1 Corinthians 7 : 25 - 35

Our sermon today is taken from 1 Corinthians 7 verses 25 to 35. This is the Word of God. Now, concerning to be through that 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. Before you bow 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 bit throw that 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 point of time has grown very short. We are 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 the 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 patroated 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, thus as the Lord. Let us pray for the preaching of God's Word. In heaven, our hearts are so fickle word, and we're so easily discontent questioning your grace for us. But you, O Lord, are faithful, and you renew your mercy and grace to us every morning. Today, Father, as we come under the teaching of your Word, the Holy Spirit, Lord, that we may have ears to hear, and soften our hearts, Father, as we ponder this difficult issue of singleness. May your peace come upon us, and they may have wisdom upon this issue, and I can look upon your grace all the more intently. And use your name and pray, Amen. So today, we're going to continue in our series on Mary, John's, and singleness, and I'm going to talk about singleness, right? I've got to be honest though, initially I was not really looking forward to preaching the sermon. Nor have I ever personally been particularly interested in sermons about singleness, right? And the reason for that is because I'm quite certain that I'm not called the celibacy, and I've never seen singleness as something that I need to make peace with, right? I see it as a problem that I need to resolve ASAP. So you don't, like in my own mind, I don't need a sermon to tell me what the solution to this problem is. It's obvious, isn't it? So to date some woman, and hopefully I can find me a wife, godly ones, of course. So much more interesting to me would be topics like, you know, how I can find a godly spouse, or how to approach dating as Christians, or how I know I can be ready for marriage, because all of these things are things that would help me exit singleness in the most sinless and quickest way possible. But our last day is actually the most direct teaching in the New Testament about singleness. My studying it was properly rebuking for me, because when Paul addresses the issue, he does not concern himself with how we can leave singleness, but rather how we should live in it. And though every bone in my body, right, is uncomfortable being single, the only perfect human being, the ideal human being, Jesus Christ was never married, and Paul himself, the writer of two thirds of New Testament, died single. And he is telling us that singleness can be a gift. And not like the gift of tongue or something that only some people get, but singleness is something that all unmarried Christians can genuinely enjoy. And our passage Paul gives us three things we need for this to happen. Our three points, Paul teaches that we can rejoice in singleness when, one, we equalize marriage in singleness, two, we have heavenly mindedness, and three, we seize the opportunity of singleness. Let me repeat that. You can rejoice in singleness when, one, we equalize marriage in singleness, two, we have heavenly mindedness, and three, we seize the opportunity of singleness. Let's get into it. Point one, equalizing marriage in singleness. So look at verse 25, right? Paul starts by clarifying that he is addressing the issue of the betrothed. The word here for betroth is literally virgins. And this is referring to the unmarried women in that culture who are already promised to be married for someone. And Corinth's case was actually pretty interesting because it was a very sexually liberal culture. It had a worldview that saw sexual urges like hunger for food, some basic human needs. And it's so bad that Paul just rebuked the church for tolerating some pretty flagrant sexual immorality in chapter 5, and he had to warn them specifically to not solicit prostitutes in chapter 6, right, reiterating why it's so wrong. So this is society where sexual experience was normal and lustful indulgence was readily available for men. So our passage is directed to a church where the unmarried men were constantly faced with temptation and unmarried women but betrothed who undoubtedly had these procreative urges themselves were eager to be married. This is the issue of the betrothed, right? The present distress that Paul is referring to in verse 26. So although the specific of their cultural context are vastly different from what we're experiencing, I think we can relate to them on a very human level here, right? Having biological urges and cultural norms that's pushing them and pressuring them to get married. Now, interestingly, Paul gives this teaching with a caveat that what he's saying is not in the realm of command, right, it's not like do not commit adulterer, though we definitely sin that it's so big, but what Paul is giving us here is some pastoral wisdom to think through this difficult and complicated issue, theologically. And Paul's already started addressing this issue beforehand since the beginning of chapter 7, basically telling them just to go ahead and get married if they are really struggling to control these carnal urges and he's going to repeat this concession again in verse 36 to reiterate the fact that one of the benefits of marriage is certainly being able to have an outlet for these urges, but Paul doesn't stop there, right? Although my male brain kind of wished that he would because if he did it would be much simpler. My passions are certainly burning and I'm definitely not above behaving improperly in my primordial relationships if I'm not careful, right? I want sex minus the guilt and simpleness, so the solution is I've got to find a wife, simple. And Paul is saying, well, yeah, that's kind of true, but that's only have the story. So why does Paul feel the need to add to what he was saying in our passage today? Well, if you read at the very end of chapter 7 we can see that because Paul himself was generally