In Pursuit of Holiness

Text: 1 Corinthians 7: 1-9

Proposition: In a culture of indulgent and promiscuous values the pursuit of holiness calls Christians to see the unique rolls God has assigned to each.

Introduction: It was 1956, Pauline and Esther Friedman, twin sisters, began to be noticed by the world. Pauline began to write an advice column in the paper she called it Dear Abbey. She developed the Abbey name from the Biblical character Abigail, the second wife of David, known for her wisdom and discernment. At about the same time Pauline’s sister Esther also took over a similar column in another paper and adopted the pen name of Ann Landers. For the next 50 years both women wrote words of advice in response to letters from men and women across the country. The morality of the nation has changed a lot over those 50 years as people looked for direction, truth and hope but what do you think it might have looked like for Corinth in the 1st century, in a time and place that had as one of its highest values the right to pursue sensuality. We’re going to look at some of the questions these believers in Corinth had as they tried to reconcile a pursuit of holiness in culture of self-indulgent, promiscuous values. So they wrote a letter to Paul, perhaps even several letters asking for his direction. Though we don’t have those letters we do have what Paul wrote in response. Have a look at 1 Corinthians 7: 1-9.

Question #1 – Since unrestrained sensuality leads to immorality is the best path to holiness to take the opposite way, to be completely celibate?

Paul’s answer to this has both a Yes and No response. “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”, and by implication it’s also good for a woman not to touch or have sexual intimacy with a man. There is nothing wrong with celibacy and it has great value in God’s kingdom. So yes, celibacy is an effective response to immorality. Then comes the No part. The Corinthians were wondering, ‘was marriage therefore a less holy state, should they be celibate as couples, should they even divorce in the pursuit of celibacy?’ Paul’s response is the exact opposite of this. He tells them, “…because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.God’s design was originally for marriage, immorality came as a corruption of sin upon that but the original design is still effective for the pursuit of holiness and for the fulfilling of God’s purposes in marriage and the family. So Paul adds a few directives to the marriage relationship:                                                                                                   1. Marriages are effective if the husband will just love his wife with the affection due her and the same for the wife to her husband. That which is due you is what God has designed in you, it’s a godly shaped deficit designed to be filled by only person on planet earth, your wife, your husband.

2. The one flesh principle in marriage changes everything. Pastor and author Keith Krell writes, “God sovereignly takes something away at the point of marriage and gives it as a heavenly wedding present to your spouse. The Lord doesn’t ask you if He can take it, and the Lord doesn’t ask you if you want it. Sovereignly, the Lord takes the authority you have had over your own body as a single individual and removes it from you for as long as you live.” Look at how Paul puts this in verse 4, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”Husbands you have tremendous power over your wife’s body, how you treat her, look at her, love her, shapes her faith love and hope. Wives it is the same with you, you have that same degree of authority or his body. It is this very reciprocity that intimacy is engineered around. If the equal authority over each others bodies is either denied or abused intimacy is destroyed.

3. In the relationship of a Christian marriage sexual intimacy is the norm not the exception. Paul puts this rather bluntly, “Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” That word ‘deprive’ has the inference of defrauding or cheating your partner out what is not only due them but they also need. So is Paul saying that we need sex in order to be well adjusted in our marriage, in part yes but what he’s really saying is that you need the love, affection, intimacy and care that sexual union fosters for a marriage. If there is a lack of intimacy or affection or love in your marriage you will be vulnerable to temptation. You will seek it elsewhere and it will destroy your pursuit of holiness, your sense of being right with God and fulfilled in His purposes for you.

4. Both being single and being married is a gift from God. Just as a spiritual gift equips you to be part of the church so there is the gifting that God gives for a person to be single and serve with greater freedom than a married person ever could. It is a gifting that enables them to find closeness and friendship and wholeness apart from marriage. At the same time being married is also a gift from God. In His timing and of His choice He changes who you are in the one flesh experience of marriage. It’s believed that Paul was once married because of who he was as a Jew. It was considered a command to fulfill Genesis 2:18 (it’s not good for man to be alone) and a Jewish man ought to be married before he was 20. If Paul had been a member of the Sanhedrin, it’s thought he was, it was required that they only be married men on that council. When Paul, the up and coming Pharisee, suddenly turned and became a Christian his whole life changed. We don’t know if his wife left him or if she died but it is reasonable to assume that once Paul was married and now as he writes this he is a single man. If this is the case he writes from the perspective of the married and the single. So he says if they can exercise self-control as a single person it is good for them to remain in the gifting of being single.                                                                                                                                        

It’s been said that marriage between a man and a woman was always meant to be a picture of the bond and intimacy that exists between Christ and the church. It exists individually with each member but even more it exists between Jesus and His church. In Ephesians 5:22-30 Paul writes about the way wives are to recognize the headship of their husbands as the church ought to recognize the headship of her groom, Jesus Christ. He also says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” So if this is the case what reflection could be added from this response of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7? Let me suggest a corollary of four things this says about how Jesus loves you, His bride:

1. Your marriage to Him will only be as effective as you give Him what He is due. Ask yourself, has He withheld Himself from you in any way? Then don’t withhold from Him that your bond with Him would be all that it is designed to be.

2. Does the one flesh principle hold true in our relationship with Christ? Does He now have authority over my body and do I have a claim on His body? Are both He and I, the church and Him, bound together as One? What is my marriage vow to Him that I recite again and again every time I take communion? The intimacy that Jesus desires to have with the church is built upon the fact that the church is called the body of Christ, it belongs to Him and is under His authority.

3. It is possible to defraud or deprive Christ of what is due Him, the worship due Him, the love due Him, the obedience due Him, the honor due Him. Don’t deprive Christ of your heart, don’t cheat Him out of what He is due.

4. Jesus is to us a gift, it is He Who enables us to stay married to Him even when our faithfulness fails. He is the one given to us for life, forgiveness, love and future. And you are the Fathers gift to Him, you have been bought with a price and given to Him. There exists a relationship between mankind and God which God intends to look like a marriage relationship where the Groom would die for the Bride and the Bride would die daily for the Groom. Oh that the world would stop treating God as an abusive husband and see Jesus Christ the groom who removes the ruin of sin from our spirit, soul and body, “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

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