THE BOOK OF 1 CORINTHIANS: Navigating Marriage and Singleness with Wisdom
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
If you’re married—anybody that’s married out there? Okay, there’s some of you that I think you’re married, but there’s no hands going up. You’re wondering. Anybody that’s married out there? Okay, I’ve got a message for you. Anybody that’s single this morning? If you’re married, don’t say you’re single, all right? Anybody that’s single? All right, good. I’ve got a message for you. Anybody that’s engaged? I got nothing for you this morning.
So, I think today is kind of our last day for a harder sermon. And so, hopefully next week it can be all ages again. And so, yeah, we’re sweating out, but we obviously want to be faithful to God’s Word, and we want to allow all of God’s Word to speak to us, even when it is hard.
Chapter 6 Recap
Last week, when we looked at chapter 6, there’s kind of a key passage in chapter 6, verse 11—Paul reminds the church that they are washed, that they are sanctified, and that they are justified. And so, through all of this, you know, the Corinthian church, those early believers, they lived a certain way before knowing Christ, and there was a lot of sexual immorality that was going on. Unfortunately, they did bring some of that and that culture and the things that they experienced in their city within the church culture. And so there were some people in the church that was writing to Paul (Paul started this church) and said, “Paul, you founded this church. You got to speak to some of these things that is happening within our church body.” And so throughout this book in 1 Corinthians, we see him addressing some of these challenges that the early church is facing.
And so he reminds them in 1 Corinthians 6—and I want to remind you this morning, if you have given your life to Jesus Christ, guess what?—you are washed, you are sanctified, and you are justified. If you don’t know what that all means, call Christo or see an usher afterwards. All right? All I can say, if you are a believer, these are important truths and part of your identity, of who you are in Christ. And so, you definitely want to figure out what that all means. And just by the way, it’s all good things. Who’s glad this morning that you are washed by the blood of Jesus? Amen. Who’s excited that you are sanctified this morning? Who is excited that you’re justified?
Man, man, man. I’m gonna have to go back to Africa this morning. You guys are just asleep. Okay. You excited this morning about being sanctified? All right, amen, amen. Good. We should be, all right? And it’s a good thing.
And so Paul reminds the church, “Hey, you guys are justified. And the stuff that you used to do, you cannot do this anymore, because you now look differently. You have been called. You’re separated. You’ve been called out. You can’t do the same things, and so the church has got to look a little bit different.”
Topics of Chapter 7
And so this morning, as Paul, again, is addressing this church, there’s some valuable lessons here that we can learn. And so we’re gonna look at singleness. We’re gonna look at being married. We’ll look a little bit at divorce. It’s a big chapter. We will not get through this whole chapter. And so I can’t do verse-by-verse, how we usually do it, because then you’re gonna miss the Vikings game—which is okay, but we have a second service, and they might be mad if we go all the way.
So, when we look at chapter 7 verse 1, it says:
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
All right? So first of all, we’re assuming here that they’re asking Paul a question. All right? So they’ve got several questions here, and now Paul is gonna address some of these things because these early believers are wrestling. There’s a lot of stuff that is happening in their community, and they say, “Okay, what now? How do we live this out in the church? Paul, help us to understand some of these challenges.” And so there’s a group of them that now ask, like, “Okay, should we sustain from sexual intimacy in the context of marriage? Because of what we see in our community, it seems that for us to be holier and more spiritual, that maybe we should sustain from intimacy.”
And Paul is now gonna address some of this, and he’s gonna say, “No, no, no, that’s not the way. That’s not a good way.” And so, we will read about that.
Singleness is a Gift
But before I get into marriage and some more of the juicy stuff, I want to talk about something that I haven’t preached on before. And I think this is important, and I think it’s good for us to talk through some of this stuff, because I don’t hear the church speak on this issue a whole lot. And this morning, I want to talk about singleness for a little bit.
But before I do that, I have a little joke that I’ll share with you. It’s titled “Selfish Dating.”
