Tonight we get a dose of Corinthian marital counseling, counseling that I think, I hope we'll see, applies to more than just marriage, though, actually, the principles of which apply to all of life. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, the first nine verses, and then we're going to jump over to verse 17. In the opening of the chapter, Paul is going to talk about the gifts of marriage and singleness, and specifically within marriage, the gift of sex and how that's to be used for the glory of God. Then we're looking at the middle of the chapter. In the middle of the chapter, Paul lays out the principle that guides the advice, the instruction he'd just given at the beginning, and it's the same principle that applies to other portions of this chapter. We're going to focus more on those in the weeks to come, specifically marriage and divorce in verses 8 through 12. 16 and singleness and widowhood in verses 26 through the end of the chapter. But tonight we'll start at the beginning 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, 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 a command, 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. 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." And looking down to verse 17 through 24. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it, but if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of that opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who is free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. Well, there is a primary point in this text, in this chapter as a whole, and the main point, the primary point is simply this. God calls us to good things. God calls us to good things. God is not interested in making us miserable. I'm not saying that God never calls us to hard things, but he's not interested in calling us to that which makes us miserable. The things he calls us to are good for us. And those things include marriage. They also include singleness. It includes any station of life. Some of those stations can be changed. Some will be changed. Some will not and cannot change, but whatever God calls us to is good for us. For however long he calls us there, it is good. And so the point of this passage, as we look at it over the next few weeks, is we're going to see Paul applying that to a variety of circumstances and therefore trying to instill contentment in the lives of God's people. contentment in the callings that they have received from the Lord. What brings Paul to make this point that God calls us to good things? Why is that now the subject that he takes up at the start of chapter 7? It's due to a question that he receives, a question that he gets from the Corinthians. So the first thing we'll consider this evening, the first three points is the Corinthians' question to Paul. The Corinthians' question to Paul. There's a transition that takes place in chapter 7. Everything previously that Paul had been addressing within the church, issues within the church, he had received secondhand from Chloe and Chloe's people. You recall that from chapter 1 in verse 11. Chloe's people are making these reports that there's dissent and division amongst you. But now he addresses things which the Corinthians themselves have directly written to Paul about. They apparently have reached out to him and have asked him questions about a whole host of things, and that's why chapter 7 begins, now concerning the matters about which you wrote. There are at least five other places in the rest of this epistle that will say concerning these matters, and it includes questions of food, sacrifice to idols, and spiritual gifts, and so on. But the question that they write to him about is this. They're asking Paul, is it good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman? There actually may be a group of them under the assumption that it is good. Literally, the Greek reads that it's good for a man not to touch a woman. Where does that idea come from? It might surprise us since some people in the Corinthian church thought it was fine to have sexual relations with all kinds of women, including prostitutes, including their own mothers, mother-in-laws, and it's actually not, though, surprising that Paul needs to deal with this issue of complete abstinence from sexuality within marriage because that was just as much a part of the pagan mindset as was licentiousness. This idea of asceticism or denial was also a pagan idea that was a part of the intellectual landscape in the Greco-Roman world at that time. And so in the Corinthian church, There were people who were falling to both sides, or falling on either side of this spectrum of pagan sexuality. On the one hand, you have people who are saying, hey, live life, engage in whatever form you want. Don't you know you're free in Christ? You can do anything you want. You'll be forgiven. On the other hand, there are those who are saying, we can't give into self-indulgence, but rather we need a total denial of sexual pleasure. And both of these are terrible theological errors. Both of them are terrible theological errors. Because the former, the self-indulgent perspective says that good things are actually God things. Makes something into an idol. The other issue of abstinence says good things are bad things. So you see how they're both wrong. The one says good things are God things. The other one says good things are actually bad things and you can't enjoy them. And friends, we need to be cautious of falling into either one of those traps in life, as it comes to any gift that God wants us to enjoy in life. Again, God calls us to good things. He does not want to make us miserable. In fact, the Christian life is the most joyful life that there is. But, of course, preeminently it's joyful because we have the Lord. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore, the psalmist says in Psalm 16. So that's why we're the most joyful people in the world, because we have Jesus. But let's also not forget or lose sight that it's joyful because we have the gifts from God. Not just that we have God, but we have gifts from God. This is what 1 Timothy 1.6 says. As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. That's a really interesting statement that Paul makes there. It says that God richly provides us with everything to enjoy. So do you see what Paul does there? He connects our focus on God to our enjoyment of life. That is to say, If you remove God from the picture, you won't be able to enjoy life the way you're meant to. If you remove God from the picture, then the good things in life will become idols. But also, on the other hand, if you remove the good things from the picture and just try to focus on God, God's saying, no, part of the way you know me is through the gifts I give. Part of the way you know me is by experiencing the blessings that I bestow on you. So to reject them is actually to reject knowing me. So, Paul writes to the rich in this present age that they should set their hopes on God, and in setting them on God, they'll see he richly provides us with not just some things to enjoy, but everything to enjoy. In other words, everything that God gives us is meant to be enjoyed. God is experienced through his gifts, and those gifts include the gift of marriage, and sex, the gift of singleness too. You'll note in verse 7 of our chapter that Paul calls singleness a gift. I wish that all were as I myself am, single, but each has his own gift from God. So that means marriage is a gift, it means singleness is a gift. So this is the question that kickstarts this discussion about being content with the calling that God has placed on us. The question that the Corinthians have of Paul is, is it truly, are we correct in saying it's right, it's good, it's appropriate, it's proper, it's theologically accurate, it's pious, it's holy for a man to not touch a woman? Well now, secondly, consider with me the apostles' corrective. We have the Corinthians question, now the apostles' corrective about sex and marriage. Paul, some people might be surprised to learn, takes a very positive view of sex. He says it's a good gift from God. In fact, he only gives one concession to abstaining from intimacy. Verse 5, do not deprive one another. That is to say that the norm in a healthy marriage is to not deprive one another. It's not deprivation. Do not deprive one another, he commands, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, agreement, there's a mutuality there, the husband and wife agreeing, so 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. So there can be a time where it's appropriate for couples to not engage in intimacy as maybe something of a sort of fast. The word that Paul uses there, the word that's translated limited time is like a special season. So I think fast is probably the best way to think of it. Some period of time that has a heightened significance because of what's taking place. And so we might abstain from food for some time as a way of acknowledging, Lord, I need you even more than I need my daily bread. My soul needs you more than my body needs food. In a similar way, a couple might agree together to say they're going to abstain from sexual relations as a way of saying, Lord, we need you more than we need each other. And so there's this opportunity to come and to pray together. Fascinating. Don't miss this. There's an assumption here that couples are praying together. that couples are praying together, not just each praying on their own, but together. To the married couples, I wonder, are you praying together? And if you're not, maybe you need to take Paul's advice here. Maybe. I just have this sneaking suspicion though, this sneaking suspicion that there are probably other things that are intruding more frequently on your prayer life than your sex life. So maybe don't start there. Try cutting out TV or making some other changes. Don't sign the kids up for all the sports. Prioritize your spiritual life with your spouse. Have a spiritual life with your spouse, even as you're meant to prioritize having a sexual life with them. So Paul is now gonna correct this errant thinking that that's the only concession he makes to this deprivation, a time where it might be okay to deprive one another, but the norm is not to do that. And he's showing that sex is a good thing. He's disagreeing wholesale with this slogan that's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. And he highlights two reasons why, two reasons. The Apostles' Corrective has two components. First, Paul wants the Corinthians to see that sexual relations are actually a defense. A defense. Sex as a defense, given by God to protect the couple from falling into sin. Look at verse 2 with me, would you look there? But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. So abstinence is not the answer. Those who are rejecting sex in marriage will end up committing sins like those other pagans in Corinth, right? They'll start seeking sex outside of marriage if they reject it within marriage. That's because the answer for that is really simple. Whenever we reject natural things, we always turn to unnatural things. Whenever we reject something that's natural, the only alternative is something that is unnatural. So sex protects married couples from the misapplication or the misuse of sexual urges. The devil, you'll notice that he's invoked here in verse 5, Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Coming together in sexual intimacy is a defense. for married couples to stave off the devil. Here's the reality. This is what the devil wants from us. He wants