Sex, Singleness & Self-Control

On January 6, 2002, the Boston Globe published an article entitled, Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years. This was after reporters had sifted through a routine court submission by a Catholic church cardinal who was answering questions about a priest against whom allegations had been raised. And the cardinal acknowledged that he knew about a number of prior accusations at the priest's former parish. Well, within two years, another 800 articles had been published by the Globe on this issue. And the worldwide Catholic Church was shaken as widespread sexual abuse by priests was uncovered. Of course, it would be wrong to point our finger at the Catholic Church as if they alone had this fault. Frightening examples of covered up abuse have been found in numerous other organizations. including among the Southern Baptist denomination, as a 2019 study revealed. Yet there is something particularly alarming about the prevalence of the abuse within the Catholic Church. According to a 2004 research study, 4,392 Catholic priests and deacons in active ministry in the U.S. between 1950 and 2002 have been plausibly accused of underage sexual abuse by over 10,000 individuals. Estimating the total number of priests and deacons during that period at around 110,000, that means over 4% have faced these allegations. And since we don't know how many more have gone unreported, even if some of these charges are false, it's generally admitted that 4% is a reasonable estimate for how many have actually had a sexual encounter with a minor, 4%. I mean, that would be like six members of our church. This has brought under scrutiny the required vow of celibacy, which the Catholic Church imposes on its priests. Research by Richard Seip studied over 1300 Catholic priests over a 25 year period, and Seip ultimately concluded, I estimate that at any one time, 50% of priests are practicing celibacy. That's 50% of all who take this vow. 30% of priests are involved in heterosexual relationships, 15% in homosexual relationships, and 6% of priests involve themselves with minors. So what explains this rampant sexual misconduct and lack of self-control? Of course, sin is sin. And sexual abuse will always be danger until Jesus comes back. But could this particularly high prevalence be linked, at least in part, to the required vow of celibacy? Well, interestingly, the Catholic Church began practicing clerical celibacy in the 11th century. but it was heavily influenced in this respect by the writings of Saint Augustine and Augustine's own interpretation of the text we will be looking at this morning. Augustine interpreted 1 Corinthians 7 to mean that marriage and sex is allowable, but it's not the ideal. So it really should preferably be avoided. And this, of course, encourages the idea that the really spiritually mature, of course, the church leaders and so forth, well, they should be celibate then, right? But what does the Bible really say? How should we think about sex, singleness, and self-control? Well, that's what we're gonna examine here in 1 Corinthians 7, verses one through nine today. But first, let me briefly review what we've seen earlier in this letter. Paul had previously established the Corinthian church on his missionary journeys. You can read about that in Acts chapter 18. And he's now writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus. And we know that Paul has both received at least one letter from the Corinthians, and he's also received visitors from Corinth, specifically from Chloe's household or people, who've told him something about what's going on. And so the structure of 1 Corinthians can generally be divided in half, where chapters 1 through 6, Paul is responding to reports. He's addressing matters that were raised through Chloe's people telling him about. And then chapters 7 through 16, Paul is responding to a letter from the Corinthians and various issues that they had raised. So just very briefly, if you flip back in your Bible to chapter 1, verse 11, You'll see Paul make reference to that, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. And he spends chapters one through four addressing the issue of division within the church. Then in chapter five, he continues, chapter five, verse one, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And in chapter five, he deals with the issue of a man, a member of the church who is in a sexual relationship with his stepmother. And then in chapter six, he goes on and he deals with the issue of lawsuits in the church. So members of the church are actually suing one another. And then in the second half of chapter six, he deals with the issue of members of the church going to prostitutes. And he has to tell them that your body, what you do with your body matters. And that you are to flee sexual immorality and you are to glorify God in your body. Now in chapter seven, he shifts to addressing matters that were raised by the Corinthians in their letter. So you see in chapter seven, verse one, he says, now concerning the matters about which you wrote. And then if you look ahead, this is a frequent way, this now concerning phrase comes up again and again as he sort of subdivides sections going through the rest of the letter. So if you look at chapter 7 verse 25, he says, now concerning the betrothed, and then if You jump ahead to chapter eight, verse one. He says, now concerning