Keeping Your Priorities Straight

Transcript

GR 799
10/23/1988
Keeping Your Priorities Straight
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

Let’s begin in Matthew chapter 19. Matthew and the 19th chapter. You think in Matthew chapter 19 often in the context of divorce because Jesus is questioned here about the matter of the dissolution of marriage and when can marriage be dissolved through divorce? But Jesus has more to say than just material related to divorce because He connects divorce to God’s purpose in marriage and the permanence of marriage is related to the factor of being single. In verse 3, “Some Pharisees came to Him, testing Him, and saying.” They’ve come to question Christ but not for the purpose of gaining insight and understanding into God’s purposes and plans. They’re looking for opportunities to entangle Christ and discredit Him. They’re question relates to divorce. This was a very controversial issue among the Jews. The questions about divorce, the controversy about divorce is not new. And among the Jews there were the liberals and the conservatives. The liberals who believed you could get divorced for just about any reason at all and the conservatives who interpreted the matter of divorce very narrowly. Their purpose here is to put Christ in a no win situation where you have an audience who is divided among those who are more liberal along the side of divorce and more conservative on the side of divorce. So no matter which way He answers the question, He will have antagonized a large portion of His listeners and thus lost credit in their eyes.

Jesus doesn’t really side with either group and His response takes them back to the Scripture in verse 4. “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? Consequently, they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Their question about divorce indicates a failure to understand God’s purposes in establishing a marriage relationship. It indicates a failure to understand that it is God who joins a man and a woman together in a covenant bond of marriage. So the very discussion about under what cases can men dissolve a marriage begins on the wrong level. God is the one who instituted marriage and when a marriage bond is formed it is established and solidified by God Himself. “What God has joined together.” We sometimes talk about secular marriages verses religious marriages in the church. There really are no such distinctions in the word of God. The word of God recognizes a marriage bond as established when the requirements of the law of that land are met and God has bound those two people together, whether they were married by the justice of the peace of they were married in a religious service in a church. What God has joined together therefore, let no man separate. We’re approaching the discussion at the wrong point. The point is, marriage is in dissolvable because man would have to have authority over God to dissolve the marriage. Isn’t that the point? “What God has joined together, let no man separate.” So when man takes it upon himself to bring about a divorce, he in affect has stepped in over God, usurped God’s power, and now is in rebellion against God’s purposes.

We’re not going to into a study of divorce in our time together today, we’ve done that in detail on other occasions and we have tapes and booklets available if you would like to pursue that further. Then the question, why did Moses give a bill of divorcement verse 8 “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been the way.” This was never God’s intention. He created one man and one woman. It was His intention they be brought together in a lifetime relationship. The very issue of divorce is an issue of sin, if there was no sin there would be no divorce. From the beginning it has not been this way. “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” So you note. Man can intervene, say a divorce has occurred, God’s evaluation is adultery is taking place when a new marriage occurs because He didn’t recognize the first dissolution that man has established. Man did not have the authority to do that.

“The disciples said to Him, ‘If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.’” Now it may surprise you to find out that the disciples were liberal as they approached divorce. In effect what they say, “If marriage is as binding as You say it is, it would be better to stay single. You’re telling me that when I’m married to my wife, I made that decision, I was young, I was foolish, I was under the sway and power of my emotions, you’re saying I made that decision till I’m 99. That’s a long time. You know, I would like a second chance when I’m a little more mature.” The disciples understand the answer very well, you’d better not get married if that’s the way it really is. If marriage is that binding that I cannot get out of it, then I’d better stay single. Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t respond and say, “That is a terrible thing to say.” He says, “Good observation.” Verse 11: “But He said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement” (the statement that they have just made). Some people try to just throw everything out the window and have Jesus now say, “Well not everybody can accept what I’ve said about the permanence of marriage”, but that would make it ridiculous. Why did He say it if there’s no more to it than an opinion? The point is not all men can accept what You have just said, it’s better not to marry. “Only those to whom it has been given.” The single life is a special gift from God is the point that is being made. It is not possible for everyone to evaluate it totally on the rational level, if I can speak this way for a moment. That I’m going to, as a fallen, sinful human being, even though I’ve been redeemed. I still have my fallen, sinful selfish nature. Now I’m going to be joined in a relationship with oneness to another fallen, sinful, selfish human being. And there are going to be conflicts and struggles and difficulties. It’s hard enough to live with myself, and now I’m going to have to live with another one as well. But that may seem rational, but the only ones who can deal with it on that level and live consistent with it are those who God has given special grace to do so.

