My Relationships His Glory.

Introduction

When I first came into church I experienced a lot of firsts. You never think about this stuff anymore when you’ve been baptized into it for a while but church is an interesting place.

You engage in corporate singing where everyone is expected to participate. Name another place in society where that is the case? Sometime people will at concerts but only certain kinds. A lot of concerts and recitals you are just expected to sit and watch the performance.

That singing isn’t a performance. That one was weird to me at first. You don’t have to be the most skilled to be on the worship team you just have to have a heart to desires to point others to Jesus.

We engage in ritual ceremonies. Lord’s supper and baptism. There seems to be a script of “how to do it right” that most people know but if you’re new or a visitor you kind of have a panic attack when it happens in front of you.

We pass plates and people put money in them but no one ever explains what that money is for or where it goes. I mean, we all know because we’ve been here but if you’re new you are never told that stuff. Do I put money in? How much? What if I don’t? Do you make change in the offering plate?

Some people sing and raise their hands, others both hands, some sway, others stand at attention with hands firmly in pockets. What’s all that about?

Tension

Its a different thing and when you’ve been in it for a while it all makes sense but it can be strange at first.

Nothing struck me as stranger than when I realized how involved the church was in each other’s lives. Like they hung out together. They were friends like throughout the week. They watched each others kids and helped build houses.

In my world we only had like 1 or 2 close friends and you always kind of knew that at any moment they could let you down so you learned to rely on yourself. You could trust you and your family but don’t ever really rely on other people. Don’t borrow things from others, don’t accept payments or loans. In general, you could have friendships but you never wanted to put yourself in a position to rely on others or fully trust them.

Yet, in the church people seemed to violate all those rules and it seemed to go well for them. I wondered at that because in my raising and my experience relationship were liabilities more than a benefit.

that is not to say that Christians are without problems or flaw or that they get it right all the time but that they have access to a special kind of relationship that isn’t often found everywhere else.

In our time we’ve discussed Paul’s course correct the misteps of the struggling church in Corinth. For sure, the odds were stacked against them with the tsunami of culture that opposed and twisted what they were supposed to do. In this section of the letter, Paul engages the people in all the ways their relationships with each other are supposed to reflect Christlikeness and not worldliness. Today’s passage is him addressing 5 groups of people so let’s get into it as we read ch 7 vers 17.

Truth

1 Corinthians 7:17(ESV)

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.

Pray

Exposition

Singles and Widows, Divorced couples, marriages with unbelievers, former Jews, slaves. Paul will come back next week and go more in depth for those engaged and widows but he starts with these 5 groups, adding them to his discourse on intimacy and marriage in the Christian’s life. We must remember that the church was a hodgepodge of all kinds of people from everywhere. They all had their own experiences, practices, beliefs, and cultures that they were trying to figure out how to jive together with Christianity.

A pastor friend of mine does pre-marital counseling with people and his analogy always seemed to make a lot of sense. He describes the work of marriage as building a house. From the time you are a little kid, as a little boy or little girl you are drawing up plans and blueprints for the house you want to build as an adult when you finally get too. I want the living room here, we will have a porch swing, and a slide that goes out of the kitchen. Your spouse is also doing the same. You’ll spend years modeling and remodeling it and eventually you decide you found the person you want to build that home with. The problem is that they are bringing their own blueprint to the marriage. So, something has to give because their expectation is that the kitchen goes there and will be 500 sq ft but yours is over there and 1000 square ft. In order to make a home together you need to work together to amend the blueprints with others.

Imagine the same thing inside of a church. You have hundreds of people who all have a blueprint of how it should church should be ran. The same thing with all of the relationships we have. Men should act this way. Women this way, widows, orphans, ect. However, those plans can be too informed by the world and not enough by the Word of God. Paul gives insight into how we should relate to each other based on God’s word.

1 Corinthians 7:6–24 (ESV)

Commands to the single and the widow. vs.6-9

6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.

7 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.

8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.

9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Paul’s words here harken back to last week when he described that singleness can be more of a gift than some think it is.

To be sure, you get up in the morning, you pray, eat whatever breakfast you want, get up and go to work, and then you get off and do whatever you want. You don’t have to check with anyone else’s blueprint before you make decisions. Paul lives his life devoted only to fulfilling God’s call for the day and would ask singles to prayerfully consider the gift that this could be.

Remembering also, that in this ancient world, widowhood was a life of struggle. As a woman, your property, your say, your station, and your livelihood were literally tied the life of your husband and you sons. If dad died, his holdings passed to the sons and they would be expected to care for you but if they didn’t, or if you didn’t have any sons, you would be outed. For widows considered young enough to remarry, they would be encouraged and pressured to find another husband as quickly as possible. Paul asks them to consider their new singleness for the potential benefits it might provide.

