Loving Like a Christian | 1 Corinthians 7

Stream additional content at https://www.youtube.com/c/RockPointeChurchFM

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

That intro music is designed specifically for me. That is perfect for me. So glad that you're here. Pastor Ron said, before we get started this morning, talk a little bit about Lent, not L-I-N-T. You don't have to check your clothes, you're okay. But L-E-N-T. And many of you know that Lent means a season that the church has been celebrating for centuries. About 40 days before we celebrate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus or Easter. There's this period of Lent of preparation. What do you do in Lent? Well, think of it as a springtime for the soul. It's a way to grow your relationship with God, and you can do it in a couple of ways. You can uh plant new seeds of devotion, increase your prayer, pray in new ways, take on a new devotion. The church, Rock Point here, will send out to you a text later this week that you can log into to get a prompt, a reminder, how to pray, how to be mindful for Him. Some people add things to their life so that they can grow their spiritual life. Some people take some things away. The spiritual exercise is fasting. It doesn't mean necessarily just cut your calories, though some people try to do that. It's not a way of just getting physically healthy, but it's a way of simplifying your life. Taking some stuff that you do now, not bad stuff, but stuff that you do now and getting them out of the way so you can use that time to cultivate your relationship with God. One Christian leader made this suggestion. He said, What if you fasted, not so much from food, but from angry, judgmental, harsh words for the season of Lent? What if instead you attempted to only say those things that are grateful, that are encouraging, that lift people up? What if you fasted from those angry, harsh words for Lent? That's a great idea, but begin to pray about that. Think about that. Lent begins Wednesday. And now you can tell Pastor Rana did that. Because what we've really got on our mind is uh our Valentine's weekend. I don't know if you have uh completed your Valentine's card. I can generally scan the audience and tell who has and who hasn't. A lot of people looking down at the ground. If you're looking for that perfect Bible verse to include in your Valentine's card, do not look at 1 Corinthians 7 that we're looking at today. Pay no attention. Keep going. Keep driving, go past 7, and go to 1 Corinthians 13. Uh Dustin's going to talk about it next week. Lovely verses, rose petal poetic verses about love there. Love never fails. That's in there. That's lovely to put in your card. Uh, you'll remember this one. Uh faith, hope, love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is yeah, stay out of seven. That's all I'm telling you. Not that it's bad. I would just describe 1 Corinthians 7 is the advice column of the letter to the Corinthians. And when I say that, I'm not minimizing that this is scripture. It is literally pastoral advice, pastoral counseling. Uh, we believe that members of the Corinthian church have included in a letter to Paul a specific list of questions that they hope that he would address. We don't have that letter. We don't know what's on the list, but we know that he got it because he says in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 7, he says, now for the matters you wrote about. Now I'm going to take some time to answer your questions. We don't know what all the questions were, but we can deduce, we can guess by what he talks about in this chapter of some of the things that uh were written to him. They're all about relationships, they're all about love. Some married couples are saying, Paul, we're having some struggle. Uh, we'd like to get a little pastoral feedback. Could you answer this question? Some have said, uh, Paul, uh, my spouse doesn't share my faith. Can I go get another spouse? That was a quote, it seems to be a question. Some said, Paul, my spouse left me. Am I still married? Am I, you know, can can I find the dating app? I mean, that's that was that question. Singles were saying, Paul, we're tired of hearing about all the married people's problems. Do we have to get married? There was a question of singleness. Is that okay? Is that an okay lifestyle? Paul was single himself at the time. All of these questions Paul is asked and he addresses. We're not going to address them all, but he's got one response to all of them. I think a good summary is in verse 7. He says this. But each has a particular gift from God. What are you talking about, Paul? We just told you our problems. Paul reframes that and says, wherever you are in relationship, if you're married, even if it's hard, even if it's demanding, it's a gift. You can learn to love in that circumstance. Are you single? You can learn to love in that circumstance. The resolution is not to change the circumstance, but to begin by first seeing it as a gift. And in every situation, Paul will say, this is an opportunity to learn how to love like a Christian. And when he says something like that, what he really means is, he doesn't use that phrase, he means in every situation that you find yourself, learn to love like Christ. No matter what