The Beauty of Marriage

Transcript

I’ve not had the chance to meet you. My name is Greg Taylor. I serve as one of the lay pastors here. This morning, we’re going to continue in our 1 Corinthians series. We’re up to the 12th sermon out of 33. So that’ll give you a kind of guide to where we are — about 35% through the series. So if you would, please open up your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 7. And I am going to read verses 1 to 16. If you didn’t bring a Bible with you this morning, there should be one under the seat in front of you. This text is going to be found on page 898. I realize you just sat down, but if I could ask you to please stand for the reading of the Word of God. Okay, hear now God’s Word to you this morning. 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? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Let’s pray together and ask the Lord for his help. Father and our God, we humbly approach this text this morning knowing full well that we need the Holy Spirit’s help to take in all that is here, to listen well, to learn, and then to be able to put into practice what you would have for us to do in order to be more obedient and Christ-like, that we may grow in greater Christian maturity. Oh God, fill us with the Holy Spirit and illumine these scriptures to our minds.

Christians Married

God please help my words to be clear, to be biblical, and to be sensitive knowing that these are very important and difficult and even sometimes awkward things to approach. And God, we indeed love you. We pray humbly before your throne of grace. And we ask this all in the name of our great Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. In the city of Corinth, there was a young married couple named Vetus and Julia. They were members of the early Christian community there. And they were trying, as many couples were, to navigate some of the Christian teaching and practices under the guidance of the Apostle Paul. Some members of the church had come to wrongly believe that abstinence in marriage was a way to achieve greater spiritual purity and closeness to God. This left Vetus and Julia confused until one evening they attended a study in the home of Gallus and heard the words of the latest letter sent to the church by the Apostle Paul.

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 should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Later that evening back at home, Vetus and Julia discussed what they had heard. Julia felt confused. Does this mean that we should no longer be intimate, Vetus? Vetus pondered and carefully answered his wife and said, well, Paul says it’s better to marry than to burn with passion. Perhaps he means it’s good to focus on our spiritual lives, but he also said married couples should not deprive each other, except by a mutual consent for a time of prayer. Well seeking more clarity, Vetus and Julia visited with one of their elders. The elder explained, he said Paul’s letter emphasizes that while celibacy is good for

those who can accept it, marriage is equally honorable. Couples should not sexually deprive one another, except for agreed upon periods to devote themselves to prayer, but then come together again to avoid temptation. Well this brought great relief to Vetus and Julia as they prayed together, as they asked God for his wisdom. And they decided to maintain a loving and supportive relationship, including physical intimacy, seeing it as part of their God-given bond. They agreed to communicate openly about their needs and to support each other in their spiritual journey. Vetus and Julia found a balance honoring both their spiritual commitments and their marital commitments. And they shared their experience with other couples in the community, promoting understanding and harmony in marriage as Paul had intended. Well this is the essence of Paul’s teaching here in 1 Corinthians 7. And Paul is answering questions that he received from the Corinthians in a letter that they’d

sent him, centered mostly around the marital relationship and sex, singleness, and divorce. Paul encourages them to live the life for which God has gifted them, and to avoid falling into temptation. Now this section is not a comprehensive treatment on the subject of marriage and divorce, but rather it was written to help the Corinthians with questions they had, and to better understand what we would call the Christian sexual ethic, especially as it related to marriage and divorce. Now we saw this last week in chapter 6, that some of the Corinthians were refusing to live as Christians are commanded to live, and instead were continuing to live like pagans. And at the close of chapter 6, Paul said, glorify God in your body. Some thought the body was of no importance, which Thomas unpacked for us last week, when now Paul begins to correct their wrong views on sex, divorce, and marriage.