I will say in my life and ministry, some of the greatest women of God I have ever met have been those who have walked the valley of losing their husbands. I make it a point to try and keep talking about Him and their relationship. I know that often times people feel that it might be a tender subject, but I have found that its refreshing and a good time to remember the life that they built together. Many of these women became surrogate grandparents and helped us raise our baby. Many picked up everything, dropped what was left and went on countless mission trips. Many disciple and invest and help raise grandchildren and I would like to say, to the ladies and gentlemen in our congregation that have experienced such loss, “We love you, we care about you, and we want to be those who are blessings to you life as your church family.”

Paul ends however, considering the reality that many people will not be able to find success in singleness if they are “burning with passion.” His ask is simply that they, and we, would prayerfully consider being committed only to the Lord.

Commands to those seeking divorce. vs. 10-11

10 To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband

11 (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

Two items are contained in this one sentence that seem so alien to our culture today.

1. God does not endorse divorce.

2. If divorce does occur, God’s desire is one of two things would happen: that the divorcees would stay single or that they would be reconciled to one another.

Slow down Juston, your starting to meddle here. I will tell you now, i have no intention in meddling but God speaks about this and so we must as well.

What of the first prohibition: God does not endorse divorce. We have already discussed the reality that God’s intention and design for marriage was that it would be one man and one woman together for their whole lives. That their intimacy would be expressed, a family be raised, and in that covenant relationship they would rally together to serve him. Divorce undermines and cuts that goal off at the knees. It’s a direct refutation of that goal. A marriage is supposed to be a covenant not a contract. Covenants are open ended promises based on the character of the one who made the promise. Its not supposed to succeed or fail on the actions of the recipient. Its the flowerpot that such a relationship blossoms and grows. Yet, a divorce is the disillusion of a contract that didn’t work out. The two are not the same. Jesus himself gives us Matthew 5:32

Matthew 5:32 (ESV)

32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

The two becoming one flesh-ness of marriage is profound and powerful. Its not dissolved as easily as going to court. Your former spouse carries a part of you with them and you do as well. Jesus gives the concession of infidelity but by doing so he describing behavior not prescribing it. I want to remind us that one of the gifts marriage brings that we are supposed to embrace is that it can remove the selfishness from us if we will but work at it. This is one of God’s prerogatives in marriage and embracing it means even doing so through the hard times, sticking it out and being steadfast. Problems in the Christian marriage are to end in seeking reconciliation not divorce.

Secondly, staying single in divorce or being reconciled. Note: Paul didn’t mention Jesus’ exception to divorce in the case of infidelity partially because he is using Jesus’ words here pastorally not categorically or absolutely. He’s not writing a theological paper on all of divorce but simply answering a struggle that has been asked of him by these people dealing with these questions. After all, Paul allows two exceptions for remarriage in vs 15-16 for a unbelieving spouse that chooses to leave, remarriage to a widow (vs 8-9, 39-40) and perhaps even another if the divorced person is not gifted to control their passions as he described in vs. 8. Divorce, friends, is not the unforgivable sin even though we must admit it is not God’s desire for us or our relationships. He can still heal and mend what was broken and in some cases bring beauty from what has become ash.

Commands to those married to non-believers. vs 12-17

12 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.

13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

14 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.

15 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.

16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

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.

To my friends in this room that are currently married to a spouse who does not hold your devotion to Christ. I sat with a woman a number of years ago who had pleaded with the Lord for 25 years for her husband to come to know him as his savior. She was as good a wife as I’ve ever seen and doted on him constantly. He loved her and loved the difference in her since she’d started going to church but he couldn’t bring himself to take hold of the gospel for himself. It weighed on her as heavy as I’d ever seen anything. It can be one of the hardest things ever to love someone so sacrificially and totally to have them shun what gives you the capacity to do so. If you love someone you want them to have the best and that means, for us as believers, we want them to know our Jesus and to have him do the work in their lives, the same that he has for us.

The Corinthians were struggling with whether or not they should end such mismatched marriages as a sort of “start over”. After all, the whole unevenly yolked thing is real. Some of these marriages started with both spouses as unbelievers. Now, one accepts Christ and wants to live for him. The other is just as much who they’ve always been but now you want every thing to change? You can imagine such a change would cause rifts and issues. To some, it only made sense that such divisions would make marriage hard if not impossible. Paul speaks against this to them and us today. If you are married to a pre-believer, stay married to them. If they will have you then you should have them too.

Paul then gives one of the most hope instilling balms to this whole situation and its one that we need to remind ourselves of often. An unbelieving husband can be made holy because of a holy wife. They can raise kids that know the Lord and follow Him. He then adds in verse 16 that such a god-honoring and selfless love could be the catalyst that finally melt through to their heart. “how do you know wife, whether you will save your husband.” Don’t give up, don’t grow tired or weary. Stay praying, stay commited, love them sacrificially. And all the while use this influence to point them to the Christ who saved you and helps you to love them this way.

Commands to former Jews. vs 18-20

18 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.

19 For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

20 Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.

