Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Reading of Scripture

This is God’s Word.

If you receive it as such, would you say “Amen”?

Amen!

[Title Slide]

1 Corinthians 7:1-24 The Life That The Lord Has Assigned

II.

Introduction

A. Introduction to Theme

Living with Jesus Christ as our Lord means that our lives are not our own anymore.

That was a strong theme at the end of Chapter 6 that continues to run through Chapter 7.

And that theme presents a very freeing reality!

I don’t have to worry about what I make of myself anymore, because I do not belong to “me” anymore.

I don’t have to strive to become something better, or something else.

Jesus has made me who I am and Jesus makes me who He wants me to be.

What I made of myself before Christ is in the past.

But because “I am not my own,” I know, that Christ has changed me and made me new, and He continues to conform my image into His image (Rom 8:29).

It’s not about what I do for myself, but rather what Christ does in me.

Our future is no longer ours to worry about!

This is freeing!

But this is also a difficult thing for us to receive, because this truth fights against our flesh and causes us agony and anxiousness.

For the person that is looking to go off to college and begin preparing for a career, there is great agony and anxiousness over where to go and what to study so “we won’t ruin our life!”

For the person that is looking to marry one day, and start a family, there is great agony and anxiousness over who to date and who to marry so "we won’t ruin our life!”

For the person who has a job or career, wondering if they need another job or career, there is great agony and anxiousness over whether to make a change and what to do next so “we won’t ruin our life.”

For the person making important health decisions, there is great agony and anxiousness over what doctor to choose, what medicine to take, what procedure to undergo so “we won’t ruin our life.”

All of these experiences are real, and meaningful, and agonizing.

But the Good News of Jesus Christ speaks something freeing into each of those hard moments .

Hear this! —

We can’t ruin “our” lives if we walk with God.

Because with God, our lives do not belong to us anymore!

A transaction has occured in which our lives were bought and paid for.

A receipt has been given.

The sale has been closed.

The Scriptures proclaim: “you were bought with a price.”

So in many ways, we have to stop striving to do and become and control as if our lives still belonged to us.

Martin Luther in the powerful hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” says it this way —

2 Did we in our own strength confide,

our striving would be losing,

were not the right Man on our side,

the Man of God's own choosing.

You ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is he;

Lord Sabaoth his name,

from age to age the same;

and he must win the battle.

There is a release, a freedom, in transferring ownership to someone else, especially when that someone else is the living and Almighty God!

To illustrate it further:

It is like selling a house, signing the paperwork, and handing over the keys to someone else.

It is their’s to fix now, theirs to clean, theirs to maintain, theirs to pay for.

I imagine It is like retiring from a job, cleaning out the corner office, and handing over the title and work to someone else.

The work is their’s to get done, the meetings are their’s to attend, the calls are their’s to answer, and the problems are their’s to fix.

I would imagine It is like raising children for 18 years, packing them up, and sending them out to live by themselves.

The menu is their’s to prepare, the budget is their’s to manage, the laundry is their’s to clean, the decisions are their’s to make.

We need wisdom, yes.

We need guidance, yes.

But if we are walking with God, we can be assured that our lives are not our own, and God has us right where he wants us to be.

This text implies for us a theme of contentment.

Being content in the situations and circumstances that the Lord has assigned to each of us.

And this means, first of all, that we must receive and believe the Gospel proclamation that Jesus is indeed Lord over us, because He bought us.

And to take it one step further - He controls us.

1 Corinthians 7 reveals that God has called us to peace.

I hope that if you are anxious about your life, what time of life you are living in, what conditions you are living in, what situations you are living in, if you find yourself without peace, that you will find that peace in the hearing of God’s Word today.

B. Introduction to Text

This chapter comes with its own introduction.

III.

Exposition

A. 1 Corinthians 7:1-7 | Living in Christian Marriages

Look with me at Chapter 7.1 —

7:1

This represents a turning point in the letter to the Corinthians because of that introductory phrase: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote.”

The contents of six chapters have passed, and only now does the apostle reveal that he is responding to a letter the church had previously written to him, and he does intend to answer their questions.

We might question the apostle’s timing.

Why delay to answer their questions, the “matters about which you wrote”?

Why all of the front-matter?

Why not just get right to the point?

Someone might be thinking that right now - Pastor, why not jump in to the text?

Why did you start with that introduction about our lives belonging to Jesus, the illustrations, the quote from the hymn…it’s about time you got to the text!

We don’t have all day!

That could have saved you eight minutes on your sermon length!

Why the delay?

The text doesn’t tell us why the apostle waited until the seventh chapter in to address what they wrote.

But I imagine it is like visiting the doctor.

You go in to the doctor’s visit with a serious headache.

The nurse asks, “What’s wrong?”

And you say, “I have a headache.”

And the nurse checks your weight, your temperature, your blood pressure, the doctor comes in and listens to your heart and your lungs, he looks at your eyes and your ears and your nose.

He makes notes on your file.

He asks if you exercise.

What kind of food do you eat.

What kind of work do you do.

And eventually, he says, “Now let’s talk about your headache.”

The problem is not just about your headache.

The headache might be a symptom of another problem.

And a good doctor checks your vitals and asks examining questions and makes sure that everything is working correctly so that he might examine your headache with the right lens, in view of your overall health.

He wants to make sure there isn’t a major life-threatening issue that needs addressed before dealing with your headache.

I imagine that might be what the good doctor, the apostle is doing on behalf of the Great Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Before addressing the matters about which they wrote first, the apostle addressed the matters about which they needed to hear first.

Church -

What we WANT to hear first is not always what we NEED to hear first.

What the Church in Corinth needed to hear first, was it was that was speaking to them - “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle (a messenger) of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes” (1:1).

What the Church in Corinth needed to hear first was what God has already made them to be in Jesus Christ - the Church of God, sanctified in Christ, called saints…(1:2).