“For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.” He immediately moves to the issue of the sexterity, being a eunuch. And He talks about three possibilities in the area of being a eunuch. Those who were born that way from their mother’s wombs, those who were made that way by man, and those who have made an objective decision not to marry but to give themselves totally to the service of God.

Come over to the book of 1 Corinthians for further elaboration. The basic issue though in being a eunuch, however it comes about, is abstaining from sexual involvement. Beginning in chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians, Paul begins to answer questions that have been raised about marriage and other areas. The Corinthians wrote to him with questions, he is answering those questions. Verse 1: “Now concerning the things about which you wrote.” In the next several chapters he’ll be answering their questions. The first has to do with sex and marriage. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” And the discretion here not to touch, a euphemism for sexual intercourse. It is good for a man not to have sexual intercourse, a sexual relationship with a woman. “But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a short time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” Now sex is not the only reason for marriage, but it becomes a focal point both in what Christ has to say in the context of singleness and what Paul writes under the inspiration of the Spirit regarding singleness. It is good not to have sexual relationship, but that might lead to immorality and to avoid immorality then let each man have his own wife, each woman her own husband.

Paul says there are advantages to the single life. Verse 7: “I wish that all men were even as I myself am.” Paul was single. Whether he had been married before and was widowed or not doesn’t involve us right now. The point of the matter is, he is single as he writes. And you note what he says. “However, each man has his own gift from God.” And there we have the gift again. The same word used for the charismatic gifts later on in 1 Corinthians. Here is a special enablement by the grace of God to live without a sexual relationship. That becomes a key determining factor in whether a person is going to be single or married. Whether they must be or not be. A person who cannot control those burning desires, verse 9: “But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.” Talking about burning with passion. Now, nobody says if they do not have self-control. It doesn’t say if they don’t have self-control they ought to learn self-control, they ought to learn to submit their passions to the Spirit of God and live control. But what Paul says under the inspiration of the Scripture is if they don’t have self-control, get married. Otherwise they will be led into temptation by the devil and the result is immorality. Now I realize we live in a single society and the single’s population is growing. I also realize that there has been a growth of immorality as well because the unbelievers feel free to satisfy their passions outside of marriage. We as believers do not have that option, the unbeliever doesn’t have the option, he just lives in rebellion against God and experiences the consequences and will face the judgement for it. For us as believers, we have to deal with these matters within the Biblical framework.