Jews had long practiced the custom of circumcision, the physical process of being associated with the nation of Israel and the question of whether that should continue for those who have come into faith in Christ was being asked. Further more, should new gentile converts also be circumcised to be legitimate members of the church? While that may seem silly to us, it was a legitimate concern for these people who had been taught that their whole life. Why would they think this tradition should end at all? What precedent would call for its change? It was a reminder of God’s covenant with Abraham, their ancestor and the predecessor to Christ, who ultimately fulfilled God’s promises in the Old Testament. Why should this or any OT tradition change or be annulled?

Such items gave depth to their devotion practice and religious observance. They’d be taught this their whole life. Yet, Paul helps them understand such practices are nothing more than traditionally valuable anymore. The law wasn’t broken by the coming of Jesus, it was finished in him. He was the period at the end of that sentence. To put those finished law on new converts was useless and looking backwards instead of towards God’s new covenant.

He declares emphatically, “Neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commands of God.” It doesn’t matter one iota what you do to or with you body at all if you won’t live out Christ’s commands. This was true in their world of religious observance and ritual and ceremony and is just as true for us today. Being a religious or spiritual person is of no use or account unless it is founded in truth.

I was talking to a student one day who told me he believed in the medieval gods of Norse mythology because, and I quote, “because no one else does and I thought it was unique and cool.” Uniqueness, coolness, originality, or relevance mean nothing unless what you believe and act out in the world is founded on reality. I can sincerely believe that I have the ability to fly out of the this room but gravity tells a different story.

Commands to slaves and bondservants. vs 21-24

21 Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)

22 For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.

23 You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.

24 So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

We have a complicated history with slavery as Americans. We hear the word and our mind immediately go to the Southern Confederate States and all the horrors we read about in school. We bring those thoughts and feelings into our reading of the Bible too, with even some declaring that the Bible is a book that promotes slavery. A couple things of note.

Slavery as that of the American south is not the slavery of the Bible. First everyone had slaves. It was a common thing in the world that happened almost anytime your people lost a battle. You’d take the people, enslave them and move them around as you saw fit. This wasn’t done because of race either. All peoples could become slaves and own slaves.

Slavery was a situation that anyone could sell themselves into as well. If you owed a debt or found yourself indebted to someone you could sell yourself into their service, legally becoming their property until this debt was paid for. It wasn’t uncommon either. Many people sought this as a way of life, selling their entire family into the service of a honorable family, perhaps thinking that such a life was preferable to living out on the street.

Slavery didn’t always mean a life of mistreatment either. Some slaves were treated as if they were family, some slaves were even more powerful than freedmen.

Yet, in the movement of the gospel in the town of Corinth, some slaves had accepted Christ and the cultural questions, as you could imagine, were stacking up. Paul says to such men, if you were a slave and accepted Christ, continue in your service and still gain your freedom if you can get that opportunity. Understand that even if you still owe your service to your master, you are really free in Christ. Your eternity is a done deal and no chains hold you for eternity.

However, he adds the consideration for those who are in Christ and free. That they should not become bondservants to anyone because they are already slaves to Christ. They have made him their master and they should embrace his leadership, not giving any man control over them again.

One book, often overlooked in the NT, Philemon, speaks about such a relationship. Onesimus was a slave who ran away from his master and met Paul while fleeing. He heard and accepted the gospel and Paul writes a letter to Philemon, a fellow brother in Christ to recieve this man back without ill will because he’s a brother in Christ. Can you imagine. You own a slaved. You are master he is servant and then one day he accepts Christ and now you are equally forgiven and joint heirs with Christ together. The world had turned upside down and Jesus was the cause. Relationships were changing rapidly and Paul was trying to help them use the gospel and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to glorify God and stand out as a beacon for the gospel in their dark world.

Landing

Our goals should be the same today. Will we let our interactions with our brothers and sisters stand as an advertisement for the gospel today? Would people want our friendships? our marriages? our religion? We can use our interactions with others and our relationships to point others to Christ and his glory, that is, if we will give them over to his leading. In our home hangs a document that we’ve put together after a friend told us that kids might have a negative correlation to walking into our home and seeing rules hanging up. So, instead, we have a list of family values. They aren’t rules as much as guidelines to how we operate and what we try to value.

Davidson Family Values

· Treat others better than they deserve.

· Your first time at our house you are a guest. After that you are family.

· We are serious about fun.

· There’s always more room at the table.

· It’s okay to be wrong.

· We’re all in this together.

· Live with integrity, especially when no one is watching.

We’ve tried to replicate scripture and God honoring values in how we run our house and relate to one another. What would your values be?

Questions for our application and for those we disciple.

Which of your relationships right now best exemplify the kind of Christlikeness that Paul is encouraging in these verses? Which ones encourage you and spur you on to embracing holiness?

Which relationships in your life are most strained and why do you think that is? What portion of that strain is on you and what could you do to alleviate that stress?