Getting Our Ethics from Scripture

So I’ll ask you the question this morning, where should Christians go to find answers to the questions that arise in our relationships, especially as it relates to important things like sex and marriage and divorce? Well we as Christians, we must get our ethics about these things from scripture, not from the culture. We often fall into the trap, and it is a trap, of formulating our ethics and practices in these areas from the world. We see what’s happening in the culture around us, and it negatively influences our thoughts and practices in this area if we’re not very careful. We live in and are inundated with a hyper-sexualized culture that is opposed to the Christian sexual ethic on just about every level. Now the Corinthians were bringing their previous pagan baggage with them into the church, and it is now Paul’s goal to give them the correction they need so that they may live in a way that

is pleasing to Christ, and that they may live according to the scriptures. In our text this morning, we’re going to see that Paul’s teaching is primarily directed toward Christians in one of three situations. Christians that are married to another Christian, Christians who are single, and Christians that are married to an unbeliever. And I’ve divided our text this morning into four parts to help us unpack this. Our first section will look at Christians married, and that’s going to be verses 1-5. Second section, we’ll look at Christian singles, verses 6-9. Thirdly we’ll look at Christian divorce, and that’s going to be verses 10-15. And then fourthly and last, we’ll look at Christian patients in verse 16. So let’s dig into our first section this morning, Christians married. Look at verse 1 with me. 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. So here Paul is beginning to answer the Corinthians’ question of whether it was a good thing for a married couple to abstain from sexual intimacy. There were two cliffs that the Corinthians had fallen off in this area. One we saw last week was into sexual immorality. There were people in this church who had come to Christ and they were still living the same way they did before coming to Christ. It was very common in their culture for men to have extramarital relations in this culture. Prostitution was very common, and it often went along with some very other sinful practices in the area of temple worship. So Christianity bursts onto the scene in a place like Corinth, and these new believers

had to now be taught the Christian sexual ethic. And that’s what Paul is doing in this letter. Now remember two weeks ago, when Alex preached for us, in chapter 6 verses 9 and 10, he said to them, such were some of you, and this was in relation to the sinful identities that are listed in verses 9 and 10 there. And then last week Paul taught them about why they must abstain from sexual immorality, and that was in verses 13 to 20. Now the second cliff they had fallen off was that of asceticism, or people who identified as ascetics. According to one theological dictionary, ascetics are people who renounce worldly pleasures that distract from spiritual growth and enlightenment. They live a life of abstinence, austerity, and extreme self-denial. This is common in Hinduism. These ascetics were saying that it was a more spiritual way to live to completely avoid

sexual intimacy even within a marriage. And Paul gets right to the point in chapter 2 to refute this. Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband. Just as Corinth was a hotbed for sexual temptation, our culture is full of this kind of temptation. So this is really applicable for us this morning. Look now at verse 3 with me. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 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. So sex in marriage should be exclusive, it should be other-oriented, it should be regular, and it should be for God’s glory. Notice here these verses are talking about the exclusivity of sex in marriage between

one husband, one wife. There is a mutual fulfillment of sexual needs and desires that marriage is meant for. It is to be by each other, for each other, and only with each other. And both husband and wife have authority over each other, and they owe it to each other to fulfill this conjugal duty. Sex is such a powerful thing to the human. It unites two people into one body, we heard last week. This is why God put boundaries around it. It is to only be within a marriage. And it is a beautiful gift from God that should be cherished and should be viewed as a privilege and a blessing. Notice that sex in marriage should be other-oriented. Both husband and wife have mutuality and authority. Listen to this quote from Tim and Kathy Keller in their book, The Meaning of Marriage. Quote, Indeed, sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire

self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you. Now verse four is one of those verses that has sometimes been misapplied and misused to abuse or mistreat women. But it is clearly mutual in its application. And let me say that if a husband is loving his wife as Christ loves the church, which is commanded in Ephesians 5 and also Colossians 3, he will be careful. He will be gentle in his approach to sex and the marriage. Listen to Peter’s admonition to husbands. Likewise husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Men your wife is to be treated like an equal partner with the greatest respect and gentleness,