Now, I want to note something here about Paul’s emphasis on the sexual relationship in marriage and how important it is it would merit its own study which we may do at another time. Verse 3, the husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and the wife must fulfill her duty to her husband and verse 4, you get into the area of authority when you were in the sexual area. We’ve talked about leadership and authority in the home when it comes to fulfilling sexual desires, the wife’s body belongs to the husband, the husband’s body belongs to the wife. The husband’s concern is to be to satisfy his wife. The wife’s concern to satisfy her husband. The husband the wife, the wife the husband. It’s the pattern. Now, I say this because we’ve got some idea that there is something tainted about sex that affects believers. I’m amazed at how many believers talk about the difficulty they have in their sexual relationship within marriage. I wasn’t going to say this but I will. The last time I preached on 1 Corinthians 7 my dad called me on the phone and said, “I’m surprised anybody comes to that church.” Well, I may not send him this tape. Within marriage, I am of the conviction that anything goes sexually as long as it is agreeable between the husband and the wife. If something is pleasing and satisfying to my wife then my goal is to carry that out and vice versa. As long as it is not something painful or whatever, unpleasant to one or the other. My concern is her pleasure, her concern is my pleasure. Now, the carrying out of all kinds of sexual practices and deviations outside of marriage are wrong. I personally don’t know that I call anything a deviation within marriage. You don’t have to agree with that, just my observation. But a point I want to make is that within marriage there ought to be a concern for satisfying the partner. Not a concern, I right away pick this up and say, “I hope my wife is listening. She understands I have authority over her body and she is to be occupied with satisfying me; I’ve been hoping she would hear this.” Well that’s not what we’re saying. I’m supposed to be listening and saying that my body belongs to her and the goal and purpose in the physical area is for me to satisfy her. It’s easy to spend a lot of time thinking what she ought to do to satisfy me, but my thoughts are to be absorbed with what I can do to satisfy her. And this becomes a key area of responsibility.

And you know Paul assumes here a quite active sex life between marriage partners, so active that they have to come to an agreement to take some time off for concentrated prayer. Now I don’t want to become too explicit and make us uncomfortable, but we ought to hear what God is saying. We’ve got moral problems among believers today. We’ve got moral problems in our marriages. And God says we’ll have them if we don’t function Biblically. Verse 5: “Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” Now when God addresses an issue like that and I choose not to function that way, I open the door to Satan and in affect I’m on my own because I’ve chosen to rebel against God. I’ve chosen to resist the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God does not come to give me strength to stand when I choose to rebel against God. I have also quenched His ability to work in my life. And then we say, “What happened to that marriage? How did those people get into that situation?” Very simple, the pattern of Scripture is clear. It ought to be clear to us as well that God has taken one book of the Bible, Song of Solomon, and devoted it totally to a development and consideration of the physical and sexual relationship that’s carried out within marriage. If you don’t have a healthy sexual relationship with your husband or wife, you do not have a godly marriage. If you do not have a healthy sexual relationship as a believer with your husband or wife, you don’t have the kind of marriage that God says you must have to be pleasing to Him. So this is not something aside that we do to get out of the way. It’s a very key area of our relationship. All the corruption of it, all the distortion of it, all the filth associated with sex has been what the world has done in destroying what God intended to take place within the marriage relationship.

Keep your finger in 1 Corinthians and come back to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 4: Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Any kind of sexual activity outside that marriage bond will bring a person under the judgment of God. You look and see people seem to be getting away with things, being involved in this affair and that affair, and this elicit activity and that elicit activity. I was reading in the Psalms this week. The Psalmist struggles with why did the wicked seem to get away with so much. Then all of a sudden it became clear to me. There is a judgement day. God will judge fornicators and adulterers, but in the marriage relationship we’re to have an undefiled bed. So this sexual area of the marriage relationship is crucial ties to whether a person ought to be married or not and it ties to obligations we have to one another within the marriage relationship. This ought to be something that we work at.