food offered to idols. And then if you jump ahead to chapter 12, verse one, he says, now concerning spiritual gifts. And then chapter 16, verse one, now concerning the collection for the saints. Now recognizing that structure is helpful because it suggests that chapter seven, verses one through 24, is meant to be read as a unit. And that is important because at first glance, maybe you notice this as Rachel read it, it may seem like Paul is sort of jumping from one issue to the next. From sex, to singleness, to divorce, to circumcision, to slavery. But actually, I think Paul is making a cohesive argument. And there may be times when he sort of has a little aside to address something else raised by the Corinthian letter or something else he knows about that's going on in the church. But fundamentally, throughout that whole section, he is responding to the quotation from the Corinthians in verse one, throughout that whole section. Now today, we're only covering verses one through nine because there's just so much to unpack here, but I wanna first briefly explain the flow of the overarching argument from verse one through 24, and then we'll go back and look at verses one through nine in more detail. So, in verse one, Paul says, now concerning the matters about which you wrote, and then there's a quotation from the Corinthians. that they say it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. Or literally, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but of course touch there is euphemistic for sexual relations. And I think the ESV rightly puts this in quotes as being a statement by the Corinthians, because Paul immediately counters it in the ensuing verses. And basically what the Corinthians are suggesting or claiming is that sex should be abstained from even within marriage. Now it's not clear that the Corinthians are necessarily outright forbidding sex, but they're at least discouraging it. They're saying that it's good or more holy or better to just abstain. And so practically this would mean either avoiding marriage in the first place or possibly dissolving existing marriages or simply abstaining from sexual relations even within marriage. Now verses two through 24 is Paul's response to this statement by the Corinthians. And in verses two through six, I think this is part one of Paul's response, he says, this is wrong if you're married. It is not good for married people to abstain from sexual relations. It is good for them to come together and have sex. Then the second part of Paul's response is verse seven, where he says, but singleness is good. And of course, Paul agrees with the Corinthians if you're single. So Paul encourages singleness, and to the extent that, you know, in this quotation, while they have singleness in mind, he's affirming that. But even here, Paul's quick to caution that singleness is not for everyone. That's why he says, each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. And then in verses eight through 16, Paul applies that principle situationally. So in verses eight and nine, he says, well, if you're already single, stay single if you can, but not if you're burning with passion. And then in verses 10 and 11, Paul says, if you're married to another Christian, stay married. Don't think, well, singleness is good. It's the high road to holiness and super spirituality. So I should seek a divorce so that I can be single and devoted to God in that way. Paul says, no, God has called you to marriage. And then in verses 12 through 16, he says, even if you're married to a non-Christian, stay Married. Even though Paul in chapter six had just talked about the unholiness of sexual union with a prostitute. In marriage. Even if that union is with an unbeliever, Paul is explaining that no, marriage is good. You should stay married. It does not make you unholy. Stay married. And then finally, the third section of Paul's response, and this is really the conclusion, is verses 17 through 24. And here Paul essentially concludes that whether you're married or single, what really matters is that you're faithful in the particular life circumstance to which God has called you. He's saying that we should not live by some universal man-made axiom that sex is bad and should be avoided, or else that sex is good and everyone needs it. We should be striving for faithfulness in our particular life circumstance, the one God has placed us in. As verse 17 says, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. And moreover, whether you're married or single, whether you're circumcised or uncircumcised, a Jew or a Gentile, whether you're slave or free, Don't primarily concern yourself with changing your circumstance, but with faithfulness to God in your circumstance. As Paul concludes in verse 24, so brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there, let him remain with God. And notice throughout the whole section, the basic counsel of Paul is remain where you are. Now there are various situations where he does encourage a change in circumstances, if that's appropriate and if you have the opportunity, but primarily the recurring emphasis is be faithful where you are. Now we will look at all of that in more detail as we work our way through, but I hope that helps sort of orient you to the big picture. And now I want to dive into verses one through nine and unpack those in more detail. In point one of the sermon, It goes with