someone who was able to be happy and feels that he's better off because he remained celibate. Paul wants to teach that happiness and singleness are not mutually exclusive and in fact it is actually possible to be sexually enacted by choice, yet not feel depraved and be a complete and fulfilled person. You see Paul here is building on what he was saying before in chapter 7 verse 1724, right? He was telling them to not be concerned but whatever life situation that we find ourselves in, whether it's our cultural background, our socio-economic status, don't stress about changing the life situation that you're in now. Because whatever life that we have is assigned to us by God and we are called to it by Him. When God is with us in whatever condition each of us was called, God in his infinite wisdom has intentionally placed us where we are and he is present daily giving us grace such that we can have relationship with God that is as vibrant and as life giving as someone living in the conditions that we perhaps wish we had. And applied to our marital status, Paul concludes at the end of verse 26, it is good for us to remain as we are, married or unmarried, we are genuinely in a good place. Now look at verse 27-28, Paul begins to explain himself by addressing both the single and the married people. He said, "Married people, don't wish that you were single and like other singles don't look to get married." See Paul here is getting at one of the biggest kill joys of human life, right? tendency to view that the grass is not growing. greener on the other side. To fixate on what we don't have, instead of being grateful to God, for what we do have, for what God has given us. And especially when we're dissatisfied with our lives, what other people have would seem suddenly much more appealing. Tricking us into believing that their lives must be so much better because they have what we want. And if we're longing for something very human, like intimacy, companionship and affection, on top of our raging sexual urges, marriage can really seem like the solution to all our problems. But Paul pretty clearly agrees with this. I don't know for sure, but I think our married friends would agree that our emotional and sexual needs and desires won't automatically all be fulfilled once we're married. However, if you've read Paul's writings, this might seem inconsistent. Because it's very different from this glorious description of marriage in Ephesians 5, for example, where it's this glorious relationship where man is honored like Christ, like the church, honors Christ. And the woman is loved, like Christ loves the church, beautiful, right? Who wouldn't want that? But look at the end of verse 28. Paul is basically saying that marriage is not going to be this fairy tale happily ever after that we imagined. It's hard, and worldly troubles certainly await us. Because a marriage like the Christ and church relationship doesn't just happen. It is an ideal that both flawed sinners in this marriage union must work every day and put their blood, sweat and tears into to work on in a world that that's constantly dragging us down sin. So while marriage will have massive challenges, that singleness doesn't. And Paul is saying that marriage problems aren't any easier than single problems. Now, we jacquartons could find it exceptionally difficult except that marriage and singleness are equal colleagues. Because marriage and family is a massive cultural idol here. Marriage is a huge deal. Because marriage here is not just about you and your spouse being united, but it is deeply tied to the reputation and well-being of the big family. It's about the continuation of the family legacy. Expanding and honoring our family name. And our parents won't feel like they're done with their parenting responsibilities until we get married. See, parents think their children are settled or done, what's their married. In Bahasa, they're only dadi or matam, right? If they're married. So there's a lot of pressure from our families and culture at large, even our friends perhaps, to get married. It's like marriage is when we've graduated to actually being an adult. And this is compounded by the fact that the criteria the culture has for the ideal spouse isn't exactly always biblical, attractiveness, financial security, race and culture, reputation of the spouse's family, all can become decisive factors in our choice of spouse. Because if we marry someone who doesn't fit the cultural criteria, what are people going to say? And the result is that marriage is not only a reflection of our own value and success, but also our families. Therefore, the culture doesn't teach us to look for a spouse who's mainly a partner for us that's mutually edifying us and encouraging our face to greater depths, but some messianic figure who can lead us out of the wilderness of loneliness, cultural pressures and expectations, sexual frustration and middle-class income and into the promised land of companionship, social approval, sexual satisfaction and financial security for generations. A high bar with no human can really reasonably live up to. And no wonder our search for a spouse here can be so anxious frustrating and often hurtful. But despite what the culture says, Paul's teaching us that our marital status neither determines our valuable people or our relationship with the Lord is not a matter of sin. Despite what our earthly fathers might expect or even demand, our heavenly father is happy with us either way. That vertical relationship doesn't change. We can enjoy as healthy, intimate and life-giving relationship with God as marriage couples. In fact, later we'll learn that singleness has its perks. But Paul's point here is that we need to stop romanticizing marriage that will be this be-all and end-all of all existence, this superior phase of life that will resolve all of our insecurities, loneliness and sexual frustrations. Although marriage should be an amazing experience, so should singleness be. Because the God who makes any marriages amazing is here with us making singleness amazing. They are different but very much equal