Back to Proverbs, still keeping a bulletin or something in 1 Corinthians 7. The book of Proverbs. If I’m not careful, this will become a full message. Obviously were in an area that I delight in. Proverbs chapter 5. These opening chapters of Proverbs have strong warnings about the danger of immorality, the danger of adulterous relationships. Verse 15, Proverbs 5: “Drink water from your own cistern and fresh water from your own well. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be yours along and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be exhilarated”, literally intoxicated, “with her love. For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress and embrace the bosom of a foreigner? For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord and He watches all his paths.” You’ve never done with anything in secret. I have never done anything in secret. Anything, however vile, however gross, I have done in the full light of the gaze of almighty God. A person who sneaks off and thinks they’re having a secret affair are doing it under the open gaze of almighty God. For that they will be brought into judgement, but you note the picture here. Be intoxicated with your wife, let her breasts satisfy you at all times. There is an intensity in this physical relationship. Bread eaten in secret and stolen waters are sweet, but destruction is the end. We need to work on the physical relationship. There is no physical relationship that can be so satisfying as the physical relationship between the husband and the wife because that is the relationship that God has established to bring the fullest satisfaction possible. The problem is that we don’t work at it, we don’t devote ourselves to it. We don’t give the attention to it that God calls us to do. Somehow we think of it as something that ought not to be. Now when I come to the word of God I find that that is to be a major focus and responsibility in my relationship with my wife.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 7. Again, I want to stress, since we men are great in thinking our wives ought to hear this, that the man’s body belongs to the wife. You’re both to be occupied with the other person. It doesn’t matter whether I feel like it. It matters whether my wife does. It doesn’t matter whether she wants to, it matters whether I do from her perspective. You’re absorbed with one another. You know that’s why affairs become somewhat exciting. The person who is involved in an affair is totally absorbed with that other person. Somehow in marriage we begin to take for granted one another rather than giving the same kind of attention to the one that God has given to us as a life partner.

Go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. Within that framework Paul moves on to discuss some of the issues of marriage, divorce, and the single life. If you have a passion for sexual fulfillment, then you ought to be looking to be married. You ought to be seeking God’s partner. Now I realize for some, this creates more frustration. You say, “I do have that desire, yet God has not provided the partner.” Let’s go on and see what Paul has to say. “To the married”, verse 9, “I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband”. The husband should not send his wife away. Different kinds of problems face different people. Evidently some of the Corinthians were feeling because of the corruption of sex and the dirtiness associated with it, and Corinth was an openly dirty city. We’ve visited the city of Corinth. You can look up at the acropolis and you see where the pagan prostitutes in hundreds, perhaps thousands, came down upon the city at night to ply their trade. It was openly practiced immorality. And this colors your thinking about sex. Sex becomes something dirty and some believers evidently thought that it might be better if they abstain from a sexual relationship. Somehow you were more pure or more holy if you did not have a sexual relationship. Paul was addressing that issue in 1 Corinthians 7. You are no more pure, no more holy if you are single and do not have sex or if you are married and have sex. Within marriage the bed is undefiled as God sees it. It is honorable.

“To the rest I say, not the Lord” that means Christ didn’t speak to this, this is new information, “the brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him” let him not send her away. “A woman who has an unbelieving husband, he consents to live with her, do not send the husband away.” You know sometimes our logical thinking gets us into difficulty. In 1 Corinthians 6 is it? Or 2 Corinthians 6, 2 Corinthians 6. We are not to be bound together with unbelievers. 2 Corinthians 6. Now you were married to an unbelieving husband. You became a believer, do you maintain that relationship with that unbeliever? And the expression of oneness in that relationship with the sexual relationship. Do I really want to have that kind of bond with one who does not belong to God. Begin to think that perhaps that is defiling to me. I am taking this body which now belongs to God and making it one with an unbeliever who is a child of the devil. Is that what Paul talks about when he warns about immorality? When he says that when you have a sexual relationship with a harlot you become one with a harlot. You’ve taken the members of Christ, His body, and joined it in a relationship of oneness with a harlot, that’s repulsive. If I carry that on in my thinking I think, therefore that’s what happens when a believer, a believing wife and an unbelieving husband or vice versa, are engaged in a sexual relationship. Paul says, no, that is not the case. If you are married to an unbeliever, the unbeliever is willing to live with you, then you should maintain the marriage relationship and all the responsibilities and obligations of that relationship then are to be carried out, including the sexual relationship he’s just talked about within marriage. So that helps to clear any fear I might have. But I might be being defiled in this relationship. That is not the case. It is a marriage relationship recognized by God and all the responsibilities and so on in the marriage relationship are there. If the unbelieving husband leaves, let him leave. If the unbelieving wife leaves, let her leave. In other words, the unbeliever may not be willing to live with the believer any longer, then they are free to go. And the believer then is free, and I understand that you can pursue in a divorce and can mean they are free to remarry as well.

“Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk.” In other words, getting saved, becoming a child of God does not change the relationships or social conditions that you’re involved in. If you’re a Jew, you don’t have to worry about becoming a non-Jew. If you’re a non-Jew, you don’t have to worry about becoming a Jew. This has something to say about people who are running around now trying to start Jewish churches and becoming Jewish, they are carrying it out. That’s in violation of what God says here. I was a Gentile when I was saved. There is no reason for me to try to take on Jewish practices. Come like I was circumcised like I was a Jew. There is no purpose in that and there is no goal in that. That doesn’t mean I don’t study Jewish practices, I want to understand them, but our goal now is not to start a church that is Jewish in its practices. And the Jews did not have to change their Jewishness when they became believers. Verse 20: “Let each man remain in that condition in which he was called.” If you were a slave, then remain a slave. Now that doesn’t mean if you were a prostitute, remain a prostitute. If you were a thief, remain a thief. Those things which are contrary to God’s character and revealed purpose of being a believer I have to stop, I have to stop sinning. But Christianity does not require a change in the social condition in which we find ourselves, that’s why some believers are twisted in knots over the issue of slavery. Christianity functions within slavery or without slavery. Functions within the framework of the communist government, functions within the framework of the democratic government. It’s a non-issue as far as Christianity is concerned. That’s why we’re not going to pursue this too far, I hope. We as believers need to be very careful about getting involved and trying to change society and the social conditions. There is no movement as far as I can tell in the New Testament for the church to do away with slavery. If you’ve become a believer and you’re a slave, be the best slave that you can be. If you have an opportunity to be free, you can be free. You don’t have to be a slave to be a Christian, but you don’t have to be free to be a Christian. You can be God’s person in that situation. Now if they require me to do something unbiblical, then I have to stand for it. That’s why I can live with what is going on in our society. Quite frankly, I can live with a government that permits abortion. I could not live with it if they required abortion of my wife. Then I would have to stand. I vote, I express myself as a citizen, but the Bible does not require or tell me to change the social conditions. The Bible calls me to minister a gospel that changes hearts. And when hearts are changed, the Spirit of God creates new creatures who function as God wants them to. And I think we as believers need to be aware of that, and Paul’s discussing it here and touches on those very important areas. I’m very concerned as the church gets weaker, in the United States, with its power in presenting the gospel, we try to compensate for that with political power, with social power. It is a disgrace to seek professing Christians being carried off from in front of abortion clinics. That is a disgrace on the word of God, that we have now come that we promote disobedience and civil disobedience. We decide that this is an important enough civil issue. We find nothing to support that in the New Testament, nothing in the call of the church to represent Jesus Christ, to try to change sinful society. People who don’t practice abortion are on their way to hell just as directly as people who do. Now if they require me to do what is unbiblical, then I have to stand. I may have to go to jail for that. But if my neighbor is doing what is unbiblical I don’t have to go to jail for that. I need to be very very careful about where God wants me to be.

“Now concerning virgins”, verse 25, “I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion.” Again, no command of the Lord doesn’t mean this isn’t inspired, it means Christ didn’t address the issue. He did talk about marriage in Matthew 5, Matthew 19. He talked about divorce, he talked something about singleness, but he did not elaborate on it. But here, now, Paul speaks and he is trustworthy because of the mercy of God he speaks under the inspiration of the Spirit. “It is good in view of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” Now just because you’ve become a believer doesn’t change things. If you were saved and you’re married, stay married. A man I knew had quite a bit of contact with when I lived in the east. He finally left his wife, she was a burden on him. “I can’t carry out the ministry God wants me to have with her.” That was a distortion or a lie. Just trying to build an excuse to do his own sinful thing. Now he’s ministering in a liberal church someplace. “If you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin should marry, she has not sinned.” Now note that, it’s not now I’ve opted for God’s second best. Paul recommends and talks about the advantages of being single, but if you get married, fine, no problem. And you’re not any less a servant of God then if you remain single.

