Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20070422.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
1 Corinthians: Discipling Believers With Very Sinful Backgrounds
IV. Overcoming Moral Laxity In Marital Roles And Conduct
B. Aligning With God's Goal For Stability In Human Institutions
(1 Corinthians 7:10-40)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

By now we have all heard of the Virginia Tech tragedy last Monday when a troubled student shot and killed 32 people.

One of our young adults who attends the school was on campus when it happened. Though we are very grateful he was not harmed, the event left him, his family, our Church, our nation and world stunned!

An initial report noted some of the students had left the school after the shootings because they no longer "felt safe" there! We can certainly sympathize with them, but that same sense of restless insecurity exists in too many basic human institutions in today's world:

(1) A cover story in the April 16, 2007 issue of USA TODAY reported how the children in Iraq are becoming emotionally upset by the country's last four years of war. Even if the war can end soon, its emotional scars will afflict a whole generation of Iraqi people!

(2) Another cover story in the April 19, 2007 issue of the same paper told how the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in a sharply divided, 5-4 vote against one kind of partial birth abortion. In the court opinions, "Justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized the bond of love' a mother has for a child . . . [while dissenting] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg . . . stressed a woman's autonomy . . .'" (Ibid., "Court takes harder stance on abortion," by Joan Biskupic, p. 2A) Meanwhile, the most basic of all human relationships in Western Civilization, that of a mother and her child, is held in legal limbo before our nation by nine people who disagree over a mother's killing of her full term unborn child.

(3) Terry Mattingly reported in the September 10, 1989 Republican-American ("To be, or not to be Christian") that though he had been trained at Yale's theologically liberal Divinity School, that he was thus "not a card-carrying member of the Religious Right," Reverend William Willimon expressed concern that children in America "have seen their parents destroy their own lives during the sexual revolution' [of the 1960s] . . . So many of our churches today, especially the so-called mainline churches, seem to have no coherent moral vision . . . We have to give our children resources that will help them say no' to a pagan culture. But it's hard to teach your children how to say no' when you aren't saying no' yourself.'"

So, with instability and insecurity in even our most basic of human institutions, we may be asking, "What can we do about it?"

(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "With the instability and insecurity that exists in various key human institutions, how may we productively respond?!"
  1. The Corinthians knew great insecurity in their human institutions:
    1. Their city's 1,000 prostitutes (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1619) would have born many children who were raised without their fathers.
    2. Such a state breeds "urgent social problems" like crime and domestic violence (cf. "Life without Father," USA Weekend, 2/24-26/95, p. 4)
  2. In EDIFYING CONTRAST to this, GOD'S SERVANTS were to REST in the CARE of their Master, GOD, and so STAY STABLE in His calling in their assigned HUMAN INSTITUTIONS (as follows):
    1. Paul's 1 Corinthians 7 address on human institutions was "part of a more general principle: in everything, the Christian is to remain in his calling, unless it is immoral . . .," Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to 1 Cor. 7:17-24.
    2. That principle arose from the fact that believers were purchased by God to be His servants, 1 Corinthians 7:23.
    3. Now, a servant was under his master's care so he could relax enough to focus on doing his will, Zon. Pict. Enc. of the Bible, v. Five, p. 460.
    4. So, as God's servants, believers were under His care so they could rest in His oversight and be able to focus on His will to stay stable in the institutions in which God had called them to Christ, 7:17-24:
      1. Paul taught that whether he was circumcised or uncircumcised (7:18-20), whether he was free or in slavery (7:21-22), the believer was to stay stable in that human institution in which he BECAME God's SERVANT at faith in Christ, 1 Cor. 7:17, 24.
      2. [Now, Paul noted it was better for a slave to be free as God was his only true Master (1 Cor. 7:23), so slaves who could legally and so in social stability gain their freedom were to do so, 1 Cor. 7:21.]
    5. This stability also applied to marital roles, 1 Cor. 7:10-16, 25-40:
      1. Heterosexual, monogamous, adults were to stay married, 7:10, 11:
        1. As in 1 Cor. 7:2-3, in 1 Cor. 7:10-11, Paul used the Greek terms gunaika, "adult female" and andra (also as andros and andri), "man in contrast to woman" to refer to spouses in heterosexual, monogamous, adult unions, U. B. S. Greek N. T., 1963 ed., p. 592; Arndt & Ging., Greek-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., p. 167, 65.
        2. So, those in Biblical marriages were to stay married, 7:10, 11b.
        3. [Some hold Jesus allowed for divorce for a spouse's adultery due to the Matthew 19:9 "except-for-fornication" clause: yet, the same Mark 10:1-12 account to Gentiles (Ibid., Ryrie, p. 1397) omits the clause, so it does not apply to the Church, but to Jews under the Law who were to divorce (1) Gentile spouses (Ezra 10:9-12), (2) spouses who were close relatives in violation of Lev. 18 or (3) they could divorce immoral betrothed partners (H. Hendricks, Christ. Couns. for Cont. Probs. (1968), p. 112f).]
      2. Believers in Biblically patterned unions but who divorced were to stay single or be reconciled [providing there was no second spouse after the divorce, 1 Cor. 7:11 with Deut. 24:1-4 NIV, ESV].
      3. A believer wed to an unsaved spouse was to stay wed, but let the unsaved spouse divorce him to keep a good rapport that he might be won to Christ, 1 Cor. 7:12-16. The "not-under-bondage" clause in verse 15 does not mean a believer may remarry a second party as that would counter the 1 Cor. 7:10-11 directive; rather, the clause means one does not sin in not resisting divorce initiated by the lost.
      4. Believers in complicated marital unions are to stay in those unions providing the marital patterns are not Biblically abominable:
        1. Believers rewed after divorcing another party(ies) must stay in the latest arrangement, for another wrong will not make it right!
        2. "Live-in" unions must cease as they are sin, the exception being if the union is a heterosexual, monogamous, adult union; then they must marry as they are "one flesh," Ex. 22:16; Mk. 10:6-9.
        3. All unions listed as abominations in Leviticus 18 must cease for the believer to be holy, cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
        4. Religiously-based bigamy in many lands must not be broken by divorce if it hurts innocent dependents and/or one's testimony (1 Cor. 10:32f). Yet, the next generation must be monogamous!
      5. Believing virgins in hard times and believing widows(ers) may wed Biblically qualified believers to avoid temptation, but it is wise if they can do so to stay single, 7:25-38; 7:1, 7-9, 39-40.
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ to be saved, John 3:16. (2) Then, (a) as God's servants, may we (b) REST in His care as His servants (c) so we can focus on doing His will to stay stable in our human institutions before an unstable, insecure, needy world!