A young man called his mother and excitedly announced that he had just met the woman of his dreams. His mother said, “Why don’t you send her flowers and invite her to your apartment for a home-cooked meal?”
The day after the big date, his mother called to see how things had gone. “Mom the evening was a complete disaster,” he replied. “It was horrible!”
“Why? Didn’t she come over?” his mother asked.
“Yes, she came over, but she refused to cook!”
Hey, it’s just, that’s online. I didn’t make that joke.
So, singleness. Let’s talk this morning as we look at verse 7. I want you to just kind of scan over verse 7 for me. It says:
I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
This morning we got to look a little closer at singleness, and that it is actually a gift to be single. Okay? A lot of times we don’t see singleness as a gift, right? When you’re single, all you can think of (after you’re 28) is getting married. (I just said that for Hailey.) But no, some of you like, probably like at the age 12, like, “Man I just I can’t wait to get married.” And again, the culture was a little different, but it is—when you are single, you’re excited about getting married, and that’s all you can think of. You think about your wedding day.
I’ve got several couples that I’m walking through now with premarital counseling, and several over the last several years, and it’s like, just the excitement about marriage, and you know, everything that is part of that process.
And then, unfortunately, a lot of times when you’re married, you wish you were single!
And for us to realize again this morning—because I do think that we put a lot of pressure on individuals. There’s kind of in our culture, in our context a lot of times, when somebody is single, we might say, “Well what is wrong with you?” Right? “And when are you getting married?”
And people can experience that as like, “Hey, there is maybe something wrong with me. And why don’t I have a spouse? Why am I still single?”
But Paul is reminding them that singleness is a gift. Singleness is a gift. When you’re single—and we’re gonna look through some of the benefits, and so this morning, if you are single, I want to just tell you and encourage you this morning to say: enjoy this season, because you’re gonna see what that means for you and your relationship with God.
I love this quote by Elizabeth Elliot. She’s a missionary and an author. She says:
“If you are single today, the portion assigned to you for today is singleness. It is God’s gift. Singleness ought not to be viewed as a problem, nor marriage as a right. God in his wisdom and love grants either as a gift.”
And so if you’re single, good for you! Enjoy that season. Don’t be so distracted and just thinking about the next step and “When am I meeting the right guy?” and “When am I gonna get married?” because there’s some things that the Lord wants to develop in you for that season.
Contentment in Singleness
This doesn’t speak to this particular passage, but when we think about singleness, singleness reflects the sufficiency of Christ alone. Philippians 4 verse 11–13 says:
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation […]. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
And so what Paul is speaking to is to say, we have to learn how to be content in the season that we are at. When you’re poor, you want to be rich. Sometimes it’s like, when you’re rich, you’re probably like, “Man, I wish I could go back to the simple days,” right?
And so it’s just this idea, it’s like, “Man, how do I focus my attention on God? How do I make sure that he is enough for me, that it’s not always about pursuing the next thing?”
I mean, for us in our culture, that grass always looks greener on the other side. Right? You can look at your own life and feel like, “Man I am just falling short, and I don’t have this, and I don’t have that, and my marriage is looking this way,” or, “I’m single. All my friends are going out to dates, and they’re doing this, and they’re doing that,” and then we miss out on the season that we’re in, and to find ourselves in a place to say, “Okay, God. I want to be content with you. Teach me what it means to be content with you with all of the stuff that I have in my life right now, or even the stuff that I don’t have.” Right?
It’s like, I would love to be on a beach in Florida, have a house with a view of the ocean, right? But we’re here. I’m just like, I’m not going anywhere. Barb already said I need to come back to Fairmont. I’m not going anywhere, right? It’s like, no, we got to be content in this moment. It’s like, are we content with what God has in front of us?
Advantages of Singleness
Paul teaches that unmarried individuals can devote more attention and energy to serving the Lord without distractions. When you’re single, you have more time, right? And Paul is teaching us/individuals to say, man, enjoy that season, because you just have more energy, and there’s less distractions. I mean, you get to experience—when you have kids, and when life is busy and everything that’s going on, you just can’t do ministry in the same way than when you have kids, right? And you might even have desires and different things and things that you want to do, but we know that our ministry is to our family first, and so there’s a different responsibility. And then to say, “Well I’m on a place where I can do more things being unmarried, so instead of me trying to pursue all of these other relationships, how can God use me right now? What can I do with this extra time and resources that I have for the Kingdom of God?”