“Yet such will have trouble in this life, I am trying to spare you.” Our young people ought to understand that, you’re going to get married, great. Are you ready for all of the trouble you are going to have? What do you mean? I’m ready for all of the bliss. Well, Paul says, “I just want to spare you the trouble.” Problem in our society, what happens? They get married, the thrill of the emotions wear off, we have a little bit of trouble and we think that’s reason to divorce. Well that’s just the Biblical truth coming out. You put two sinners together in the same house, it’s amazing they don’t kill each other off. It’s the grace of God. They’ll have trouble, that’s an encouragement to you. If you’re young, married, and you’re having struggles, stay with it and by God’s grace it becomes better.

“I say this, brethren, the time has become shortened”. I want you to note this verse. We may not get to the single life. “The time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none; and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess; and those who use the world” and so on. “For the form of this world is passing away.” I want you to note here. “Those who have wives should be as though they have none” and so on. We live in light of eternity. You realize that marriage is not an eternal relationship. I’m concerned that among believers because of what’s happening to the family in the world, we are trying to compensate for it now. People say, first is my relationship with God, next is my relationship to my family, then is my relationship to the church, then my job; we’ve got our priorities. That’s not the way the Scripture approaches. In fact, here, Paul says we live as though we weren’t even married if we are married. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the responsibilities, obligations, and so on. But we have a day, live in a day, where all of a sudden people think, “Well you know I want to be careful about not being too involved in church because I’ve got to be involved with my family.” I find no place that the Bible talks like that. In fact, here Paul talks just the opposite. Living if you’re married as though you weren’t married. I have the same kind of zeal and all out unreserved commitment in giving myself to the Lord as I would if I weren’t married, but I still have other obligations to my home that I have to carry out. That’s why we talk about a circle of responsibility, there are no conflicts in me being everything God wants me to be a husband, everything God wants me to be as a preacher, everything God wants me to be as a father, and any other area you can add. There’s not a hierarchy of values and responsibilities. It’s a circle. One is not more important than the other, it is not more important that I be a godly husband than I be a godly servant in the church. You think that God calls me to choose between two required matters before Him? Not at all. There is no conflict in being everything God wants me. Now there is added pressure on marriage and added responsibility. But people who don’t come to church on Sunday night anymore because that’s family night, I can understand that. If you work four to twelve. Five or six days a week, Sunday night might be the only night you have with your family. I appreciate that, my dad used to work four to twelve. We still went to church on Sunday night, but I could see maybe that’s your reasoning. Sunday night is family night. Did you ever think of why Sunday night was the best family night and not Saturday night or Monday night or Thursday night, Friday night? Somehow Sunday night is the best family night and my family becomes before the church, therefore we take that out. Sunday is our family day, so we try to just come one hour in the morning. The kids go to Sunday school, we go to church, then we have the day together as a family. What happened to Saturday? We’re busy raking the yard on Saturday. Um, ridiculous. You can come back and study 1 Corinthians 7. We don’t have time to go into the details.