paths of the Christian life. And friends, I understand that looking at marriage this way is both counter-cultural and even counter-intuitive. And it is the truth that my own sinful heart stubbornly resists to believe. Because the truth is I'm not happy being single and it seems like Paul is suggesting me to not seek something that could forcibly make me happy. And I think Paul is aware of his tension. So these next few verses are directed at helping us understand how we can come to see this too. So point two have a heavenly mindedness. See, Paul is saying in verses 29-31, what Paul is saying can sound really weird and be easily misunderstood, especially by people who are reading a translation of his writings 2,000 years after it was written. Look how Paul begins and ends his explanation of this thought at the beginning of verse 29 at the end of 31. Verse 31 says, "The point of time has grown very short." And verse 31, "For the present form of this world is passing away." Now what happens after this very short time? When does the present form of the world pass away? It's clear right in the Bible. So when Jesus comes back. And if this is true, Paul is saying that those who are married should live as they're not. Wait, what? You see, Paul is not certainly not. Suggesting that the fact that he comes back gives us the license to not honor the covenant of marriage and go on living the way we want as if we're single. But what is behind what he's saying is his understanding that marriage is not a permanent institution. Once our spouses or ourselves dies, the marriage union is dissolved. The marriage is over. This is why the Bible teaches that in the event that the spouse dies, it is perfectly legitimate for us, three-marrying. Jesus Himself explicitly thought that in the new heaven, their new earth, once have been resurrected and glory like Christ Himself, there will be no marriages. Check out my twenty-two. Verse 23, 33, 33. So while marriage is the most important human relationship that we have, there is still a more important eternal relationship that we have with our Lord, which must take priority and we must take into account. Therefore, in order to have a healthy view of marriage, we must always consider it relative to this heavenly reality. And if you can do this, marriage will still be this glorious and beautiful thing that is a blessing from God Himself. But it won't be our idol. It will not substitute God in our lives. We won't look to it to justify our existence. It won't be this ultimate thing that we must have in order to have security, significance and value. And it won't preoccupy our minds and our hearts more than God. One of my favorite theologians, your hardest voice, calls this M.O. of always considering our present circumstances in light of Christ's coming heavenly mindedness. And Paul, you can see in verse 30 and 31, applies heavenly mindedness not only to marriage, but to every aspect of life. If you're going through a difficult season as so many have been going through this year and we're mourning. Paul is saying that if we have heavenly mindedness, you would not fall into despair and hopelessness believing that all is lost. But we can be genuinely full of sorrows. They are rejoicing, holding on to the hope that there will come a day when Christ wipes away every tear from our eyes. If we've been blessed and is able to genuinely rejoice, if we have heavenly mindedness, what caused us to rejoice would not be the ultimate pursuit in our lives. We won't be chasing the dragon, constantly trying to somehow replicate or run up that experience of joy or being overly dependent on anything to be our source of joy. But we can be great to God for what we have received, but at the same time consider all things lost compared to knowing Jesus Christ our Lord who we will see in glory after all things pass away. While continues, using the example of material possessions, if we buy, it's as if we have no goods, a clear translation of the Greek is perhaps as if it's not ours to keep. So if we have heavenly mindedness, we would still buy things because we need things to do stuff on earth, but what we'll buy will not be where we find our security, significance and value. We won't take pride in it. Because whatever we have on earth will be taken away from us anyway, but the treasure that we have in heaven, most nor russ can destroy, nor thieves can break in and steal. It is ours in Christ forever. And look at verse 31, "If you have dealings with the world, if there is anything that the world that's offering that we need to use, we must act like we have no dealings with it, but we're kind of attached for it." See, the NLT and KGV somehow translated it in a more understandable way, right? It's to not be attached to it or to abuse it, right? This is the most sweeping of all the examples Paul gives of heavenly mindedness. And it's teaching us that the posture of heavenly mindedness should make us realize that this world is not our home. Like Israel, in the wilderness, living in tents, waiting to receive the fullness of God's promises. That's what our life is like, this wilderness context. Therefore our aspiration would not be to build our own kingdoms here on earth, not to leave a legacy on earth. Not to maximize our own prestige and comfort because ultimately none of that will matter. The present form of the world is passing away. Still, take advantage of the opportunities we get, work hard, enjoy life, do your best, but do it knowing that at the end of it all, all of it, as Ecclesiastes, are vanities of all vanities, like chasing after the wind. So heavenly mindedness, friends, is not proposing this stoic way of life where you don't really care about anything and are just waiting to be done with life and go to heaven. But it does require us to be sober minded about our earthly lives and always to look at it in the context of eternity. Therefore it requires this discipline of being critical about ourselves, taking our thoughts captive and constantly checking our hearts, constantly and intentionally reordering our priorities to put God on top where He belongs, committing