verse one and it is sex avoided. Sex avoided. As I already explained, the Corinthians are saying it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. They are encouraging the avoidance of sex. They are denying the goodness of it. And they are not receiving it as a good gift of God. Now at first, this may seem very strange coming from the Corinthians of all people, given that we've seen extreme sexual misconduct earlier in the book. Remember, there was a word to Corinthianize, which meant to live promiscuously. And we know from chapter six that some of the Corinthians were adulterers and homosexuals prior to their conversion. And even now, presently in the church, chapter five tells us that they were tolerating a man who was sleeping with his stepmother, and chapter six, that some of them were visiting prostitutes. So there's a great deal of sexual permissiveness in Corinth. So how does total abstinence, even within marriage, fit with that? Well, I think the most likely answer is that this represents a different group within the church. Remember that the Corinthian church isn't monolithic. In fact, the first four chapters of the book are dealing with the problem of division within the church. And it's actually not at all surprising that where you find permissive excess on one hand, you often find ascetic extremes on the other. Perhaps, Some within the church are seeing their fellow church members go to prostitutes and misuse sex so horribly that they just think sex itself is impure and best avoided. Or perhaps it goes in the other direction and maybe some spouses have embraced this celibate life and that was actually contributing to the problem of the other spouse going to prostitutes. Whatever the case, permissiveness and asceticism often go hand in hand. In fact, sometimes you'll even see this in the same individual. One moment, someone is on this legalistic, ascetic extreme, and then the next, they've slid off into great indulgence and permissiveness. And that actually brings up another reason why we shouldn't be too surprised by this juxtaposition in Corinth. You see, I think asceticism and permissiveness can share a common root. In the case of the Corinthians, remember that in the section on the prostitutes, Paul had to explain the significance of the body. He had to help them understand that salvation is not merely spiritual in the sense of not really applying to our bodies. And of course, if you think salvation's all spiritual and your body doesn't really matter, well, one response to that is to think, well, then I'm free to just use my body however I please. All things are lawful for me. But on the other hand, you might also respond to that by thinking if salvation's all spiritual, my body's like this dead weight that's holding my spirit back. My body is holding me back and I really just need to disengage from it. And so the way to spiritual progress is to deny the body and suppress its desires. And that of course leads in a very ascetic direction. prolonged fasts, afflicting yourself with cold or pain, abstaining from all bodily pleasure like sex. And so I think that's probably why some within the Corinthian church have taken the position they have, avoiding sex altogether. It's both an overreaction to the sexual misconduct they've witnessed or even experienced, And it's also the fruit of a theology that spiritualizes salvation in a way that de-emphasizes the significance and the goodness of the body, that views sexual desire as, at best, a sort of neutral animal-like instinct that's really beneath a truly pure and holy person. And that's really not all that different than where Augustine, And a number of other Christians throughout history have wound up. Now, we'll say something about how Augustine winds up there in the next section, but where he winds up is really the idea that all sexual desire in this life is just so hopelessly infected with lustful concupiscence that sex itself is really best avoided if you want to lead a truly pure and holy life. And maybe some of you are inclined to feel that way. Maybe your own past experience makes it hard for you to imagine that sex could be truly pure or good. To borrow from Keith, the Bible teaches that we should view sex as a good gift from God. But our constant temptation is to either worship it as a God or else avoid it as gross. Will you receive it as a gift Will you worship as a God or will you reject it as gross? And of course, the more we worship it as a God and it enslaves us, the more perverted it becomes and it really is gross. But the Bible makes clear that that's not the way it should be. You could just read the Song of Solomon to see how sex is intended as a good gift that should be received that way. But how do we do that? Well, let's look at Paul's response to the Corinthians. So we've seen number one, sex avoided. Number two, sex commanded. And this is in verses two through six. In verse two, Paul immediately responds by saying, but because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. All right, so what he's saying is, if you're married, you should have sex. Of course, there can be medical issues and so forth, but to the degree you're able, you should. And importantly, Paul grounds this by saying, because of sexual immorality. Now that should certainly not be understood as the only reason to have sex, but I think it's the reason Paul stresses here, because he's just been