Single Minded

Corinthians  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  35:56
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Advice from the Creator

I got a call from another team this week. Please, Dusty, help us, you are our only hope.
Felt pretty good.
I jump into a video call… and they need my help on something I had worked on previously. Something was going wrong with logging people in.
But… I couldn’t help. It didn’t work the way I had used it before. I was useless and that felt… less good.
We had to call in the big guns. The Creator. A guy named Michael Sterling. In about five minutes he was able to recognize the issue and set us straight. Why? Because he knew intimately how it all worked. He was the Creator.

Single

There are some things in Scripture, maybe a very few, that I feel pretty qualified to speak into. This chapter, 1 Corinthians 7, isn’t one of them.
Survey: Who wants to hear dating and/or marriage advice from a dude in his 40s, divorced and remarried, who hasn’t figured everything out himself?
For that matter...
Survey: Who wants to hear some dating advice from a single-dude, probably a widower in his 50s? That would be the Apostle Paul.
Instead of either of those...
Survey: Who wants to hear advice on how we are to live, how we are to love, including dating and marriage, from the Creator who made us? From the One who knows exactly how we work (and how we don’t).
This… this is a difficult passage for me to preach through. It touches on so much of my own brokenness… I haven’t, on so many levels, lived this out fully and faithfully. That is true many places in Scripture, sure, but there are words here that have been used by the church to hurt and wound many. I don’t think that is the spirit in which Paul speaks them. Truly, he brings compassion and careful pastoral guidance.
But if we are looking for words to use as a sword of judgmental condemnation… we are going to find them, this week and next. Instead, let’s seek wisdom, compassion, holiness and righteousness.
In this context, Paul addresses a question the Corinthians have asked him. And from the context of his answer, we can reconstruct the question:

What About Sex, Though?

In light of everything we have learned about Jesus’ death and resurrection… and in light of his soon coming return… in light of a call to take up our cross and follow him… what about sex? What about family? What about marriage? How then shall we live?
Recall, Paul has just walked through the meaning of sex, the power of it, the spiritual nature of it.
1 Corinthians 6:18–20 ESV
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
So what do we do with that, then? For God created sex, he formed our bodies in such a way that we desire, that we have a “sex drive”. And didn’t he say that “it is good” and “it is not good for man to be alone” and He created marriage and all that?
What about sex?
1 Corinthians 7:1–2 ESV
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.
This is the big contrast.
Abstinence is good. Virginity is good. We can call this whole chapter Paul’s ode to singleness.
This verse… and the whole chapter really, it reads as if marriage is the lesser choice, the “well… if you have to” choice.
It is very likely that Paul was previously married. He could not be a member of the Sanhedrin if he wasn’t… and it seems likely that he was, so we presume Paul is a widower. To be clear, these are guesses… we don’t know for sure.
If so, Paul speaks from a position of knowing what it is like to be married, what it is like to be single before and after marriage. And in Paul’s writing here, he is pretty clear that the first choice should be a life of abstinence - a life of singleness.
1 Corinthians 7:6–7 ESV
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.
“as I myself am”… that is “single”.
Listen to how carefully he puts this. Not a command. Throughout the whole chapter Paul is careful to distinguish between his own advice, his own counsel, and what he believes is straight from the Lord. That’s incredibly helpful.
1 Corinthians 7:8–9 ESV
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.
This is not the way I think as a parent. I remember the Christian parenting books said things like “start praying now for the boy or girl your child is going to marry.” What the absolute assumption there?
This is not the model, really, that church culture in general drives. Churches focus on families, young families are the big growth metric. If you have lots of singles, better get them all in a “singles” group so they can pair up and get married!
Funny enough, the world is on the “single-for-life” train.
And we might think that Paul was ahead of his time, for across all “1st world” nations, singleness is on the rise, marriage is on the decline.
This chart shows the US. In the 60s, 90% of adults were married up. In 2010 that number is below 50%. In Europe it is even lower. Some of that is people not getting married until their 30s or 40s. Some of that is people just deciding to never ever get married.
Are people finally getting on board with the Paul lifestyle? I don’t think so.
Why are people remaining single for life?
In general, marital social norms have gone out the window. Marriage is considered “old school” and why not play the field, have fun, enjoy maximum freedom? Have sex with whoever you want, whenever you want… just avoid diseases and “take care” of any unwanted pregnancies.
The “new singleness” is largely about self-gratification and maximizing pleasure and personal freedom.
Is that why Paul teaches this?