because you are joint heirs of the grace of life. Now for the women that are here this morning that are not married, you’re single and you desire marriage, let me say to you that this is what you should be looking for. You’re considering a man to marry. He should be loving and serving Jesus Christ first and foremost. Can you see that if you marry this man, he’s doing that and you will be joint heirs of the grace of life? Is he respectful? Is he gentle? Is he seeing you and treating you as an equal partner? Because it will always be better to wait for a different man to marry than it will be to marry a bad one. Notice here that sex in marriage is to be regular. Look with me at verse 5 again. 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. So it is out of the ordinary for a married couple to not be engaged in a regular cadence of sexual intimacy. Now to abstain for a season of prayer might be necessary for a particular difficult season you’re going through. This can also be for reasons of health, age, distance, but it should be primarily to draw near to the Lord for a season. And notice the satanic temptation that is lurking for the couple that is not mutually engaged in sexual intimacy. Paul says don’t do this because of your lack of self-control. Now when this happens that there must be a season of abstinence in a marriage, it’s going to require some good communication. It’s going to require some finesse to work through. So I’ll ask the married couples here this morning, how are you doing with this very

important part of your marriage? When’s the last time someone asked you that question? Do you withhold intimacy as a weapon in your marriage? Or do you require too much of your spouse in the marriage? Or maybe you’ve had a warped view of what this is supposed to look like. I would encourage you, don’t be afraid to talk about this. Take some time and get with your partner and talk about this aspect of your marriage. Find out how you are both feeling about this part of your marriage. It’s really easy to gloss over this thing and just to keep moving in the same direction that you’ve been moving. But ignoring an issue won’t make it go away. Add this topic to your check-ins the same as you would talking about your parenting or talking about your vacations or your money or your kids or your date nights.

This should be something you regularly discuss and have good communication around. This is too important to ignore. Now lastly in this section, sex in marriage is to be God-glorifying. Right before we got into this chapter in 6, chapter 6 verse 20, Paul said you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body. The author of Hebrews in chapter 13 takes this one little imperative that’s kind of sandwiched in between some other ones. He says this, he says, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. It is glorifying to God when a married couple maintains biblical bounds for sex within their marriage. So sex in marriage should be exclusive, regular, other-oriented, and glorifying to God. It should be viewed as his gift to both husband and wife as well as for a defense against

Christian Singles

temptation and as a way of staying close to one another. Don’t be afraid to make this a priority and talk about it. And for those of you who have busy schedules and children, which is most of you that are married here, plan for it. Do you plan for it? Waiting around for spontaneous intimacy to happen when people are tired and busy is not optimal. Intimacy is best maintained in practice like this when it is thoughtfully planned out. Now let’s look at our next section, Christian singles. Look with me at verse 6. 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. Well, what Paul is saying here when he says that he wishes that all were as he is, that’s a reference to Paul being not married, being single. And he’s not just saying that he’s single, he’s saying that he’s not burning with sexual desires and in need of finding a wife. Many commentators believe that Paul was married at one time. The reasoning behind that is that we know Paul was a rabbi, he was trained by Gamaliel, and virtually all rabbis were married, so it is pretty likely that he knew a thing or two about marriage. Paul was also totally devoted to serving Christ. We know that Paul worked as a tentmaker to supply for his needs, but beyond that, everything he did was for the sole purpose of serving God.

Traveling around, preaching the gospel, following up with the many churches he’d planted. Imagine, I’m sure you’ve all read the book of Acts, imagine trying to do what Paul did, being married and having a family. It would have been a massive struggle. And that’s why this was a gift from the Lord that Paul was single, at least in this particular season of his life in ministry. Now Paul is not commanding singleness. He’s saying it’s a better position for the purposes of undivided devotion to the Lord and attention to kingdom work. But notice Paul says each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. This means there are people who have been gifted to remain single in service to the Lord either for a season or in some cases for life. But it isn’t commanded, it is gifted. Later in the chapter, Paul is going to reiterate the position of singleness being superior,

yet he also then says, if you marry, you have not sinned. Much like what we saw in the earlier verses about maintaining consistent, healthy sexual intimacy inside the marriage, the state of marriage can be a buffer against this sexual desire, this burning with passion, Paul calls it. Now this should not be the only motivation for marriage. Marriage for Christians should always be with a mindset toward loving one another, serving the Lord together in a loving and godly partnership that seeks to glorify Christ, because marriage itself is a metaphor for Christ and the church. So Christian singles need to be able to focus on what a gift it is that God has given them for his glory and for their service to him, knowing that it is not a matter of sin if a person stays single or if a person marries. And let me say too, you should think of this as a gift from God if you are married, that

