not have the gift of singleness. Many of you know that you don't have the gift of of singleness, and one of those keys and clues is our desire to have intimacy with a person of the opposite sex. The strength of those is a determining factor. You know Martin Luther, the great reformer who was a monk, pledged to become a monk because He made a rash vow during a thunderstorm, but eventually got married to the woman who became the delight of his life, his Katie. And he grew to detest the enforced singleness of Catholic priests and monks. He recognized the gift of singleness for those who had it, but without it, without the gift of singleness and forced singleness, he basically saw as a form of misery. And he wrote a letter. I love this letter that he writes to one of his friends and colleagues, Nicholas Grable. And in part of this letter, he writes this, kiss and re-kiss your wife. Good, good, good, good pastoral advice for you husbands. Kiss and re-kiss your wife. Let her love and be loved. You are fortunate, Luther says, in having overcome by an honorable marriage that celibacy in which one is prey to devouring fires and to unclean ideas. That unhappy state of the single person, male or female, without the gift reveals to me each hour of the day so many horrors that nothing sounds in my ear as bad as the name of monk or nun or priest. A married life is a paradise even where all else is wanting. There is a good, strong, healthy view of both singleness and of married life, the gift God gives one to some and the other to others. Secondly, in our text, we see different marital situations, and we see this in verses 10 to 16, different marital situations. First, in 10 and 11, He addresses the married, and in particular he addresses married believers in these first two verses. And he says, to the married I give this charge, not I but the Lord. It's interesting because he's going to later say in verse 12, to the rest I say, I not the Lord. Now, let me tell you what Paul is not saying here. He is not saying, I'm going to refer to Jesus here and what Jesus taught, and that's authoritative, but later I'm going to give my opinion. It's not necessarily going to be authoritative. That is not what he is saying here. What he's saying is, I know a command of Jesus that addresses this situation, I don't have a specific command of Jesus that addresses this one, and yet as an apostle, his opinion, his word is still authoritative here. So he says, first of all, to the married, Jesus has already spoken. The wife should not separate from her husband, but if for some reason she does, she cannot get remarried. or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife." The basic commitment here is no divorce, no remarriage. That's the basic teaching of Scripture, no divorce, no remarriage. Marriage was created by God at creation. It was good. When the man was still alone for the first time in God's creating in Genesis 1 and 2, we hear the words, not good, not good for Adam to be alone. God creates a helper fit for him, someone of a complementary nature taken out of him. So we have a complementary reunion of the man and the woman. They are alike. But they are different. And as one writer puts it, we see in that passage in Genesis 2 that God brings her to Eve. God, as the writer says, like the father of the bride, brings the woman to the man. But the Bible says that this union of man and woman is a covenant. It is a binding relationship. It is two becoming one flesh. And covenants, biblical covenants, were broken on pain of death. That's what the whole covenant ceremony meant, when people entered into a covenant in the ancient world, passing between animals that had been cut in two, as if to say, if I break My end of the covenant, nay, what has happened to these animals happened to me. Now, I am not advocating death for divorcees. But what I am saying is the Bible takes marriage seriously. It takes it seriously. This one flesh union between a man and a woman, that is biblical marriage. Yet there are times when God allows it, times when God allows it. Matthew 5, Jesus says, except for, He uses the Greek word porneia. You can hear some English words coming from that word porneia, sexual immorality in general, which in the context most likely meant adultery. Why is adultery a grounds for divorce? Because it breaks the one flesh union between a man and a woman. Paul back in chapter 6 with regard to believers going to prostitutes said, don't you know that the one who joins himself sexually with a prostitute becomes one with her for the two become one flesh. That can only be with one woman, with one person in the binding covenant of marriage where two lives are joined together. Adultery on either part breaks that. That doesn't mean it can't be rebuilt. This is a case where divorce is allowed. It is not required. In fact, as I've As I have counseled married couples over the years going through marital problems, sometimes because of adultery, I try to encourage them that I have seen many marriages survive adultery and and even in some ways become stronger in the end. It doesn't necessitate a divorce. But divorce is allowed in those circumstances. The second biblical Example, and these are the only two given in Scripture, is when we have a case of desertion by an unbelieving spouse. And that's what we see here in verses 12 to 16. A case of desertion by an unbelieving spouse or one who shows themselves unbelieving by their desertion. Paul is addressing what we might call mixed marriages. A case when one spouse becomes a believer and the other one does not. And there's the key question, what do I do? I'm now a Christian, but I'm married to an unbeliever. What do I do now? Now notice this is not justification for marrying an unbeliever. That's not what Paul is saying here. Actually, he's going to say at the end of chapter 7 that those who do get married must marry only in the Lord. only a believer. But what do we do when we become a Christian and our husband or our wife does not become a Christian with us? Paul says if your spouse desires to remain married, stay in that relationship. It's kind of interesting because in the first century, wives were expected to worship the husband's gods. God or gods. Plutarch, the first century writer, historian, et cetera, et cetera, wrote this, it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods her husband believes in. Paul sets that aside, says no, believe in the one true and living God and in Jesus Christ, but stay if the husband or wife desires to stay in the marriage. There might have been a sense that if we stay in a marriage with an unbelieving spouse, we will be some way defiled by it. So Paul says in verse 14, or we get this from verse 14, where Paul says, the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. The unbelieving wife is made holy because of her children. Otherwise, your children would be unclean. But as it is, they are holy. They're in some sense set apart by the presence of a believer in the home. Holy doesn't mean Christian here. They're in some sense set apart. The defilement may come right out of the Old Testament, this idea of being defiled. The Old Testament says, don't intermarry lest you be defiled, lest you be led astray. Ezra, after the return, after exile, the return commanded Israel to put away their foreign wives. whom they actually had married inappropriately to begin with. They didn't come back and have foreign wives and become faithful believers. But the sense of defilement. But your spouse, your children are made holy and set apart. Tom Schreiner has a nice quote about this. He says, when Jesus touches the leper, Jesus does not become unclean, but the leper becomes clean. That's a helpful way to see it. A spouse, the children come under the sphere of grace, and maybe there is an opportunity for conversion. 1 Peter 3 addresses wives. to adorn themselves with Christ-like beauty so that their husbands may be won over, their unbelieving husbands may be won to the Lord through that beauty. But them becoming Christians is no guarantee. As Paul addresses in verses 15 and 16, if the unbelieving partner separates, let them go. And he says, how do you know? Verse 16, wife, whether you will save your husband. How do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? We don't know. So if the unbeliever wishes to go, Paul says, let the believer go. He uses the language here, the brother or sister is not enslaved or is not bound. If we look forward to verse 27, which we'll come to in a couple weeks, Paul says, are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. Literally, he says, have you been loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. In other words, what Paul is saying here is these are occasions in these particular circumstances where the one who has been divorced is free to remarry. Free to remarry. Here we have these strong words in Scripture with regard to biblical marriage. It is a high view of marriage, which we are losing in our society today. But in the Bible, it is a high view because it reflects the union of Christ and His church The husband and the bride, that language is used. We have a single savior whose call precluded marriage his whole life. A single savior. Jesus was never married. And yet God prepares for his son a bride, a greater bride. as great as brides are, as great as wives are, a church, a people that He will be united with for all eternity. As we come this morning to the Lord's Supper, we come remembering that we are the bride of Christ, that we are in union with Christ, that we are one with the Lord Jesus Christ. And may that impress upon us not only the glory and goodness of God, but also the importance of the states that God has put us in, whether married or whether single. Let's pray together. God, how we praise you, that you are good and gracious. You tell us, O God, that you do not lay any burden on us that is more than we can bear. Our God, we pray that whatever state that we are in, you would help us to be faithful and to do the duty that you have called us to in that particular state. Our God, we also thank you for your great grace. There may be some here who have fallen, who have sinned, who have broken your commandments, and yet, oh God, your grace is greater than all our sin. And so we pray that you would be present with your gracious love and mercy in all of our hearts this day and prepare them now as we come to partake of the bread and the cup as we remember the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.