Singleness allows—and you can look at verse 28—singleness allows freedom from earthly troubles. Now here’s the reality: even if you’re single, you will still experience trouble, right? We all experience trouble in this world. If you’re single or if you’re married, you experience trouble. But there is less trouble (probably) if you’re single! That’s just the reality. You don’t have to deal with sick kids and all kinds of different things that is going on in the life of a family. And so just like, “Hey, how do I appreciate maybe the simpleness of life in this moment?”
Singleness allows for undivided devotion to God. I want you to actually see this, because I think this is kind of the key message for us when it comes to singleness and what Paul is trying to communicate. So turn your Bible to chapter 7, verse 35.
I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to God.
If you are single and you have some extra time, it is not to lose all of those extra time on social media or on gaming, on all kinds of other things that might keep you busy. Part of the gift of being single is that you actually have time to spend time with God. Can I hear an amen? And so even then for us, our role as a church, when we see single people, right, not to maybe put the pressure on them about getting married, but to encourage them and to come alongside of them to say, “Man, you are in such a sweet season of your life right now where you get to really connect with God.”
I wish I heard this message before, because I feel in a sense that I missed even a deeper opportunity to have spent time with the Lord. And I remember, just before I met Venessa—I’ve shared this with you in previous sermons and stuff—before I met with Venessa and kind of knew I was going into full-time ministry, I was about ready to graduate from Bible school—I took about a year to fast and to pray for my wife. And that was really—it was a tough year, because I love to be with people. I don’t like myself that much that I want to be by myself alone. And so I was praying for my future spouse, and it was hard, but it was a sweet season. And it was a season where the Lord was able to work on me and to sort out some stuff. Venessa might say, “Oh, you needed another ten years,” right? Because there’s a lot on things that the Lord is still working out in my life.
A lot of times, when we’re single, we can so hope for being married that we miss out on this time with the Lord and the work that the Lord wants to do in our life. Because if you are unhappy as a single person, there’s a good chance you’re gonna be unhappy even being married. If you’re dealing with all kinds of brokenness—in my premarital counseling, there’s a chapter, and we look at all the wrong reasons to get married. And so usually the couples will answer that correctly. It’s like, “Are you mad at your parents? That’s why you’re getting married, right?” Or, “Are you mad at this, and this is why you’re getting married, to spite your parents,” or whatever it might be. None of those things are good reasons to get married. And so singleness allows us to figure out that time with the Lord and to say, “How do I work on my spiritual life so that I can show up as my best version when I get married?” Amen?
You guys are very quiet. We’re not even with the tough stuff yet.
Enjoy Your Season
And so enjoy—I want to just encourage those that are single, enjoy the season. Don’t waste this moment if that’s where you are at. Even if you’re in high school, right, and as you think about just praying for your spouse, and you think about marriage and college and all of those things, you will experience the pressure of getting married. But to keep asking yourself like, “Man, am I tapping into everything that the Lord has for me in this stage of my life?” Don’t waste that moment. Because just look verse 29—and this is now true for all of us. It says:
What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
And so what Paul is saying, when we think about our season—either if you’re single, if you’re married, or you’re just engaged—enjoy this moment. Make life count, because life is short. This world will come to an end, right, and just even thinking about my life this week and some areas that I have messed up, and there’s some things that I would love to have a do-over, a mulligan on, right, and we don’t have that opportunity.