Christian Divorce

the husband or the wife God has given you is one of the greatest gifts he has given to you. And so back now with married couples in mind, let’s look at our third section, Christian divorce. Look at verse 10 with me. 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. Now this is Paul emphasizing to the Corinthians that divorce within the context of Christianity had to be for a cause. There were limitations placed on divorce by God. Paul does not give the Corinthians an exhaustive teaching on divorce here, and what he is really trying to do is primarily urge them to stay married. This is because divorce was easy, common in this culture, much like it is in our own.

So what I want to do now is take a little rabbit, go down a little bit of a rabbit hole and let’s talk about the three main conditions that can lead to what I am calling a biblical cause divorce. So let’s look at Matthew 19 for a moment. I’m going to read verses 7 to 9. They said to him — here are the Pharisees speaking, and the Pharisees had set up any cause divorce. There was a pithy little phrase that the rabbis used to use that if the woman burned his dinner he could divorce her. That’s how ridiculous it was. And they said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce to send her away? Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so.

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. So here is the first cause. We know from Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees and in other Gospels that divorce was acceptable when adultery had occurred. Let me say that it was permitted, not required. There is a difference. The person who was sinned against is the one who decides if they can continue in the marriage when that covenant has been broken. Now let’s look at the second one. We’re going to flip back to the Old Testament, to Exodus 21. And I’m going to read verses 10 and 11. Here we have what is called case law. Rabbis would have applied this law not just to slave wives living under polygamy, as is in our text, but also for free wives living under monogamy. It would also apply to husbands.

Verse 10 of Exodus 21. If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. If he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing without payment of money. David Instone-Brewer has done a lot of research in this area, and he says this about the case law. Quote, the rabbis reasoned that if a slave wife had the right to divorce a husband who neglected to supply food, clothing, and conjugal love, then a free wife would certainly also have this right. And they argued that if one of two wives had this right, so did an only wife. Furthermore, if a wife had these rights, then a husband was also entitled to divorce a wife who neglected him. The biblical principle that is established, therefore, is the right of someone to divorce

their partner if they neglect their vow to provide food, clothing, or conjugal love. This is the biblical case, biblical basis in our culture that sometimes, emphasis on the word sometimes, allows for a divorce to occur when a spouse has been severely neglected or abused. Now not all churches would agree with this, but I think it is certainly worth considering and leaving room for, especially when we think about history, and we think about the fact that throughout history there have been many times that women were treated in ways that were shameful and not to be tolerated, and then told by the church that they must stay married to such a man in such a condition. Now this could also be abused, this could also be used to allow for some sort of easy divorce that weakens Christian marriage. And let me just say this about the whole thing, friends, it is a very, very difficult thing

when two people reach a place in their marriage that it is so badly broken that this option is even considered. And this requires patience, wisdom, receiving good counsel from pastors and from godly mature Christians who can speak into this kind of situation. Ultimately we must say that God designed marriage to be for life. Now let’s look at our third case, which is here in our text this morning. Look at verse 12 with me. 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. So this scenario was happening a lot in Corinth, as well as in other Gentile nations where the gospel had gone out. One spouse became a believer, one spouse did not. I have a very old friend that helped disciple me when I was a young Christian many years ago, and he lived this exact scenario when he was much younger. He and his wife were invited to go to literally a gospel tent revival, like something you see out of old black and white Billy Graham films. It was a hot summer night in the late 1970s, and after hearing of what I would call a classical evangelical gospel homily, the evangelist did an altar call, strongly urged people to