us to have sex before we're married, and once we're married, he wants us never to have sex again. He loves to manipulate the gifts of God. And so, Paul is saying, no, sex is a good thing in a healthy marriage because it actually shuts the devil up. It puts him in his proper place. and it puts sex in its proper places as a gift given to defend us from temptation. Now the only proper arena for such activity is within the bounds of a heterosexual monogamous marriage, something that we need to stress in today's culture. This past week the United Methodist denomination met for their annual general conference and most of that was live streamed and unfortunately I spent far too many minutes this week watching it and it was very sad. People would get up to the microphone and they had to identify themselves, their name, their sexual preference, and their preferred pronouns. These are pastors and elders from around the world coming up to the microphone saying, I'm Pastor Jim, I'm heterosexual, you know, he, his, and him, and then he gives a speech. And so they plunged into doctrinal darkness this year as they removed the portion in their book of discipline which said that homosexuality is a sin and if you are practicing homosexual you can't be ordained as an elder or clergy and they removed that without any debate. There was one part I watched where a pastor from Africa stood up to speak against a particular vote that was continuing to promote this sort of ideology and he held up his Bible and he said that he couldn't vote in favor of it because what they're talking about isn't found in the Bible. And this is the only word of God and it's inspired and it's given for our correction and for our reproof. And the moderator tried to silence him. but God's word can't be silenced. God's word says that sex is a good thing, and it's meant for only one place, though, within the bounds of a heterosexual monogamous marriage. We find that even in our text. Paul says, verse two, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, not husband and not wives, plural, and each woman her own husband, not wife and not husbands, plural. And so the marriage relationship rightly ordered and properly entered into and enjoyed is one of the greatest defenses given against sin. That is true for those who are married, but it is also true even for those who are single. It is true that the protection and promotion of this sacred institution that we call marriage is one of the greatest things to prevent the downward spiral of our society into the insanity of sin. So marriage, a marriage relationship is a great defense against sin, both for those who are in it and for society as a whole. Sex is a defense. But the second thing Paul notes is that sex is a duty. It's not just a release valve on our temptations. It's not just this utilitarian process meant to address sexual lusts. Paul says that sex is a duty of Christian love. Verses three and four. 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." So, what is Paul saying? Sex in marriage is actually a Christian duty, a Christian responsibility. I think we could even go as far as to say it's a debt that one spouse owes to the other. He calls it a right. It's a right. For a married individual, sex is a right. Abstinence, on the other hand, is not a right. It's not a right. A spouse cannot claim that they have a right to not engage in sex because they're devoting themselves entirely to God, which, again, appears to be what some of the Corinthians were thinking. It's more holy. It's more pious for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. So now I'm married, but I'm not going to have sex. And Paul says, you don't have the right to do that. Actually, you have it the complete other way around. You give up your rights, as it were, when you enter into marriage. You give up yourself entirely. for your spouse. You no longer have authority over your body. Your spouse does. You are now called to sacrifice yourself for them and for their needs. All of their needs, including their sexual needs. And this way we see how a marriage uniquely displays the gospel, right? Christ who comes and he gives himself up, he sacrifices his own body for his bride. And those of us who are married must do the same for our spouses. It's not about your rights, it's about their rights. And I don't want you to miss what's a fascinating paradigm shift that Paul is using as he frames marriage. He says, you have to think about how radical this would have been. He says that each spouse has an equal claim on the other. I think a lot of Christians forget that verse four has two sentences. Look at verse four again. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. That's not the end of the verse. I hear this stuff. I think it's awful, right? A wife's job is just to please her husband in the bedroom as though that's the sole function of her existence, except maybe to keep house or make food. Is it a wife's job, is it a wife's job and responsibility just to make herself available for her husband? And the answer is yes, but that's also the husband's job too. Because the second half of verse four, which a lot of people forget, likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. What Paul's saying is crazy in this patriarchal age that he's writing, to say no, the wife actually has rights and they are equal to that of the husband within the marriage relationship. So this text does not allow for abusive demands on another person's body. Nor does it allow for the cruel withholding of one's body from their spouse. The idea is that each spouse must be preeminently concerned with the needs of the other. If each spouse would concern themselves more than anything else with the needs of the other, what a beautiful thing marriage would be. And that can be