And we know that life is full of brokenness. You have experienced all kinds of brokenness. You’ve experienced brokenness in your family growing up as a kid; you probably have experienced brokenness in different relationships; you’ve experienced brokenness in your marriage; there’s just a lot of stuff that life throws at us, but to say, “What do I do with all of that in this moment?” We can’t go back; we can only be in this moment right now, and we can only look forward and say, “This world is gonna come to an end.” And what are we doing with the relationships and with the ministries that the Lord has given us right now? How do we make it count right now? Don’t wait for tomorrow to fix relationships. As far as it is in your control, let’s work on stuff, right, and to say, “I want to change my tomorrow. I can’t change my past, but I can change my tomorrow and the future when it comes to some of these things.”
Marriage Covenant
Now, when it comes—now Paul is speaking a little bit on marriage here (he actually speaks a lot on marriage), and he talks a little bit about the covenant—and again, when it comes to premarital counseling, usually within that first several chapters I will ask the couple that’s thinking about getting married, say, “Do you see marriage as an agreement or a covenant?” And so then there’s some questions around that, and unfortunately, a lot of times in the church, we don’t see marriage as a covenant anymore. We think that it’s just a piece of paper, and then when we get divorced, we think, “Oh, it’s not a big deal. We got away with it.” In all reality, when we think about covenant, yes, we might break that piece of paper when it comes to marriage, but a covenant is a sacred binding promise made before God. When you say, “Yes,” when you stand in front of that church and in front of the pastor, whoever is marrying you, it is you, your spouse, and God, and you’re making a covenant with God, right? And so divorce is a big deal.
And so Paul, in this passage he is gonna give us some reasons for divorce. I will probably not have all the time for that right now to go through that. I want to encourage you to read through this passage. And we just know that there is divorce within in the churches. And I’ll get back here a little bit to divorce, but I want to address maybe a little bit more of the juicy pieces that we see in chapter 7 that I think is also important for us to talk through.
Verse 4. Actually, let’s start in verse 2.
But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
Now again, as we talk about singleness, it’s a gift. Guess what? Marriage is a wonderful gift! Now I need to hear a loud “Amen!” Especially Venessa, amen? She’ll be taking me for lunch afterwards.
And Paul is now giving some godly wisdom here, inspired by the Holy Spirit, as they look at marriage. And again, the context is that there’s a lot of stuff that’s happening in their city, and they’re trying to address some of this within the church, and I think there’s a lot of application here for us as well within our marriages.
Sexual Intimacy
Now I’ll make it uncomfortable for the sake for your marriage. We know, especially if you have been married for a long time, that the sexual intimacy is not the priority anymore in marriage. But Paul reminds us that it is an important aspect, and I think when we’re having honest conversation and we see what is happening in our world and with so many Christian leaders—and just “Christian leaders,” I’m saying that there’s way more in the secular world that falls for temptation. Obviously when it comes to popular or well-known Christian leaders, the media loves to highlight those things through social media. But we see that the enemy is still at work, especially in this area. Because sexual desires—it is a big topic in the church; it’s a big topic outside of the church; and we have to learn, how do we use wisdom? How do we get comfortable in the context of marriage and in the context of church to have healthy conversation around this so that we can actually have healthy marriages?
Unfortunately, I believe that for a long time the church did not address some of these things, and people did not know where to go and how to address some of these things. And then a lot of times we will go to the wrong resources to look for advice, and it’s not biblical advice, and then we end up in trouble again.
And so what Paul is saying, he says, “If you are married,”—okay, hold on to your seats—“enjoy sex.” All right? Enjoy it. It is a gift! It is beautiful. It is a blessing. And there’s the warning to say, “Don’t use sex as a weapon.” It says, “Your body doesn’t belong to you. Your body belongs to your spouse.” Husbands, your body belongs to your wife. Wives, your body belongs to your husband. And it is there to serve one another and for enjoyment and for unity, because it is truly a beautiful, spiritual experience.