Lesson: In EDIFYING CONTRAST to the instability and insecurity in the world's human institutions, the believer as GOD'S SERVANT is to REST in God's CARE and so to focus on doing His will of STAYING STABLE in the institutional states in which God saved him [UNLESS changing helps his walk or witness, and if it is done in a STABLE WAY]!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

Sometimes even the unstable, insecure world itself discloses its need for believers in Christ to stay stable in their human institution callings as we can illustrate from the following two testimonies:

(1) In the October 31, 1994 issue of Torrington, Connecticut's Register-Citizen, local area Judge Charles D. Gill wrote the article, "Get tough on crime! Begin with values" in which he critiqued the Crime Bill congress had then just passed into law. Judge Gill claimed of the $30.2 billion dollar initiative: "I can safely predict that this bill will have little or no effect upon crime or violence in America . . . The truth is that the fear of punishment does not even really deter you and me from committing crimes. Our values do. Those without values are deterred by nothing." (emphases ours)

(2) Then, African-American columnist, Walter Williams, in his article, "Social penicillin' for the underclass," in the January 3, 1997 Waterbury, Connecticut Republican-American noted the need to identify a solution to the social problems that began to afflict fellow African-Americans in the 1960s and that were also then starting to plague white Americans. That solution was offered in citing Robert Rector's July 1996 article, "God and the Underclass" in the National Review. Rector in turn noted that "Boys who regularly attend church are 50 percent less likely to commit crimes. They are 54 percent less likely to use drugs and 47 percent less likely to drop out of school . . . churchgoing boys and girls are two-thirds less likely to engage in teen sex. Regular church attendance halves the chances a woman will have a child out of wedlock." (emphases ours)

So, to RESPOND PRODUCTIVELY to the many unstable, insecurity-breeding human institutions in our world, (1) we must TRUST in Christ as Savior and (2) REST in His CARE and PLAN for us as His SERVANTS (3) so that we can FOCUS on STAYING STABLE in the CALLINGS to the HUMAN INSTITUTIONS we found ourselves when God became our MASTER at faith in Christ (or CHANGE in a STABLE, LEGAL, ORDERLY way to improve our walk and testimony)! The WORLD desperately NEEDS us to DO so that we might LIVE God's STABLE, SECURE LIGHT to His TRUTH amid its SHAKY and INSECURE DARKNESS!

May we do this in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit!