Sermon Tone Analysis

Scriptural Text: 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Introduction

Types of people in the rooms

Folks that have been impacted by divorce

Those who you love have experienced a divorce

You yourself have experienced a dirov

Exposition of 1 Corinthians 7:10-16

Last week we turned our attention to issues that it seems the Corinthians actually wrote Paul about in an earlier letter because in this chapter, he turns his attention to those issues beginning with the words, “NOW CONCERNING THE MATTERS ABOUT WHICH YOU WROTE”

Right out of the gate Paul starts with marriage…Not sure why he started there in this moment in history with this church.

If they were anything like us, then he would have started there because the institution of marriage was under such FIERCE ATTACK from EVERY SINGLE SIDE!

Paul begins his response to their letter by responding to their statement we find in verse 1: “It is not good for man to touch a woman.”

Last Sunday, we discussed a few possible ways this kind of thinking could have been showing up in the Corinthian church

One way was in an over-exaggerated preference to sexual celibacy and abstinence.

Single people resisting marriage not because they didn’t long for those relationships but because they had began to view sexual relationships even in marriage as a burden to be avoided.

Also, married people who were withholding sexual intimacy from one another even though it was given to them by God as a gift to be enjoyed for their satisfaction, union, and even their sanctification.

In verse 7 Paul gives his response to this way of thinking:

Paul in his own way is arguing that...

If God has gifted you in lifelong singleness then embrace singleness...

If God has gifted you in such a way where you treasure a spouse and family, then you don’t have to apologize for that.

But whether it’s a life of singleness or a married life you desire, remember that Christ is ULTIMATE not your marital status and He is sufficient no matter where you may find yourself.

In other words, the GIFT has a GIVER and that is where our ultimate HOPE must rest.

However, this was not the only dangerous misunderstanding threatening marriage in Corinth.

The threat of DIVORCE appears to have also been significant.

Christians divorcing Christians and Christians divorcing unbelievers.

Quick Side Note: Notice that in a society captive to sexual immorality, divorce is also going to be an issue to confront.

Now, of course, hypersexuality isn’t the ONLY ISSUE driving divorce.

The misunderstandings around success, the struggles with emotional healthiness, and the unhealthy esteeming of my own personal happiness as the ultimate value above everything else are a few other factors driving our struggles to maintain good marriages

However, make no mistake about it, a society so overwhelmed with sexual immorality that it unknowingly influences and shapes our ideas, philosophies, preferences, and imagery is most certainly going to also NATURALLY struggle with divorce

Because with the increase of sexual immorality and sexual misunderstanding in a culture comes without failure, the devaluing of marriage and the objectifying of the sexes as things to be mishandled rather than gifts to be cherished for the glory of God.

A over-sexualized culture will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be a divorcing culture and a non-marrying culture because when sex is taken out of its context of God-glorifying, Christ-centered, Self-Sacrificing marriage, the whole experience is diminished and devalued, and attitudes like if I’m not happy then we shouldn’t be together or if I’m not satisfied we can’t be together began to run wild!

Just think about how much influence social media, TV sitcoms, movies, talk shows, and just celebrities in regular life seem to have over our sexual ideas and philosophies!

So much so to the point we totally reshape our marriage beds BEFORE WE EVER GET IN THEM by bringing all those experiences into the marriage bed with us!

[ILLUSTRATION] Even committed Christians are out here professing their love for Christ while declaring that it’s OK to experience sex with a person you’re dating so you can determine whether it’s good and you’re compatible.

But Saints of God that is not influenced by the bible…that’s influenced by this world...

HONESTLY SPEAKING, if we weren’t so inundated with so many ungodly expectations of sex by our culture and our own unhealthy and sinful experiences, whether those experiences came through our own sin or even more tragically whether they came through someone else’s sin upon us in some form of abuse, our ability to experience intimacy together with our spouse wouldn’t be nearly as challenging and difficult.

SEX in marriage is in part war because of our war with the flesh, the world, and the devil outside of marriage before and sometimes even during our marriage.

You see, God-GLORIFYING, Christ-CENTERED, Self-SACRIFICING Marital sex was intended to be a unique experience with few impressions from the outside world!

It was intended to be a fresh and vibrant discovery between two God-fearing people, an experience constantly evolving as the spouses invest in one another, learning to give up their own will for the will of the other even in marriage bed.