talking about the need to flee sexual immorality. And clearly some of the Corinthians seem to think that the way you do that is by avoiding sex altogether. And Paul's saying, no, actually, part of the way you do that is by having sex with your spouse. So in other words, rejecting sex is just gross, may actually make you more susceptible to being enslaved by it as your God than if you received it as God's good gift. But notice also that this temptation to sexual immorality goes both ways. Both here and in the ensuing verses, Paul treats sexual immorality as no more of a male issue than a female issue. And I point that out because too often I think we assume sexual immorality is a struggle for guys and we assume it's not for ladies. And I think that does a disservice to both. For guys, too often, sexual sin becomes acceptable. It becomes something we just expect and tolerate. And for girls, I think too often it becomes an unthinkable forbidden sin that they feel afraid to share. And the reality is, it's a temptation for us all. It's something we all need to fight, that we all need to be able to share and find accountability in. Now in verse three, Paul continues, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband. Now embedded here is actually another reason why couples should have sex. Literally, this says the husband should pay his debt or fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. So Paul's actually basically saying here that marriage is a sexual contract. That when you enter into marriage, you are committing to be sexually available to your spouse. So in other words, far from abstinence in marriage being the high road to holiness or super spirituality, it's sin. In fact, it's fraud. It's failing to pay what you owe. In fact, in verse five, Paul uses the term deprive, and that's actually the same word in Greek for defraud. It's the same word Paul used back in the previous chapter when he was talking about lawsuits. And so withholding sex from your spouse is cheating them out of what you owe them. It should never be a means of getting what you want or bartering. Now, it may seem strange to us to think of sex within marriage in any sense as a duty or a contract. And I certainly don't think Paul means to reduce it to that. But his point is that it's not less than that. Marriage is a one flesh union that requires freely giving to one another your bodies in your very lives. You have no right to withhold your body from your spouse because it belongs to them as much as to you. Look at what Paul says in verse four. 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. And by the way, notice the perfect mutuality with which Paul explains this. The husband's body belongs to his wife and is under her authority in exactly the same way that her body belongs to him and is under his authority. They're one flesh. And that's important because even though Paul elsewhere talks about male headship in marriage, I think this shows that that authority is not absolute. His body is under her authority. Also, I think it's important to clarify here that this is not a license for either spouse to demand sex from the other whenever they wish. To do that would be pure hypocrisy because it would be violating the very spirit of the marriage covenant which you're demanding the other to obey. You see, love doesn't demand like that. Respect doesn't demand like that. But what this passage does mean is that both spouses have the responsibility before God to be sexually available to the others. Both spouses must view their own bodies not as their own, to be used for selfish interests, but as belonging to the other, to be used for them. So in other words, what I'm saying is this passage isn't ammo to tell your spouse what to do. It's God's word to you, to tell you what to do for your spouse. Now in verse five, Paul continues. saying, do not deprive or defraud 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 here, Paul's just conceding that it's okay to temporarily abstain from sex if both spouses agree. But even then, he says it needs to be temporary because it can make you vulnerable to temptation. And once again, I think the temptation he has in mind is the temptation to sexual immorality that he mentioned in verse two. And the reason Paul has in mind here for why spouses might abstain from sex for some temporary window of time is so that they can free themselves for special devotion to prayer. Now, I don't think Paul necessarily means to say that prayer is the only conceivably legitimate reason for this, but it may be that the church practiced prolonged prayer vigils that Paul is here conceding a willingness to accommodate. Now, verse six is important because it seems to be here where Augustine goes astray. He thinks verse six refers back to everything Paul just said in verses two through five, And therefore the concession is that it's okay, allowable, permissible to marry and have sexual relations, but really it's the celibate life that everyone should aspire to. And that's really the ideal for us all. So therefore Paul's overall, not view, Paul's overall view of marriage and sex is rather negative. It just sort of colors everything negatively. Now the ESV, you'll notice, puts verse six in the next paragraph. So if you're reading an ESV Bible, you're just gonna naturally assume, oh, six must go with verse seven. But for a number of reasons, I think the simplest and