And he says, “But if you’re not gonna have sexual intimacy, then you have to consent and have conversation about why you’re stopping it for a certain time,” and it’s maybe for prayer or fasting, right, and then to say, “Okay this is how long we’re not gonna have intimacy. But we will come back.” It can’t be for a long period of time, and then he tells us, he says, “Why is this important to have this conversation? Why is it important to have regular sexual intimacy? Because we are selfish, because we have fleshly desires,” and then here’s the key piece what Paul is talking about: he says, “So that Satan can’t tempt you.” There’s a responsibility on all of us in the context of marriage to say, “I gotta protect this intimacy. My body is not just my body; it belongs to my spouse, and for the sake in a sense also so that nobody gets into sexual temptation, I want to have him experience the beauty of our unity in the context of marriage.”
and so I can’t speak—not a lot of people are coming to me with some of the sexual challenges, but there’s enough conversation with men and different challenges that I know that this is an area of brokenness for us. Last week we said a lot of times we can talk about human sexuality and different things, things that we like to point fingers at, and Paul is highlighting several things, and we said we get into trouble when the sexual relationship at home isn’t healthy, then we sometimes go and try and find our fix. This is not the only reason, but then we go to pornography. And the Greek word that you actually read throughout 1 Corinthians is porneo, and it covers a whole range of sexual sin. And it is a big deal, and people were seeing this as a big deal in the church, and it’s still a big deal for us in the local church as well, because we are broken people, but God calls us out to say, “Man, there’s got to be a different standard.” We can’t allow the sexual immorality within the church. For those that have been washed, those that have been sanctified, and those that have been justified, let’s get this healthy, because there’s a lot at stake in this area.
And so I want to encourage you, as you look at your own marriage and in this area, have conversation. “How is it going in this specific area? What do I do as a spouse to make sure I keep that flame going,” right, “and that things are healthy, and that Satan doesn’t an open door in our relationships.”
Divorce
Now, like I said, there is many reasons for divorce. All right? We know that divorce is not God’s desire for the church. But life happens. There’s probably several of you, and you have your own story and different reasons and things that you have experienced, and I just want you to know today that there’s no judgment from me or from this church this morning. We deal with brokenness. Things happen. Is it God’s will? No. He’s got a plan for marriage. It’s a covenant, and you gotta go and read the rest of that chapter again on divorce and when can you get remarried and stay single. But all I know is, when you experience divorce—and Venessa and I have experienced this in our own families and the failures and the pain—there is a lot of brokenness; you experience failure; there’s guilt and regret; there’s shame; and there’s anger. We acknowledge that. I want to acknowledge that. It’s like, I don’t care how long you have been divorced, but you probably still experience some of this stuff, because it’s painful. It is painful. And we stand with you this morning. It doesn’t make it right, but we want to change that culture. We can’t change the culture in the world, but we can start to change the culture in our church, right, and to say, “We know that marriage is a covenant. I can’t go back to my past,” but if you’re married right now and if you’re remarried and you’re thinking about marriage, to say, “I want to do it differently. It is not just a piece of paper, it’s a covenant with God, and I’m gonna do everything that I can to make this marriage succeed.”
And so this morning, even if you have experienced divorce and that brokenness in your life, there is hope. Psalm chapter 4 verse 34 [Editor’s note: Psalm 34:18] says:
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
1 John 1 verse 9:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Conclusion
Now again, I want to just say, man, we’re all guilty. We all have brokenness that we experience in our lives, and we pray that the Holy Spirit will bring healing. At Salem, we want to be a healthy church body. We want to see healthy marriages, and we know that it’s hard. And so, get help; reach out; don’t suffer in silence. Your marriage is worth it. If you have to spend money on counseling or on retreats, do it. Go for it. Don’t wait until it’s too late. And I know there’s a lot of, you know, secrets. Like, it’s easier for us to think this morning, when we look at all of these beautiful faces and you think, “Oh man, everyone’s marriage here is perfect. They got it all sorted out,” and maybe inside you go, “Man I’m struggling at home, my marriage.” I can assure you, you’re not the only one, and you’re not the only one in Duluth. A lot of that is going on. But find help; reach out; restore your marriage. God cares about your marriage. He loves your marriage, and he can do a miracle.
Then I close with this: whether married or single, each season is a gift from God. Cherish where you are and live it fully with joy and gratitude. Enjoy it fully. Enjoy your marriage; enjoy your singleness. God is good. Amen?