to glorifying Him and doing the work that He has called us to, being aware that our reward is not here, but in glory to the point where we can agree with Paul when he says to live us for Christ and to die is gain. Otherwise, our lives will inevitably be what we care most about and where we draw our security significance and value and contentment, not only in singleness, but in life in general, will always be this elusive and fleeting thing because the worldly things that we reminisce about and the things we long for is always better in our heads than in reality for the true rest for of the soul, as Augustine says, it's not found here. When he eloquently says, "between temporal and eternal things, there is this difference." A temporal thing is love more before we have it and begins to grow worthless when we gain it, for it does not satisfy the soul whose true and certain rest is eternity. But the eternal is more ardently love when it is acquired than when it is merely desired. Brothers and sisters, it is only if we discipline ourselves to be heavenly minded, can we begin to concern ourselves with what is eternal instead of what is temporal? And as only if we have set eternity in our hearts, we singles can begin to see that marriage in singleness are equally honorable, equally fulfilling callings, although very different, that God causes children and will ultimately lead to his kingdom. And it is only after we've equalized marriage in singleness, is it possible for us to see that singleness is not a problem that we need to fix, but it's actually an opportunity that we can capitalize on. How? Read me to you, 0.3, seize the opportunity of singleness. Look at verse 32 to 34, "Why is Paul teaching us this? He wants a singles to be free from anxiety. He doesn't want us to worry about our marital status. You see, Paul has great empathy for the struggle of singleness. But paradoxically, how we can overcome this struggle is actually by redirecting our energy, our emotions, our thoughts towards another struggle, a more important one, struggling for the things of the Lord, specifically how to please the Lord, how to grow in a holiness of body and spirit, which is the same thing because what pleases the Lord is our holiness." You see, Paul is trying to make us realize that there are real benefits to being a single Christian. If we look at verse 33 to 34, he explains that when we're married, our interests are divided by worldly anxieties. We're here. It is not necessarily mean sinful, but saying that there are more practical considerations in married life. See, and I think a lot of our singles realizes already when people are married and especially if they have children, everything changes. You don't have as much of themselves to spare and share, because sticking care of a family requires all they got, sometimes more, and this is because when we're married, we're directly responsible for the happiness, safety, and emotional well-being of our household. Therefore, you must consider a whole other set of human beings. So things like health, financial security, future stability, become much more pressing concerns. Whereas what we're saying though, we're really only worried about surviving today and fulfilling whatever ambitions we have, and I can't speak for women, but women are usually quite aware and are anxious of this, especially the financial responsibilities related to being married and starting a family. The financial concerns are just one of the worldly things that we need to be worried about when it comes to marriage, and just because we can offer financial security, it doesn't mean that our marriage will be smooth sailing from then on. Although I got to admit, it probably definitely helps. Because I don't know if you realize, but when we get married, we are committing ourselves for life to another deeply flawed sinner, just like ourselves. Our sins will definitely hurt our spouse, and their sins will always hurt us too, to some extent. Deep flaws and wounds might surface that we didn't even realize we're there, and the consequences of our sins are going to affect not only ourselves, but our entire household. There is definitely more freedom and a larger margin of error in singleness when, in terms of working on our personal holiness. Paul is teaching us this, not to deter us from marriage, but his point is that we must be aware that marriage entails huge responsibility. It will take up most of our thoughts, resources, and emotional capacity. So, Paul's point then, therefore, is that while we're single, we have the opportunity to dedicate the spare time, energy, and resources onto pleasing the Lord to pursue what is pleasing to him by growing our holiness and embodying spirit with less practical hindrances. Not that healthy Christ-hundred marriages shouldn't strive to please the Lord, they certainly must, but Paul's teaching here that the range of things they could do is definitely limited, and in fact, when we're married, it's harder to dedicate time specifically to the Lord. For example, there's this pastor in the United States, Tim Keller, who made a heard of him. He didn't write books until he was in his fifties. His books are great, they're really helpful, but he explicitly said in one of his sermons that why he didn't start earlier was because he was married with children. So having the responsibility, they care of his family, he simply meant that he couldn't properly commit and dedicate the time that is required to write something like a book until his kids were grown. And I'm not saying that taking care of one's family is a less pleasing thing to God than doing ministry. The Bible does say that whoever does not provide for his family is worse and unbelief. And God is certainly pleased to see us obey his commands. But, being without a family frees us to more options, more opportunities to be creative and expansive in our ministry. We can do so much for the Kingdom of God, and grow in our knowledge of God more intentionally and intensely, than when we were married without being anxious of straining family or being distracted by practical matters. But, in