best grammatically supported reading is to understand the concession of verse six to just refer back to verse five. And Paul is simply conceding that it's okay for married couples to abstain from sex if it's by agreement and for a limited time. But in verse six, he's clarifying that even if it's for the purpose of prayer, he's not commanding that. He's just conceding that's okay, but he's not commanding that that's what spouses need to do. And so of course that view, that understanding really runs exactly counter to how Augustine takes it because the concession is not weakening everything Paul said about the importance of sex within marriage, but strengthening it. And so in light of that, the overarching point here in these verses is that the Corinthians are wrong to say that it's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. Because that's actually bad in marriage. Married couples are covenantally obligated to be sexually available to one another. And rather than abstinence promoting sexual purity within marriage, abstinence in marriage actually makes spouses more susceptible to sexual immorality. I think that's Paul's argument. A tricky question raised here is why and how does sex within marriage actually help protect against sexual immorality? Because when you think about it, sexual immorality comes from lust. And we should know that marriage doesn't cure lust. I mean, if a guy's addicted to pornography, we should not think, well, just get married and that'll fix it. No, that's a good way to make your marriage really hard. So how do we understand what Paul means here? Well, first, I think we need to distinguish between lust and non-sinful sexual desire. As I already mentioned, there is non-sinful sexual desire, right? Just read the Song of Solomon. God's word does not praise sinful desire. There is strong, passionate sexual desire that's good and God-given. But there's also lust. And lust is sin. And I think one of the best ways to distinguish it is like this. The greatest commandment that we have been given is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second it is like it, we shall love our neighbor as ourselves. So every godly desire will be perfectly consistent with that. So if your sexual desire for someone is pure, it will go hand in hand with loving them as yourself. Not objectifying them, not desiring something from them at their expense, but having their good in mind just as much as your own. And further, if your sexual desire is pure, it will also go hand in hand with loving God with all your heart. It will never involve violating God's boundaries or perverting God's design or elevating that sexual desire above your love for God himself. And I think the way you distinguish lust from godly sexual desire is lust is when sexual desire becomes detached from these two great commandments and actually goes against them. It's when sexual desire becomes objectification. when it becomes about selfish gratification, when it involves lawlessness and perversion. And so if that's how we distinguish lust, well, how do we fight it? Well, at least this much is simple. You never fight lust by gratifying it, just like you never fight sin by indulging it. You see, one of the characteristics of lustful desires is that the more you feed them, the stronger and the more demanding and the more enslaving they become. And of course, you don't fight alcoholism by, you know, just having a little alcohol. You don't fight pornography by just watching a little of it. No, as Jesus said, you fight it by ripping out your eye or cutting off your hand. So when Paul says that sex within marriage helps protect against sexual immorality, he doesn't mean gratify all your lustful cravings with your spouse, because as long as it's within marriage, it's fine. And that way they won't burst out toward other people. No. What Paul means is pursue sex with your spouse in the way God intends so that you will cultivate godly sexual desire and be less susceptible and vulnerable to perverted sex and selfish lusts. Consider what Paul has just been saying about your body, not being under your authority, but that of your spouse. Godly sex isn't about being controlled by the lusts of your body and gratifying yourself, but about freely and lovingly and self-sacrificially giving your body to another for their benefit. And friends, that's what creates a powerful protection against sexual immorality. That's what actually is meant to satisfy the good and godly sexual desires that God has placed within us that are meant to be fulfilled in a marriage that is a whole person, whole emotional, spiritual, one flesh union. That's what brings the true and proper and God intended sexual fulfillment that God created us to enjoy. And that's what those of us who are married should pursue. That's what Paul commands here. But what about if you're single? Well, that brings us to our third and final point. We've seen sex avoided, sex commanded, and now, finally, we see sex eclipsed. Sex eclipsed, verses seven through nine. Paul continues, and there's actually a preposition here that the ESV leaves untranslated, but it's, yet or now, yet 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 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. So Paul says, I wish that all were as I myself am. And as verse eight clarifies, he means single like himself. Now, Paul certainly doesn't mean by this that