scary to think, wow, I don't have authority over my body. but my spouse does, and I have to sacrifice myself for my spouse. That's a scary thing. Yes, it is, but your spouse is making the same vow, the same promise. They're entering into marriage with that same understanding, right, that they don't have a claim on their bodies. They don't have a claim on their selves, that they're sacrificing themselves as well. And so if each spouse would recognize that, I want to make it my aim, if husbands say, I want to make it my aim to please my wife, and if the wives would say, I want to make it my aim to please my husband, then what a beautiful thing marriage would be. And what a sweet example of gospel sacrifice for the world to see marriages that are made up of contented spouses who don't need to be afraid of giving themselves over for their husband or their wife because they know that their spouse is doing the same thing for them. So marriage is a beautiful thing in that respect. It's venue for defending against sin and an arena for expressing the duty of Christian love. But marriage is not for everyone, and that is okay. In fact, Paul reveals his cards a little, right, and he says he wishes that everybody was able to be as celibate as he is, to remain single. We're going to talk about that in other weeks when he talks about how there's opportunities that that avails for somebody in terms of ministry, whereas married individuals have certain other burdens and concerns. He acknowledges, though, that that's his perspective on things. It's not necessarily Jesus' perspective. Jesus is happy for you to be married. Jesus is also happy for you to be single. So what Paul does here is to get us to sense what the Lord's calling on our lives is, and that whatever the calling is, it's a good thing. So that's our third point. The Corinthians question, the apostles corrective, now the Lord's calling. If we jump down, we find the principle that controls everything that Paul teaches in this chapter, as I mentioned, starting in verse 17, and he articulates the principle three times. So look with me in your text in the Bible. Look at verse 17. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. That's at the beginning, and then in the middle, verse 20. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. And then again at the end in verse 24. So brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. And you'll notice in that paragraph, Paul uses two examples to illustrate his point. The first is circumcision. So that's a big distinction between Jews and Gentiles or ethnically Jewish people and Gentile people. Someone is circumcised and they become a Christian. They should not try to remove the marks of circumcision. nor the other way around. Why? What's the reason given for that? Verse 19, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. What's the reason that they shouldn't try to change the way in which they were called? It's because God looks on the heart, not on the outward appearance. You don't need a special station in life to please the Lord. That's the second example, slavery versus freedom. Social status means nothing from the Lord's perspective. That doesn't rank you in a special way in his eyes. So Paul says, actually when God looks on you, he has this whole kind of upside down perspective on your status. What's he write there? For he who is called in the Lord as a bondservant is actually freed of the Lord. Likewise, he who is free when called is a bondservant. of Christ. Do you see that upside-down nature to things? Now, how do we connect this with the material in the rest of the chapter? I think it's pretty plain. If God can use Jews or Gentiles, or maybe I should say Jews and Gentiles, if God can use slaves and freedmen, then he can use married people and single people. And what Paul said about marriage and singleness therefore applies to these categories as well. What does he say in verse 7? He says to be married or to be single is a gift from God. Therefore, if marriage is a gift, if singleness is a gift, that means our ethnicity is a gift or our social status is a gift. The thing that Paul wants, if we could kind of summarize it like this, he doesn't want us always seeking how can we get out of the situation we're in. He says, no, when you're in a situation, seek how you can glorify God in it. Don't seek how you can get out of it, seek how you can glorify God in it. That should be our aim. Now, of course, he makes a concession to those who are slaved. If you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of that opportunity. This isn't a hard and fast rule that your station in life will never change. God is not saying that. Paul is not saying that. But he's saying that our instinct shouldn't be, if things were different, I could be better. No, no, no. Our instinct should be, the Lord has called me here and he must be glorified in and through me. Is that how we think about our situations in life? I hope so, but I know that at times we think if things would change, even just one thing, we would be happier, we would be more useful, God would be more glorified even, we might even make it very spiritual, right? We can be very spiritual about this kind of dismal thinking. If I had a better job, I could give more to the church. Translation, I don't think I'm paid enough. Or if I had a more supportive spouse, I could serve in more areas. Translation, I'm bitter about my situation at home. What are other ways we think about our calling in life? And what do the lessons in theology learned in this text, how do they respond to those thoughts we might have? I want to think on three here in closing together, three objections to the Lord's calling on us, three reasons why we might be discontented in life right now, whether that's marriage or