Those who are married, as though those who weren’t. You need to be careful about the way we think we’ve arranged our lives and wonder why things aren’t the way God says they ought to be. It’s ridiculous. We have created straw men and then proceeded to live our lives in light of that. Point to note here. It really doesn’t matter in light of eternity whether you are married or not. You remember Matthew 22:30, I believe it is? “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” In 100 years for all of us, sooner if Christ comes, but in 100 years all of us will be gone from this earth. It won’t matter whether you were married or not. It will have mattered how faithful you served Jesus Christ. How much a man of God you were, how much a woman of God you were. We’ve got our priorities all turned around. We think we’re doing something better than someone else. I give all my attention to my marriage and my family. Oh do you? Do you realize there are no marriages and no families in heaven? I don’t want to get off on a sidetrack on that, some of you hurt, just saying. But that’s true. Marilyn won’t be my wife in glory. I won’t be her husband, and I know it’s going to be great grief to her. Even though there’s no tears in heaven, I’m sure that will be an exception. So we want to be careful. What Paul’s calling us to here is to invest our lives in things of eternal significance. And I love my family, I have God given responsibilities to my family, but my family is not an eternal relationship. Important as it is, and I hope my saying this at this point in our family study is taken by you within the framework of how important I believe the family really is. But in 100 years, that won’t be my family, that won’t be my wife, they won’t be my children, I won’t be the father, the husband. Because in the resurrection they are neither married nor given in marriage, and I want to live my life in light of eternity. So don’t get so absorbed with whether you’re married or single, it’s not going to make a bit of difference. I wish I wasn’t married, I could be serving the Lord so much more. I wish I was married, that would make such a difference. It really doesn’t matter. We ought to be giving ourselves unreservedly to the service of the Lord, that’s something eternal.

But I want you to be free from trouble, verse 32, “One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord. How he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world.” In other words, if you’re married you have responsibilities, that’s true, we’ve been talking about that. I have obligations to my wife. We’ve just mentioned sexual obligations. In our previous studies we’ve talked about other areas of responsibility. I am to love her, give myself for her, I have to be concerned about her, she has to have that concern about me, and both of us about our children. Someone who is single doesn’t have those cares. Paul packed up and went from here to there, from here to there, from here to there. He had a freedom that others didn’t have. He’s right. That doesn’t mean being single is better than being married. It just means it gives you different opportunities. That to me is the reason given in 1 Corinthians 7 for a single life. If you have a strong desire to be married and God hasn’t provided the partner, maybe it’s because there isn’t. And I think it’s more difficult for the women for the men, because the women have to wait for the man to take the initiative. We’ve got some men sitting on their hands with paper cross their mouth wondering why they’re not married. Nobody’s ever asked them. You know our society has created men who are, for lack of better word, wimps. I’m sure it’s theologically in here someplace. Well, men don’t know what they are, they’re driven back by women who have become more aggressive. They’re sinning by not being what God wants them to be. The Bible says a godly women, that doesn’t frustrate God’s plan for you. Someone else’s sin never ruins your life. Enduring difficulty during trial brings struggle, but doesn’t frustrate God’s plans for me. If you’re a man and think you ought to be married, you have this desire, then you ought to be seeking out a godly woman. Date someone. You probably won’t get engaged by just attending Sunday morning. You probably have to ask somebody out. Now I say this because I have numerous single men coming up to me saying, “How am I going to find a wife?” and numerous single ladies coming up who would love to have a husband. You say why is there this group of men over here who would like to be married, this group of women over here who would like to be married. Would seem that what you would do would be to bring these two together and then you have marriages. Men have to ask ladies. You know I would and I called my wife-to-be on the phone and I said, “Hello, this is that dashing young man that you haven’t been able to take your eyes off of for so many months.” No, you know, what’s she gonna say? Ask her out and pursue God’s will. God will lead me to the right person, be realistic. There are no perfect women. There are no perfect men. You want someone who is interested in the things of the Lord, who is growing as a believer. But don’t look for the perfect one, because if you find her, she wouldn’t marry you. I have some illustrations but I’m trying to use discretion here. I hope you’ll appreciate that.
Recognizing what God’s plan is. Verses 36 to 38 talk about parents. And in Biblical times parents arranged the marriage. There are still principles here for us as parents on recognizing the wishes and desires of our young people. Some parents want to push their kids into marriage and not think, maybe God’s intention is for them to be single to serve Him in an undistracted way. We ought to encourage that if it’s a possibility, if not then we ought to encourage marriage. That is my responsibility.