everyone should be single, or that singleness is the norm, or that those who are single are holier or more obedient than those who marry, because he immediately qualifies it by acknowledging that God gifts people differently and thereby calls them to different stations in life. But by saying that he wishes everyone were single, it's Paul's way of stressing just how good singleness is. It's not something to be resigned to because you can't marry. It's a good and positive thing in its own right. In fact, it's so good that Paul recommends continued singleness to those who are presently unmarried. He says, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. Now I just wanna pause here and recognize the fact that this is a shocking thing for a former Pharisee to say. I mean, from a purely Old Testament context, it just doesn't make sense. God commissioned mankind from the beginning, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And then with the entrance of sin into the world, barrenness becomes one of the greatest symbols of the curse and one of the most painful trials that Old Testament saints had to face. So the notion of singleness by choice just seems unthinkable. The only Old Testament examples I could think of would be a few of the prophets like Jeremiah and probably Elijah, but at least in Jeremiah's case, his singleness was intended as a sign of the impending doom of Jerusalem. You can read the beginning of chapter 16. So from an Old Testament perspective, wishing singleness on people is more like cursing them than blessing them. In fact, this is probably the biggest reason why some scholars are convinced that Paul must have been previously married. It just seems unthinkable to them that as a Pharisee, he was not. Yet now, whatever the case, Paul the Christian not only willingly chooses singleness for himself, but says, singleness is so good, I wish all of you were single. So why is that? Well, Paul actually explains some of the benefits of singleness later in this chapter. Look ahead at verses 29 through 35. Paul says, this is what I mean, brothers. The appointed time has grown very short. From 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 this 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 betrothed 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. And of course we'll look at this in greater detail in subsequent sermon, but for now I just want you to notice two things. First, Paul sees singleness as advantageous because it promotes undivided devotion to the Lord. And second, Paul sees singleness as advantageous because the present form of this world is passing away. And you see, I think Paul understood that with the coming of Christ came a new covenant, a new age, a new calling, and ultimately a new creation. And even now, here we are living in the overlap of the ages, right? As this present world continues on but is passing away, And at the same time, the age to come is already dawning. And friends, that age to come is an age in which, as Jesus explains to the Sadducees in Matthew chapter 22, there will be no more marrying or giving in marriage, but we will be like the angels. You see, human marriage is temporary. Sexual desires are temporary. God designed it, and it is God's good gift, but it was never intended to be forever. As we saw in the call to worship, it was always intended to point forward to a greater reality, to the true and eternal marriage, the marriage of Christ and his bride, the church. And the point is, in anticipation of this coming age, and in light of the fact that Christ has already come, and that he has now given us a new and greater commission, not just to be fruitful and multiply physically, but to go therefore and make disciples of all nations, there is now a legitimate place for singleness in the Christian life. There is a wonderful role that single Christians have to play in kingdom work. As Isaiah 56 says to the eunuch, who has no hope of any physical lineage among the people of God, Let not the eunuch say, I am a dry tree. For God says, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Friends, the single Christian is no second class citizen in the kingdom of heaven. As we saw in Matthew 19, Jesus himself says, there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. Friends, singleness for the sake of the kingdom of God is a gift. It's a gift that allows uniquely flexible service, that enables uniquely concentrated devotion, And it's a gift that bears witness to the fact that as good as marriage and sex are, there is an even more satisfying, even greater and longer lasting reality that has eclipsed them all in Christ. But friends, it's also a gift that requires sacrifice. It's a gift that requires the foregoing of God's good gift of sex, of marriage, of children. But Paul's saying here, it's worth it. and if you can receive it, receive it. And friends, I think this should challenge us to better encourage those among us who are single, rather than just thinking, that's weird. or just emphasizing how much you think single people are missing out. We're seeking to fix their singleness. Think of how you could better encourage singles with a sense of the privilege and purpose of their calling and encourage them to press forward and be faithful in it. But having said all of that, it's important to stress that singleness isn't for everyone. As Paul says in verse