singleness or widowhood, divorce, work, unemployment, whatever it is, you name it. Tell me if you've ever thought one of these three things. One, I don't like the situation I'm in because it's too hard. It's too hard. So think about whatever situation, whether it's your relationship or something happening at work or something happening at home, it's too hard. Maybe you feel like you can't actually cope with life the way it is. It's just too difficult. And difficult can mean any number of things, right? It's too lonely, it's too frustrating, it's too sad, too depressing. But that perspective, it's too hard, I can't do it, that arises from focusing our eyes on our circumstance and not the Lord who is standing by us in our circumstances, whatever they might be. Did you see that in verse 24? Look again there. So brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. God's there. That crummy situation that you can't stand, that you think it's too hard and there's just no way you can get through it. Well, maybe not on your own, but you're not on your own. The Lord is with you. Remain there with God. Paul does not say, you know, well, pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and toughen up and just deal with it. He says, remain with God. That's the answer. You think it's too hard? Nothing can be too hard if God is there helping us along the way. Or maybe we say things like this. Secondly, my life would be better if it was like theirs, right? Maybe that's your neighbor or your friend from school or somebody you see on social media. My life would be better if it was like theirs. The grass is always greener, right? Paul is teaching us that fundamental to the Christian life is an understanding that our identity, our sense of value, our sense of worth, our sense of purpose, comes from what God says about us and not what others say about us, nor what others think about us. And that's the point of verse 22. He who called you in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. That's God's given identity to you. Likewise, he who is free when called is a bondservant of Christ. And verse 23 says, we've been bought with a price. Jesus has a claim on us now. So my job isn't who I am, my marital status isn't who I am, and neither is someone else's job or somebody else's marital status. Jesus is who I am. Grow where you're planted, not where someone else is planted. Grow where you're planted because the Lord is equipping you In Christ, as you are united to him with everything that you need to flourish, it's not that God accidentally gave your neighbor all the gifts that you need to have a happy life and he just skimped out on the gifts he gave you. He's given you Jesus, that means he's given you all things. So you find your contentment there. So we think, oh, it's too hard. We think, oh, it'd be better if it was like somebody else's. Maybe a third thought that you've had before is, This isn't how it was supposed to work out. This wasn't my plan. Yes, and amen to that. It wasn't, right? Life hardly ever works out the way we would envision, and that's a gracious thing from God. Verse 17, look there. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, to which God has called him. The Lord has assigned your lot in life, and he knows what he's doing better than you do. He knows what he's doing better than I do. So we say, this isn't what I wanted, this isn't how it would have worked out if I was in charge of things. If it was us who were in charge, we who are so finite, so foolish, so foolhardy, so short-sighted, Where would we be today? Where would we be? We need what the Lord has assigned us. What God assigns us is for our good. God assigns our lot in life, and that's why the call of God is for us to grow where we are planted, not to uproot ourselves, because his is the richest soil. You have every reason to be content in your calling, friend, whatever that calling might be. and not to fear the Lord's will for you. After all, you're bought with a price. You're owned by God. You're his special treasure. You're his priceless possession. He's not going to leave you behind. He's not going to lose you. He's going to hold on to you forever. He's going to do good things for you and through you. The things God calls us to are always good. God is not interested in making you miserable. It's our sin that makes us miserable. But in even crummy situations, if we remember, well, the Lord is with me. I'm remaining with him. I'm united to Christ. I have an identity in him. If we recognize the Lord is assigning and portioning out every step I take, then wouldn't we be able to say with the psalmist, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Truly, I have a beautiful and wonderful inheritance. Let's pray. Father, we confess our discontentedness in life. We wish we had different jobs. We wish we lived somewhere different, had a better home, better friends. Maybe we wish we had a happier marriage, or we wish we were married, or we wish we were single. Yet, we need to learn that to be with you wherever it is that you call us to is always a good thing. We need to learn whether in plenty or in want whatever status we have to be content because in Christ we can do all things as he strengthens us. That's difficult, and this message is meant to come home to us in really practical ways, in particular for our relationships, for those of us who are married, to live contentedly with our spouses, to give ourselves sacrificially to our spouses. Help us to take the truths of this passage and to apply it to our relationships and to our various stations in life. And in that way, Lord, would you be glorified and would we be happier? Would we be more joyful, Christians, as we seek to follow after your will for us? I pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.