“A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.” We’re only talking about in the Lord, I see no place in Scripture for dating unbelievers. That’s not an evangelistic tool. That’s on the road to trouble. Dating, looking for a perspective possible partner ought to be with one who is of potential. Only in the Lord. But Paul says it would be better if you remain single. So you ought to evaluate that possibility. The purpose of singleness is it enables you to be freer to serve the Lord. That is different than the singleness of our society. We stress singleness today, why? It enables you to do your own thing with more liberty. You can have more and do more. Now if they were single because they don’t want the responsibility of marriage. But as I examine 1 Corinthians 7, the reason for singleness is to give you more freedom and more time to serve the Lord. I am concerned that we talk about singleness as though it is some kind of disease today. Singles have their own problems. We’re going to have a single’s group for their interests. Oh, what singles ought to have is an accelerated interest and a greater amount of time to serve the Lord. So if you’re single, that’s your opportunity. I think we ought to be careful about isolating the singles out here as though they have some sort of strange disease. You know they have the disease of un-marriedness, they must be weird. We ought to put them out there. Why? Paul blended in well. Evidently he’s the only one of the apostles who was not married. He talks about the leadership he had and the zeal he had in serving the Lord more zealously than them all. Not bragging, that’s just the way it was. He blends in. I think our singles have great things to contribute in the ministry and in the leadership of the ministry. And concern that we may be following the pattern of the world. The world ends up with great collections of singles, great numbers of singles, and we as a church follow the pattern. We ought to be careful we’re not doing it for the same reason.

What about single parents? Single mothers. I don’t have a lot to say about that because the Scripture doesn’t. I know that God gives the grace for whatever He puts you into. He picks you up where you are. How does a single mother, we talked about some of these in our question and answer time, handle discipline? Well, a single mother has to listen to what the Bible says about the mother and the father because she’s got to function as both. A single father has to listen to what God says about the mother as well as the father because he’s got to function as both in that home. Very difficult. You just have to ask God to give you the extra grace to do it. The father is not there, who’s going to discipline that child? The mother has to do it or they’ll be an undisciplined child. A mother has to learn in affect what the father would have to do if he were here, whether she’s been widowed or divorced, the fact is that she is alone, or he is alone. Seems though the pressure is there for the wife, more often they have the children. God give me the grace to do what you want me to do, to be who you want me to be, help me to carry out the responsibilities of a father for this home since there is no father here. The pressure is there, there is no doubt because what has happened? We have an area that is not the normal. Normally, the younger widows should remarry. You say well, God hasn’t provided a person. Again then, I will have to say, the grace of God will be adequate. He knows what you have to have. He will provide for you, your goal has to be to be as biblical as possible.

We need to stop here. We need to close with that emphasis that we began our study with, on godliness, on love, that ought to characterize our home and all our relationship. Scripture was read earlier today in Colossians chapter 3, if I can go the right direction to find Colossians. Let me read you one verse. Colossians chapter 3 verse 14: “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” What binds our families together in oneness is the gracious work of the Spirit in producing His love among the family. Look at that love as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Look at its description in 1 Corinthians 13. That must be my goal. And then God will produce the oneness and the unity in my relationship with my wife and my relationship with my kids because love is the perfect bond of unity. Love is the fruit of the Spirit, it comes out of a life of godliness. Let’s pray together.

Thank you Lord for Your goodness and grace. We realize we have not touched on so many of the problems, so many of the hurts, but we remind ourselves that Your grace is sufficient. That each one of Your children is eternally precious in Your sight. You’re working Your purposes and Your plans for good in our lives. We rest secure in that even though we don’t always understand why You do what You do. Lord, may our faith grow as we simply rest in Your sufficiency and Your adequacy, in Your willingness to act on our behalf. Pray for the families, the homes, that are represented here.