nine, But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn. And literally, he just says than to burn. Some have taken this to imply burn in hell, but I think the ESV is right to take this as burn with passion, burn with sexual desire. And so here, Paul clarifies that singleness is not good if you can't exercise self-control. It's not good if you're trying to remain single as if it were inherently superior or the path to super spirituality when that's not what God has gifted you for or called you to. That will only lead to burning with passion. And that will leave you in a dangerously precarious position, much like we saw at the beginning with many Catholic priests. You see, I think the point here is that natural, God-given sexual desires aren't meant to just be suppressed. They're meant to find expression in marriage. So if you feel that desire particularly strongly, you should seek marriage. You should take steps to find a spouse. It's not that the single Christian is inherently holy or more self-controlled. It's that he or she has been gifted differently than you. And I think an implication from this is that self-control is really situational. You know, self-control is not just the ability to suppress whatever desires you feel and to just sort of master yourself to do anything. Self-control is from the grace God gives to be faithful to walk in his calling for your life. And so we need to embrace what God is calling us to do and walk in his will rather than resisting that as if there were some other way that is sort of inherently better for us. However, of course, the really challenging question here is what do you do if you feel like you're burning with passion, but you just can't seem to find any suitable and willing spouse? Well, of course, you should first talk that through with mature believers who can give you counsel. Maybe you're being too idealistic. Maybe you're not being proactive enough. And maybe there's some practical steps you need to take to grow in spiritual maturity and better prepare yourself for marriage. but assuming that you're doing everything you can and you still find yourself in singleness and deeply desiring to be married and feeling like you are burning with that desire, I wanna point your attention again to where Paul ultimately concludes. Verse 17, he says, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. And then after giving the examples of circumcision and slavery, he concludes in verse 24, so brothers in whatever condition each was called there, let him remain with God. And you see, the point is your primary concern is never changing your situation, but being faithful today, right where you are. And while it would be wrong to stubbornly willfully remain in singleness, if if God has not called you to it and you have the opportunity to marry. As long as in God's providence, you actually are single. That's where God is calling you to be. And you need to know that God is always faithful to provide sufficient grace for whatever situation he places you in. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able to bear, but with the temptation, he will always provide the way of escape. Friend, God is not abandoning you to burn with passion while providing no spouse. You may feel like you are. You may feel like it's just too hard, but God is faithful. Nothing in this text says that remaining with God in the calling he has for us will be easy. Next week, we'll talk about how hard it can be for the married people who really want to be single. But following Christ always requires sacrifice. For some, it's the sacrifice of sex, of marriage, of children. For others, it's a career, it's friends or loved ones, it's money or comfort. But brothers and sisters, the point is, whatever the cost, it's worth it. All the things of this life are temporary and not ultimate. This present world is passing away. It's Christ's kingdom that is forever. It is Christ himself who has come and has eclipsed every other good gift, every other reality. I know, friends, I mean, we should just come back to the gospel. Just meditate on the fact that we are sinners, that we've all committed sexual immorality. That we've all failed to love God, and we have all failed to love our neighbors ourself, and that what we justly deserve is eternity in hell. Right, not just a life of feeling like we have unfulfilled desires, but eternal condemnation. And yet God, out of sheer love and mercy and grace, gave his son to come and to suffer and die for us, so that we can be freely forgiven, so that we can become heirs of eternal life. And all friends, in light of that reality, what hope we should have, what strength we should find in the midst of whatever calling we're in. Friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, right, this is our hope. It's not marriage. It's not, you know, the things of this world. It's Christ. It's he as our savior. And friend, if you don't know him even today, if you will repent and believe, you can receive this gift of salvation. And it's friends, as we treasure Christ and the gospel, that we are truly able to receive sex as a good gift and not a God or gross, or on the other hand, receive the life of singleness as a good gift of God instead. And friends, for us all, the message this morning is ultimately the same. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. And brothers, In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. Amen. Let's pray.