sisters, if we take Paul's advice here and seize the opportunity in our season of singleness by behaving properly and giving undivided devotion to God, we will find that in the season can be a much more pleasant and productive experience than perhaps we initially expected. But the problem is, we often use our single seasons in very much counterproductive ways. Look, after going through something like a rough breakup, anyone can feel jaded about relationships and say that they're happy being single for now and that they want to work on themselves. What that often means is that they're going to focus on their career and make some more money, or they're going to work out more and become more attractive, or they're going to do things that they weren't able to do when they're single. You see, and this, apparently, could put them in a better position to find a better spouse. Now, that might totally work in the secular world, and I'm not saying that those aren't worthy and productive pursuits, but as far as the goal of finding an equally yoked Christian spouse, that doesn't get you very far. Because if we believe that it is our wealth and physical attractiveness that increases our chances of getting a spouse, then the spouse that we get will value us for our body and our money. With the hope that, hopefully, we can get some emotional support from us and perhaps even spiritual guidance. So it becomes this totally transactional and superficial relationship. And eventually, if we don't find someone, the stresses of this world is going to get us again, and then we're going to get lonely or bored, then we're right back at square one, being discontent with singleness. But if we really want, it's this Ephesians 5 kind of marriage. Our best bet is to commit ourselves to undivided devotion to God, and to seize this opportunity that we have and our seasons of a singleness to grow. Because for men who are supposed to love their wives as the church, the best thing we can do is to work on being more like Christ so that we can love like Christ. And for women who are supposed to submit their husbands as the Lord. The best thing they can do is to actually feel joyful and comfortable submitting to the actual Lord. But ultimately, though, whether in sisters, this passage is not telling us how to get a Christian spouse. It's not telling us to work on our faith so that we can get a spouse from God. Though he's certainly capable, what this passage is doing is that he wants us to be at a place where we're able to be free from anxieties about marriage. Because our devotion to God feels our heart so much that we're not worried whether or not marriage is something that God has for us in the future. Because we trust that the Lord knows best and is not trying to withhold anything from us. He will not give us a snake when we ask for an egg. And in fact, God has already given us the very best thing, our Lord Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for our sins with his life on the cross. Such that it is possible for us, the church, to be his bride, to have this eternal future with him in glory. Do you believe this? So let us discipline ourselves and heavenly mind is in this so that we can stop this idolatry of marriage that our culture feeds us. And let's equalize the value of marriage and singleness. Such that we can willingly pursue and enjoy to the utmost this precious relationship that Christ gave his life for. And look, in all likelihood we're not going to be in this season forever. Very few people are actually called to that. And those who are are actually a piece of it. Though this season might be a little longer than perhaps most of us would like. So I myself need to repent with the idolatry of marriage in order to see my time being single as a genuine opportunity. And my mental health, my ministry, and hopefully my future marriage will flourish all the more because of it. And again, I'm very sympathetic that life in Jakarta for singles can be exceptionally difficult. We constantly face pressure from our families, ridicule from our peers and anxiety from our own hearts about this issue. And this is simply an unfortunate reality, the brokenness of sin that is rooted in our culture. And this is where friends, the body of Christ becomes crucial. Where the body of Christ needs to come together and be God's hands for our singles such that we don't feel like there's something wrong with us. But we have access to all the love and acceptance that we need. While we might still feel lonely and anxious sometimes, at least this way, we won't be drowning. But we're swimming through stressful waters to relief. And this relief will not come on our earthly wedding day with the wedding day that all weddings actually point to. The wedding supper of the line where the church will be beautifully dorn and white having been cleansed from her sins in order to be wed to Christ, our true husband. You can finally move in with him to live in his presence forever where there is the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Do you believe this? So if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the grave, this is already yours, already ours in Christ. Whether or not we get married in this life, no Christian is missing out on the true marriage. Amen? Let's pray. Father in heaven, we long for you, Lord, and we wait for the day that you will take us home that we may see your face, Father. And Father, right now, the concerns of this world are often heavy on our shoulders. But we trust and believe that you are here with us. I want to pray specifically today for the singles hearing this message in the singles in our church, Lord. I pray, Father, you can send comfort through your Holy Spirit to us that you may assure us of your faithfulness and give us the fullness of joy, or lead us to brothers and sisters in a relationship that are as life giving. And if it is in your will, give us someone fitting for us, someone who is equally yok so that not our desires may be fulfilled, but that we can glorify you all the more for your glory is foremost. And you just need me to pray. Amen.