come forward and give their lives to Jesus, pray a prayer and ask Jesus into their heart. My friend Dan felt absolutely captivated to get up, and he told me one time, he said, Greg, I practically ran to that altar. Now his wife, Kelly, she followed him and somewhat reluctantly joined him in giving their lives to Christ. Several weeks later, as the weekend was approaching, she mentioned that they were supposed to go out on the town with some friends. Well for them, they were quite the partiers. This meant going to a local honky-tonk club and drinking and dancing until late in the night. But Dan’s feeling to himself now like, I don’t know if we should be doing this anymore now that we’re Christians. He had been devouring this little New Testament they gave him at the revival. He mentioned this to Kelly, you know, he said, I don’t think we should do that anymore.

I don’t think we’re supposed to live like that now. Kelly was incensed at him telling her this, and she had no category for not being able to enjoy the weekend life that they’d had before, and she said, nonsense. I heard what that preacher said. My sins are forgiven. If I’m going to heaven, what’s the big deal? Doesn’t God want us to enjoy life? I want to enjoy life, don’t you? She was literally willing to sin that grace may abound. She was doing the very thing Paul prohibits in Romans 6. She took the, all things are lawful for me, but she was unwilling to take the, I will not be dominated by anything, or not all things are helpful. Well, sadly, in a pretty short period of time, she proved to be the seed that grew up in the thorns, never produced any fruit, and it didn’t take long till Kelly had enough

of Dan’s Jesus phase, as she called it. She was unwilling to live with her Christian husband. She took their two boys and left and filed for divorce, and needless to say, he was devastated. That’s what we see here in our text. Now, if Dan’s wife, as an unbeliever, had been of a mindset to live in peace with him as a believer, he would have been required to stay in that marriage, but since she was unwilling to do that, he was under no obligation once she left and initiated divorce. Paul says here, in such cases, God has called you to peace. The brother or sister is not enslaved. There is nothing peaceful about a marriage between two people on opposite ends of the gospel. Those of you who are single here this morning, don’t ever compromise, and try to marry an unbeliever no matter how much you think you’re in love with them, thinking you will get that

person saved, because you may not. That is a very difficult place to live. Marriage is hard enough. God forbids it for your good and because He loves you. Now, before we move on to our last section, I want to address something that might seem a bit odd to you in our text. If you look back up with me at verse 10, Paul says, to the married I give this charge, and then in parentheses you see there, not I but the Lord. And then in verse 12, he says, to the rest I say, parentheses, I, comma, not the Lord. Well, this is an interesting thing that some people have used, wrongly, to try to pit the words of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, against Paul. Well, this is just Paul’s way of distinguishing between his own apostolic teaching and direct commands from Christ. There’s no red letters about this subject of being married to an unbeliever.

Jesus never talked about it. And I don’t know if any of you know any of these people, but there are people out there who consider themselves to be Christians, who consider themselves to be red-letter Christians. Any of you ever known red-letter Christians? They say, well, you know, we just follow the red letters in the Bible. We don’t worry about the rest. Well, that’s nonsense. Because all of Scripture, all of Scripture is inspired, breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. All Scripture is ultimately God’s word to us. Paul later on in this letter will say, if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. Just wanted to clear that up for you, that you saw that and you might be like, I wonder

what this means, I not the Lord, the Lord not I. That’s what it means. Here in our text, this particular section, Jesus never addressed the situation of a believer being married to an unbeliever. He did address general divorce questions as we saw in the Gospels earlier. Now let me say this before we move on. If you’re a person here this morning and you’ve been divorced, you probably know that the church has oftentimes not treated divorcees very well. And I want you to know that even if your divorce was not what we’d call a biblical cause divorce, it is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus Christ paid for that sin on the cross and you need not live with shame over it. If you’re divorced and it was for a biblical cause, it was still quite painful, I’m sure. God made allowances for that. Whatever role you played in it, you are forgiven.