Live as you are called

1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV
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.
True for marriage and singleness. True for Jew vs Greek. True for slaves and free, even.
1 Corinthians 7:18–24 ESV
Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

The time is short

The time is short in two senses. One, Paul believes persecution is now present or very nearly imminent.
1 Corinthians 7:25 ESV
Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.
(Hear his careful words, this is advice, not command straight from God)
1 Corinthians 7:26 ESV
I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is.
I think of all the postponed weddings this last year when COVID shut everything down. There were a lot, (though some did a backyard wedding in advance).
But in light of coming persecution, that’s pretty specific in time and place to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 7:27–31 ESV
Are you bound 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 betrothed 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 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.
This last piece is not bound to just the Corinthians in their time. What is the “appointed time?” That is the return of Jesus. What does it mean that “the present form of this world is passing away?”
Just that. This world is not our home. We are sojourners in a strange land. Paul is not wrong in this because Jesus didn’t return in his lifetime. We are called to be ready at all times, by death or resurrection, our sojourn here is short and can end at any moment.
We should have this kind of urgency.
Because tribulation is coming… and Jesus is coming soon, we should remain single.

Single Minded

and then, Paul hints at this in verse 28: “those who marry will have worldly troubles.” And he unpacks it further here:
1 Corinthians 7:32–35 ESV
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.
Is the single-person free from anxieties? Not likely. Look at Paul’s life. He is getting kicked around, beat up, stoned, insulted… his life is full of crazy. Paul cannot be saying the single life is “easy”.
But “his interests are undivided.” Undivided devotion to the Lord.
I think of our awesome lunch service to the homeless on Thursdays at noon. You know who is driving that awesome ministry, mostly? Our retired brothers and sisters. Why? Because they don’t have jobs. Some weeks I can move things around, block out my day, and be there. Sometimes I have meetings, or picking up kids, or helping my wife with things then… so I can’t be there for ministry in that moment. Those are all good things, we’ll talk more about that next week.
But there is potential for the single person to be more wholly, “single-mindedly” devoted to the Lord.
This is where Paul completely rejects the modern trend of singleness.
Why do people stay single now? Greater freedom. Freedom to choose sexual partners, to “play the field.” Freedom to not commit, to stay un-tethered.
Is that why Paul is advocating singleness?
Nope. It is, instead, to be all the more bound to Jesus. All the more focused on serving his Lord, “undivided devotion.”

Single Minded

The focus is not on maximizing your pleasure or self-fulfillment.
The focus is not on maximizing your pleasure or self-fulfillment.
The focus is not on maximizing your pleasure or self-fulfillment.
We can build whole churches around supporting and encouraging families. We’ll touch on some of that next week. Marriage is not a second-class citizen here. Paul is very careful to affirm marriage, the one who marries “does well.”
There is a completely different set of goals and assumptions then those we usually carry… and it boils down to this very familiar (hopefully) question.
What would please God most?
What would give God the most glory?
What will love God with all my heart, all my mind, all my strength?
Not “will I be most personally affirmed or fulfilled in marriage?” Or “do I want kids?” Or “is she cute?”
Those aren’t the questions that leads Paul to this. Simply “what will please God most?”
Will God be pleased most in my singleness, is that a road that allows me to focus more fully, more “single-mindedly” on Him?
Or will God be pleased most in my marriage? I absolutely believe the answer to that can be “yes”, by the way. (Or I wouldn’t be married today).
Next week we’ll talk about “Dating and why I’m not single.”
Are we willing to give that to God? Our dating plans, our marriage plans, our “singleness” plans? Our relationships? Our love life?
I think we often decide that’s too much to turn over. That’s part of “my life.” And any part of our life that we hold back from submission to God is a piece of death we are holding on to. No wonder relationships and sex are the source of so much heartbreak and brokenness in our lives and in our world.
Here is my entreaty, to all of us. We need to submit our whole selves and our whole lives to God. Our marriages, yes… our dating life, yes… and our singleness.
Because the time is short. The “troubles” are coming. And Jesus, come swiftly.
Paul writes in answer to the Corinthians question: “What about sex, though?” Paul writes pastorally, counseling those who are married, engaged, divorced, single… and enslaved. How do we live faithfully and righteously where we are called? Paul has some counter-cultural rarely-followed advice here. In light of the urgency of Jesus’ return, and in order to be a single-minded slave of Christ, it is good/better/best to remain abstinently and obstinately single. Christians rarely follow this advice, generally don’t have this sense of urgency, because we have entirely the wrong focus.
What would please/love/serve/glorify our Master the most?
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