Why Can't I Date and Marry How I Want?

1 Corinthians 7:1–16 ESV

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. To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

1 Corinthians 7:25–40 ESV

Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 7:1-16, 25-40

Sermon Title: Why Can’t I Date and Marry How I Want?

           We are on week two of three looking at some real, hard questions. As you just heard, we’re looking at the topic of marriage, but there’s a lot beyond that, too. This is a difficult topic to preach on. Marriage and what husbands and wives are invited into by God is wonderful. My personal background, which attests to commitment and longevity in marriage, has shaped me. My parents have only ever been married to each other, and that for 34 years. My grandparents on my mom’s side were married for over 40 years before my grandma passed away. My grandparents on my dad’s side are both still living and have been married for 67 years. In my extended family, there’s only been one divorce. I have a couple uncles and an aunt who have dated at times but remained single. I grew up in churches that I didn’t know of or hear about divorces happening in. Christie and I have been married for coming up on 8 years, which several law office websites shared is a time when many marriages end in divorce. To reassure all of you, I found that not looking for divorce procedure, but looking for what is that average length of a marriage today.

           While I’ve seen many Christians in faithful, committed, happy marriages throughout my lifetime, I’ve also encountered more Christians who’ve gone through divorce. I know for some of you that it’s part of your story. When it comes to reasons for divorce as well as general issues and sins that connect into marriage, we find people dealing with unfaithfulness—whether that’s intentional adultery or addiction to pornography or other things. I’ve encountered couples having sex or who are inappropriately romantically-involved before or outside of marriage. When we think about sex and love and lust and fidelity and marital vows, people in the church don’t always look all that different from those outside. It’s difficult to preach on this because it might sting some of us. But please know, this message isn’t a subtle or passive-aggressive way of calling anyone out. But maybe we have things God’s calling us to address.

You can see in the title of this sermon, why can’t I date and marry how I want, that we’re approaching these matters today with the understanding or foundation that, as Christian, our relationships and actions attached to dating and marriage and singleness should look different from non-believers. The expectations, the goals, the purposes are not “do as you please.” God has revealed his intentions in his Word, and it’s vital we do not neglect his truth for our lives and his church. Whether we’re young people with raging hormones, or you’re getting married or are relatively young in your married life, you’re a veteran husband or wife, you’ve been widowed or you’ve remained single and chosen celibacy permanently or until marriage, or you find yourself wrestling and falling into traps—what does God’s word have to say?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, why do people get married? Perhaps we could focus that a bit—if you are married or have been married, why did you do that? If you’ve chosen to remain single or you’re still considering marriage, what are people doing when they get married?

For a lot of people, I think we look around at society, at the people around us, including in the church, and it feels like this is what people do, it’s the normal progression of life. After we’ve gone through school, perhaps after we’ve figured out what we think our career will be, or worked for a bit, and to be in some kind of partnership, union, or committed relationship is what you do as you grow up. As Christians, perhaps we think of the creation account, when God determined in Genesis 2:18, “…‘It is not good for the man to be alone…’” God decided Adam needed a suitable helper in the form of a woman. Perhaps we take Genesis 2:24 as the normative path of life, “…A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

People get married for other reasons, too, though. Some marry for money—to have a life of comfort and ease. Some do it for sex; maybe we don’t want to think about that, but it’s a reality. For some younger couples especially, if they’ve practiced abstinence and left sex for marriage, they want to enjoy that. The Pew Research Center conducted a survey asking people for the reasons to get married or move in together, and the reasons attached to that question were the rest of the list: love, the most frequent reason people get married, companionship, wanting to make a formal commitment, to have children, it made financial sense, convenience, and there was a pregnancy.

Having heard from the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, we know that when it comes to believers, to Christians, it’s fine to get married. God permits us to do this. It doesn’t seem to be a stretch to describe marriage as a gift. Already in his time, it seems like the normal thing that most people did. But contrary to what often seems to become the expectation, marriage is not everything. Marriage is not an obligation or a mandate for everyone; it’s not for everyone. It is not disobedient to God to not get married. Quite the opposite, Paul says, God gifts certain people with singleness.

Yet we live in a world with a high rate of divorce, including among Christians. Getting a divorce and being remarried, seemingly dismissing Jesus’ commands in Matthew 19 to not separate what God has joined together and not remarry is normal. Couples living together outside of and before marriage, and/or sleeping together, having sex, is normal. Among others, one of the most disregarded verses in the Bible is Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” The use of pornography is rampant in our world. In the Afternoon Bible Study, we heard how young the average age of first exposure to sexually explicit images is getting so young, and it’s not just a guy thing anymore, women regularly use it, too. It’s having serious effects on individuals, on relationships, and on marriages. Again, we’re putting aside Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:28, “‘…Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’” I don’t bring these sins up or these rebukes up because I’ve never struggled or because I want to shame anyone—no, but to help acknowledge behaviors that are sinful to God and destructive. These ways of doing life, of being with one another, are not how things are supposed to be.

Let’s go to our first point: What is marriage and how is it different for Christians? To be married carries the understanding of joining two things together. I don’t remember where I was or when this happened—if it was a job or some service work, but I remember being instructed by someone to “marry the garbages.” It took me a little while to figure out that this person was telling me to combine the trash from multiple bags or bins into one. Why not just say that, I don’t know—I don’t think they planned on being quoted in a sermon. But that’s what marriage is—whether we’re talking about a Christian or a state or some other-recognized marriage, it is the combining of lives together, “the two shall become one flesh.” If it’s a state-recognized marriage, as we’re typically in the practice of doing, there are benefits and protections that go along with that.

Christian marriage is unique, though. Truly, if we’re tracing all of humanity back to Adam and Eve, it’s quite difficult to say that marriage should be separated from what God instituted to them. Regardless, we do see marriage originally involved a man and a woman, not a same-sex couple. At least a part of that lends itself to procreation or reproduction, that in marriage children can be had and raised. The continuing creation command that God gave to the plants and animals, he gave to Adam and Eve, “‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…’” They needed to do something beautiful and vulnerable with each other to fulfill that command.

We’ve already heard the words of Jesus and from Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, if we are married, we aren’t ordinally to separate, to divorce. As long as both husband and wife are alive, the marriage should continue, “as long as you both shall live” or “to death do us part.” On our wedding day, we make a commitment and promise to our spouse; we give our vows. We wear wedding rings that are to be a symbol of our covenant in Christ. That commitment is to be to one spouse. God never praises taking multiple spouses in marriage. We know a number of godly people married multiple people, but that doesn’t mean they should have or that it was beneficial. When we come to the requirements for elders in the New Testament, they are to be the husband of one wife.

1 Corinthians 7 reveals a variety of virtues for Christian marriage. Looking at verses 3 through 5, we see that marriage ought to involve mutual service, mutual pleasure, and mutual consent. We are not to violate or harm or cause pain to our spouse. We’re not to intentionally sin against them or cause them to sin. It’s not just about sex, but Christian marriage is the appropriate relationship in which to act upon the sexual desires that God created us, men and women, with. Verse 9 attests to the reality that most of us have burning passions, which marriage can satisfy.  

So too, marriage is for the continued sanctification of husband and wife. Paul has much to say, specifically in verses 32 through 34, about devotion to God, “…An [unmarried man, unmarried woman, or virgin] is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he [or she] can please the Lord. But a [married man or woman] is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife [how she can please her husband]—and his interests are divided.” I’m not really able to disagree with how Paul puts that, but it doesn’t take away that married folks are still to please God. I shared a piece of Ephesians 5 with the boys and girls. There in verses 22 through 33, it’s clear the relationship of husband and wife ought to imitate Christ and the church. In submission, in love, in making holy, in feeding and caring for, in respect. We should be glorifying the Lord together in our marriages and families, we should be serving the Lord with our gifts—spiritual, material, financial, relational, together. Our marriages should encourage us in our walk with God; they ought not to divide us or detour us away from him. There’s plenty more that can be said about what Christian marriage ought to include, but we’ll leave it there for now. It’s the coming together of a man and a woman, in a committed relationship, to love another, to express their sexual desires together, to honor each other, and to pursue God and sanctification together.

Our second point picks up on some of that last piece: does everyone have to get married? The biblical answer to that is no. It is okay, it is acceptable, it can be pleasing to God for you not to get married. Paul repeatedly makes the point, “It is good for a man not to marry…I wish that all men were as I am” We heard how the unmarried person can be “free from concern” about other matters and “concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he [or she] can please the Lord.” Paul further encourages in verse 35, “[living] in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.” Based on verses 37 and 38, those who determine they shouldn’t marry a virgin they’re engaged to, can do a right and better thing by not marrying. No engaged person really wants to hear that from their fiancé—but the hard truth is it’s better to determine that prior to marriage.

As difficult as singleness may have been for believers in various parts of the world throughout history, single men and women, who are considering whether to pursue marriage have their own difficulties today. There are who knows how many trashy dating shows on TV right now, promising that people will find love with a stranger. There are numerous dating apps and websites, Christian, lifestyle-oriented, some with and some without any necessarily good or godly intent, just fill out questionnaires so that someone else or some algorithm can match you with someone you’re compatible with. We see friends or siblings dating and getting married, having kids—we want to enjoy the same thing; there must be someone out there for me.

Yet singleness, even when we’re longing for marriage, when we consider ourselves “unable to control ourselves” by the standard of verse 9, is still something we should honor God in. Yes, it’s easy for the married guy to say that—I know—but the apostle Paul knew singleness. He also knew the highly sexualized and pleasure-focused culture that existed in his day. Still, he says, the single person has more freedom to serve God and live for him than the married person.

If you are content being single and celibate, whether that’s for a time until marriage or permanently, then be encouraged that is a good lifestyle. If you are single, but wanting to date and marry, heed the cautions of God’s Word—about who it is appropriate to date and marry, when it is appropriate to act on our human passions, and be patient and selective.

If we look through the laws God gave to the Israelites in the Old Testament, specifically in Leviticus 18 and 20, he made it off-limits to consider sex and from that I think we can also include talk of marriage with animals as well as close relatives. We’re not going to get into that this morning, but among these commands, he also provided penalties. The least severe penalty in some of these instances is that the people involved were given the status of being dishonored; they were to be cast out of the community in their sin. In many cases, though, the penalty God gave was death. I bring that up because that’s the weight God put on his beautiful gifts of sex and marriage.

We see in the Old Testament as well that God did not want the Israelites intermarrying with their ungodly neighbors. It had nothing to do with interracial marriage or crossing ethnic lines, that God didn’t like that. No, it had everything to do with God wanting to keep his holy people walking in his ways—which their neighbors were not. We read in 2 Corinthians 6:14 a warning to “not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” Back in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells those who are married to unbelievers to stick it out, you may have an impact on their salvation, their coming to faith. However, he also says in verse 39, for the woman whose husband dies, “…She is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.” If you are single or widowed and you want to marry, finding a decent person should not be the primary requirement on the checklist. We are called to marry other Christians, because that is what’s best for us and for each other in following the Lord as well as for our children and our families.

We come to our final point now: what should your marriage be about? As I think about our congregation, we have a very diverse group of people when it comes to dating and being married, being widowed, being single, engaged, separated, divorced. I know this application may not be one that we all can easily put into practice in our own lives, but perhaps it’s a word we can speak into the marriages of other believers.

One of the realizations I’ve had throughout my ministry and time doing premarital counseling and officiating weddings is that 99.9% of couples are not thinking about the possibility of divorce on their engagement day or on their wedding day. They’re usually not thinking—“that could be us.” I leave that .1% for those that get cold feet; it’s probably on their minds. But most likely those days are filled only with excitement, with joy, and with hope for what those days entail for their future. Yet somehow in our divorce-happy world, people get bored or tired, they recognize there are some differences, some habits maybe that feel are just too much—it’s not even that the person is bad, it’s just that things could be better. I’m not, today, getting into abusive spouses or how much someone whose spouse is cheating should have to put up with. But we do well to recognize, as I’m sure those of you who are married have, and maybe time and time again, marriage is difficult, it is work. We won’t find everything about our spouse pleasing.

It is doubtful that even if we pursue marriage in the most godly and gracious ways possible, it is doubtful that we’ll never be disappointed by our spouse or ourselves. They’ll say something or not hear something that irritates us to no end. We’ll hear from someone else about the joys of their spouse and marriage in an area where ours might feel underwhelming. We’ll read someone’s social media post or magazine article or book about how sweet or giving their husband or wife is and wish ours would do that or be more like that. We’ll yearn for what we don’t have.

As someone who gives counsel to couples, communicate. If there is something eating you up, that you assume your partner knows because they can read your mind, but they haven’t done anything yet—talk to them, tell them of the ways that you wish you would grow together. But also remember that none of us are perfect—that includes you, that includes your spouse, and we’re all unique. We’re more prone to talk about the things that each of us likes and enjoys. We likely don’t often share too much about the flaws or shortcoming in our relationship or hear about those in the relationships and marriages of our friends. We jump to the conclusion from the good things we hear that all must be perfect. Brothers and sisters, always remember your spouse is not your Savior.

           As we think about and apply what Paul writes, as we think about the other biblical authors inspired by the Holy Spirit, warning against sexual immorality, encouraging towards love, encouraging patience and kindness and graciousness and forgiveness, as we think about purity and contentment and faithfulness---your spouse can’t save you or themselves. They’re not perfect. If you believe you’re marrying a perfect person, please hit the brakes before you go too far.

If marriage images the relationship of Christ and his church, we need to be mindful of how often all of us, men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, single, married, and widowed alike do fail. If left to ourselves, we must be a huge disappointment to God. Yet Christ does what Christ alone can do. While the godly husband can lovingly serve their wife in some ways, they are not Christ. He is the one who purifies, he is the one who forgives and sets free. He’s the one who remains most perfectly faithful when so often we are unfaithful. Let us pursue and encourage godly marriages, Christ-centered marriages, and remember that they are a gift from God. Amen.