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Christian Patience

Being divorced does not make you a second-class Christian. You are forgiven and you have no less value than anyone else. You need to rest in the promise of the Gospel. Now let’s close out with our last section, Christian patience. Look with me at verse 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? This is a reference to the effect that the character of a believing spouse may have on the unbelieving spouse. It’s a Gospel influence. Now human beings do not possess any salvific power in us to get another person saved, but thankfully God does. And this may be the very thing that God uses in marriages like this to bring the unbelieving spouse to saving faith in the Lord Jesus. And it is a command to patiently bear within the marriage, even though at times it will

be very difficult for some. It is to know that if you’re the believer in the marriage, you are the walking and talking Gospel representative to your unsaved spouse and to your kids. When it is the husband who is not a believer, Peter says this to Christian wives,

likewise wives be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word, in other words they’re not believers, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct

— 1 Peter 3

(ESV)

. That’s beautiful. Christian patience in a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever is God’s design. As long as they desire to stay in the marriage, you are to do so and live in such a way that God may use you as the very conduit to bring your unbelieving spouse to saving faith. Maybe you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, maybe you’re married to a

believer or you have a friend or family that invited you to hang out with them and invited you to church this morning and you are wondering what is all this about becoming a Christian or you don’t fully understand why you even need to be a Christian, what’s the difference, what difference does it make? Well our Bible teaches that every one of us was born under the curse of sin. We sin because we are sinners and God’s judgment upon sin is death. It is both physical death and it is something the Bible calls the second death which comes after we die and we stand before God at the throne judgment of all people. Now those of us who have received Christ’s forgiveness by faith, we will not endure that judgment because Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. This offer of the gospel truth about Jesus’ forgiveness is available to you this morning

if you’re not a believer. What do you need to do? You need to repent of your sins and that means to do a U-turn in life, literally stop going the way you’re going and turn toward Christ, turn away from your sin and turn to Christ. On page five of your bulletin there is a prayer in there that might be something you could use to formulate your own prayer to God and to ask the Lord Jesus to forgive you of your sins, something that we hope would help you to repent and turn to God. There’s no formula or magic in the words of the prayer. God sees the intentions of your heart. I want you to know you’re always welcome to come after the service, speak with any of us you’ve seen up here this morning about what it means to become a believer in Jesus.

Well as we conclude this morning, I hope you see and that you agree with me that this section has been very practical for us in our culture which really has some interesting resemblance to Corinth. And we as Christians, we must, we must get our ethics about sex and marriage and divorce from Scripture, not from this culture because it is bankrupt. Our Bible has truth and has instructions to help us find the answers to the questions that arise when relationships become complicated and messy, especially as it relates to sex and marriage and divorce. And the church is a place where you can come to find people who are more experienced than you to get help in these areas. If you find yourself this morning in need of godly counsel in these areas, we will help you. This is a very good place to start to deal with these things.

So let us walk through these questions and these issues together with love and with grace and with patience. You must remember that your identity in Christ is what defines your responsibilities as a Christian. It’s not the other way around. We want to build healthier marriages, we want to have functional and strong families. We should want to be people who are growing into greater Christ-likeness and who are glorifying God. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we pray that now having heard truth from your word that you would empower each of us, no matter where we are in our Christian walk, to accept these truths and to now begin to apply them to our lives that we may be obedient followers of Jesus. For those of us who need help in any of these areas, God, may we be willing to humbly ask for and receive help.

God, for those of us with sin in these areas, we ask that you would grant us repentance. God, for anyone who may be here this morning who is not yet a believer in Jesus, we ask that you would save now, O God. Father, we thank you for sending your Son to save us. Thank you for this church community where you have placed us, and may we live out our Christian faith with other believers who will help us and who we may help. People who will sharpen us as we sharpen them. People who will bless us as we bless them. God, we ask and we pray and we commit all these things to you in the name of our beautiful Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.