It was created as an experience for two spouses to enjoy ALONE with their own experiences together being the primary means they used to grow and deepen that intimacy.

Obviously, that is not our culture and as a result this is at least one problem we face in our fight to keep marriages good and healthy.

A sexualized culture will always be a non-marrying and divorcing culture.

Corinth was a sexualized culture/predominant American culture is a sexualized culture.

So, no surprise that divorce is running rampant in both settings, and this is where our text picks up…

Paul offers instruction about divorce to two separate groups of people.

I want to start by identifying these two groups.

Identifying the two audiences

Paul says in V10 “To the married”...

So, there’s our 1st group: married people.

Easy enough...

However, in verse 12, Paul gives us a SUBGROUP as the 2nd group:

He says “To the rest I say (I, not the Lord)…” who’s the rest?

It continues “That if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever,” V13 says “if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever”.

So, we have two groups now.

MARRIED FOLKS and then a subgroup of MARRIED FOLKS, The Rest” - MARRIED believers who have spouses who are not believers.

Here’s a quick question: Why does Paul feel the need to distinguish?

In verse 10 he addresses the “married couple” both husband and wife because they are both Christians, but in verse 12, he directs his attention to the believing spouses who are married to unbelievers.

WHY?

Because Paul doesn’t spend his time addressing UNBELIEVERS about the CONDUCT BELIEVERS ARE CALLED TO.

He’s not giving guidance to NON-CHRISTIANS on how to live out the CHRISTIAN LIFE.

Here’s another question: Does he believe unbelievers are incapable of honoring their spouses and treating them faithfully?

OF COURSE NOT!

So what is going on here...

This is not about Paul being an elitist.

Rather, it gets at one of the things I talked about last week.

When you talk about marriage, when you talk about giving yourself away in the most vulnerable ways possible, when you talk about fighting tooth and nail to stay together.

Paul is saying there is something that is separating you from the unbeliever: YOUR MOTIVATION and YOUR POWER.

The deepest motivation to stay in our marriages should be to serve and honor the one who died for me.

UNBELIEVERS don’t have that.

The deepest source of power to stay in our marriages, should be the Holy Spirit who lives on the inside of you to comfort you and give you power to stand.

UNBELIEVERS don’t have that source of power to pull from in the hardest moments of their marriage.

When Paul calls us to stay, the Gospel and Spirit are at the forefront of his mind as the two primary means by which the staying is going to happen.

This is what should distinguish the Christian in marriage from any other being in marriage.

A REAL GOSPEL that changes how WE SEE EVERYTHING in LIFE including our MARRIAGES and A REAL SPIRIT at work in us to change our ability to endure in ANY of LIFE including our MARRIAGES.

Is this Gospel shaping you in this way?

Is the Spirit shaping you in this way?

Paul assumes that it is which is why he is addressing only those who have this Gospel and who have this Spirit.

So, we have our two audiences.

“The Married” are the Christian couples and “the rest” are the Christian spouses in marital unions with unbelievers.

Now, let’s deal with each group...

To the married (v10 - 11)

Let’s deal with a couple of quick statements in this text:

1) “The wife should not separate from her husband.”

What does Paul mean by SEPARATE?

He does not mean what we mean?

For Paul, Separation and Divorce are the same thing.

Separation in 1 Corinthians 7 is a termination of the marriage.

Not just a decision to spend some time apart in order to sort things out.

In fact the Bible doesn’t have much to say on that topic, and it is one that should not be hastily made and should probably have good, godly, and emotionally healthy counsel involved in it

2) “if she does she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband” What should we take from Paul’s encouragement towards RECONCILIATION?

Most marriages in our culture that end in divorce are typically considered final and irreparable, but Paul says in a case of no-reason/no-fault divorce amongst committed Christians.

Another marriage shouldn’t even be on the mind of the divorcing party unless it is a desire to reconcile and remarry.

Unlike the culture, Paul sees RECONCILIATION as a REAL Option post divorce.

3) Paul makes this statement that deserves our attention: “Not I, but the Lord” What does he mean by it?

Paul is saying that when talking about marriage among believers.

The Lord has gave us particular instruction before he departed.

Matt 5:32; 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18

The Flow of Matthew 19:3-9 – The way Jesus answers the question presented to him by the Pharisees in such a way that Sexual Immorality is the last out!

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

6 So they are no longer two but one flesh.

What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”