your relationship status is today, married, single, not dating, dating, single again, whatever it is, Paul would say, the question to ask yourself, are you being loving in that relationship? Well, what do you mean by that, Paul? Well, I mean this. Are you loving like Christ would love? Does his love radiate, resonate, reflect in the way that you're loving in the relationship status that you're in? Now, why do you think he emphasized love this much and made it the bottom line foundation of all of our relationships, no matter what status we're in? Well, because God is love. God is loving, but first John 4 tells us God is love. And he sent his son to show us how to love, to model love to God, to model love to one another. And Jesus was so intent about us continuing his model of love, he said, I'm going to send to you the Holy Spirit who'll give you the power, the wisdom, the resources to love like I love wherever you find yourself. That's it. That's pretty good advice. Thank you, Paul. Any questions? Well, actually, yeah, there's a lot of questions around that. It's good to know. It's the theological center of how we understand, how we live out our faith in love. But there are a number of questions in this passage. We don't have enough time to get to all of them, so I chose the hardest to look at this morning. And it's primarily targeted at married people, but the things that we talk about today is applicable in lots of different ways. So teenagers don't go to sleep. Single people don't think that this is not for you. There will be things, truths in here that you'll be able to apply as well in your life. What's the problem, the first issue that Paul addressed in the list? Well, here it is, in verse 1. Now, concerning the matters about which you wrote, someone sent him this message. This is not Paul's advice. This is a rule that has been derived in this congregation. They think it's a good rule. They're sending it to Paul to get a little applause, to get a little positive feedback. But here's what they say. We've decided it is well for a man not to touch a woman. Sounds very holy. But Paul's advice is not what they necessarily expect. But we understand where they've come from. Ron and Destin have been unpacking for us that in this city, in this church, a lot of struggle around this area of touch, a lot of temptation in the city, even in the church. A lot of crossing of boundaries, a lot of sorrow, a lot of pain, church conflict, complications from spiritual growth. And somebody came up with a bright idea to say, tell you what, let's forget touch. We'll just nip this in the bud. It seems that it's the source of all of our problems. No more touch. How strange they would come to that. It's a bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Happens from time to time. There's a movie that came out recently called The Testament of Anne Lee. Anne Lee was the founder of a branch of Christianity that was popular mostly in the 18th century. They were called, maybe you've heard of them before, they were called the Shakers. Ever heard of the Shakers? If you haven't, you've probably heard of some of the things that they invented or improved upon. Like, have you ever heard of Shaker furniture? Those lovely chairs and tables, beautifully designed and made out of wood, just lovely pieces, tasteful pieces. Have you ever used a straw broom? Any straw broom, sweet, at all? The technology of that, the shakers improved all that. Oh, they did that way back then, and we're still using it. Still works, still works out great. Ever heard, you classical music fans, I know there's many of you here, that great American uh composer Aaron Copeland. Do you remember that piece, Appalachian Spring? About 18 minutes into this piece, there's a little tune that you know. It goes like this. Da da da da da da da da da da da da. Heard that tune? Yeah. That's a shaker hymn. Tis a gift to be simple. In the 18th century, Ann Lee got all of these folks together living communally, living creatively, and committing to celibacy. All of them. If you join this church and you were married, there's a place for the girls to sleep, there's a place for the fellas to sleep, married or not. That's it. No touch. No touch in this commune. Some of you are saying, that sounds interesting, and they're Googling a shaker church. Don't Google it. There's only two left. And I don't mean two churches, I mean two shakers. If you're not having babies, you run out of members in a hurry. How did they come up with this? Anne Lee had four babies, and all of them died. In her own marriage, this issue of touch was problematic. So when she got her people seriously devoted to Jesus, she said, no touch. That's it. No touch. We might expect Paul to say, Good job, guys. I know that's been a tempting, difficult area of your own life. Just get rid of it. But here's what Paul said instead, starting in verse 2. But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife. And each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights. That's what this translation says. That word's not in the original Greek text. The original word there just means give them what is their due. Give them the complete package of love. Give them all that you've promised to give them. That's what that means. And verse 4 buckle up. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Now, ladies, don't storm out of the church. We're going to go back to this one. Just hang in there. Interestingly, he says, likewise, the husband doesn't have authority over his own body, but the wife does. All right. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time to devote yourselves to prayer. And then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Hey, Paul, we got this new rule at church. Don't be proud of us. Don't touch. That's what we've decided. Paul says, I think it's a bad idea if you marry. Surprisingly, he said that. I want to pay attention to this passage and underscore just two, two important principles of what it means to love like Christ loves. And what Paul is emphasizing, not his particular pastoral advice, but these universal principles that he always draws from when he's giving any wise counsel. And here's the first one love is focused. And I don't expect that to set your heart all aflutter. Here's what I mean. When Paul says each should have his own wife and her own husband, that's what he's talking about. Some of you are saying, I have a husband and I have a wife. I don't see what the big deal is. There must be some Greek word that I don't fully understand. No, what he's saying here is that love is focused in the sense that it zooms in on one person. Love is always targeted. It's specific, it's personal. It zooms in and is exclusive to one person. But Paul is also meaning it zooms out and gives a panoramic view of all of love. Zooms in on the person, has a wide view, expansive view of what love is. Now I didn't go to your wedding, but unless you wrote your vows, I know what you promised. You said something to this very um part of what Paul is underscoring. Now you may not remember, you may have been trying not to faint, or you may have been famished and wanted a ham sandwich at the reception. Maybe you weren't present there mentally, but I know what you said if you didn't write it yourself. I remember what I said. I, Greg, take you, Stephanie, to be my wife, and here's the phrase. To have and to hold. I just skated right over that when I said that. So that was a big statement. To have and to hold from this day forward, for richer, for poorer, sickness, health, to love and to cherish, now and forever. To have and to hold. What does that mean? I take you to focus. To have all of it. All of it. To have and to hold from this day forward. And Paul is saying that God's design in this particular case is that meaningful and caring touch is an important part of love. Marital love. He says, don't deprive, don't defraud. It's significant in your life together, but it's not the only part. Love is passionate, but passion isn't primary. Paul says it's not good to say never. But there are some times where it's okay to say no thanks. Or not now. He said that in this passage. Did you note that? He gave us some conditions. When do I say no thanks? Well, he said in verse 5, well, by agreement. And the literal word there is in symphony. It's a beautiful picture of when we're attuned to each other. We understand one another. And we're playing on the same page and we're singing the same song. We understand where one another is coming from, and we agree. Hey, this is a good time for us to pause this area of our love life. By agreement, for a set time, not forever, and I love this one, to devote yourselves to prayer. I didn't even know that was an acceptable excuse. Hey, honey, can you clean the garage? I think I'm praying at that time. Well, when are you gonna stop praying? Well, I'm praying without ceasing, like the Bible taught me, so I didn't even know that was an excuse. Paul doesn't mean it as an excuse. He's saying that there are times where you will designate that something is more important than this part of our love relationship. Let's make sure that we surround it with God's full power through prayer. Sometimes we need to heal. Sometimes we're working on matters of the heart. And we need to pause. Sometimes we have other priorities and we need to ask God for guidance. There could be lots of different reasons, but get it clear, Paul is saying desire is good. Because I know we have earned a reputation sometimes as Christians as sending out the signal that all desire is bad. But that's not biblical. Desire comes standard with every human person. Now, the way I satisfy my desire, that gets complicated. Desire's good, but it isn't God in my life. It's not the only determinant of what I do. I use the word desire because sometimes around this subject we call it a drive. When I counsel couples, sometimes this issue will come up and we'll talk about a sex drive. It's not a drive. Couples will come and one will say, I think I'm turbocharged. I think the other one's always in the park. It's not a drive. A drive is what you need to survive. A drive that's necessary is food, water, sleep, shelter. This is a desire. It's a wonderful way that God has made us, but when we treat this desire as though there must be a necessary dose to stay alive, then this wonderful expression of love and care and play and creativity suddenly becomes an ugly demand. Or a resentful duty. And it just drains all the beauty and love right out of it. Kurt Thompson said, and this goes for any relationship, married or not, in the room. Kurt Thompson, psychologist and Christian, says the most important question isn't are all my desires being satisfied in my relationship? Here's the question. What kind of person am I becoming by attempting to satisfy my desires? What are my desires shaping me to be? In satisfying my desires, am I becoming a more loving person? Am I becoming a more selfless person or more selfish? Good question. Two times in my ministry life, I almost called off the wedding. First one was I showed up to church and the uh wedding party, how do we say it? Uh had been overserved before the service. Uh way too giddy. Uh, and and I almost called the whole thing off. But I said, well, let's give it a couple hours and I'm gonna check on you folks, get some water in you and eat a sandwich, will you? And we went on, we did the service. Second one that I almost called off, I was lined up with all the groomsmen. We were just about to hear our song and walk out on the stage, do the ceremony. And the song was coming up, and right at that moment, the groom, right behind me, I'm leading the way, taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around and he says, Am I really supposed to love only one person the rest of my life? You're asking me that now? I'm about to ask you that question in about ten minutes. You better figure it out between now and then. I could see the fear in his face, and I know what he was thinking. Is one person? One person enough to focus on the rest of my life. And I would say, yeah. Yeah. One person is more than you will ever be able to fully know or love. And how do I know that? Because I also do funerals. And I have been with people who have loved well. And you know what they always say at the funeral? Just ran out of time. I thought there was going to be more time. There was more we wanted to do. Love is focused. It's not that one person is unable to adequately hold our attention, but I think the problem is our definition of love is just too small. And so let me say this real quickly: whether you're married or whether you're a teenager, whether you're dating somebody, whether you're single and involved in a relationship, I want you to think for a second. What's your definition of love? How do you know if you've really got it? How do you know if you're living into this panoramic view that Paul is inviting us to? What's your definition? How do you know if you're doing it? What's on the list of ingredients in your love? In our marriage ministry, we use six words. Here they are, real quick. We say that love is reflected when we respect one another. And by that I mean we're attracted to one another physically and by character. We admire a person. We honor a person. Courtesy. Respect. That's on the foundation. You can look at your relationship and you can ask, is that operating in my relationship? The next one's trust. And by that I not only mean faithful, that's good. Not only loyal, that's important, but I also mean dependable. Are you dependable? I also mean this. Are you a safe person? Does the person you're with feel safe with you emotionally and spiritually and all the rest? Which leads us to this next one that everybody always thinks about and wants more of, which is connection. Are we connected? And by that I mean intellectually. And I don't mean we are we reading physics together? I don't mean it that. I mean are we influencing one another's opinions? Can we share what we think? Are we learning from one another? Is there an intellectual connection here at all? Emotional? Spiritual? Physical, like we're talking about today? Recreational? Are we having fun? Connections big. Don't forget this one. Collaboration. We're a team. We're a team. We take care of a house together, we do chores together, sometimes we parent together, but remember it's this part. When God puts us together and blesses us, we are a unit now of blessing in the world to do beautiful things together, not apart, but together we can serve and bring beauty and health and love into the world. How are we doing that? Collaboration. Here's the last two: support. Do we care for each other in those moments of need? Sickness of all kinds? Yeah. Do we care? Do we support? Do we cheer for each other? I love it when I hear a spouse say, I'm their biggest fan, and you see the other person just light up. What a beautiful thing to say. Do we cheer for each other? Do we know what one another is dreaming about and helping the other person achieve it? Not necessarily delivering it all, but cheering for them, helping them accomplish their dreams, supports big. Here's the last one. We think of it as a sign of love broken, but it's another opportunity to love, and that's repair. Do you know how to give a meaningful, sincere apology? You know how to make an amendment for mistakes made? Do you know how to reconcile and find yourself more in love with the person that hurt you or that you hurt? I just gave you 23 words, ingredients of love. Paul says, What I want for you is for you to have and to hold it all. Don't deprive each other. It's a good time of the year to ask one another in a relationship. What one thing do we want to grow? What do you want to wish for that we could work on the next three months and develop this part of our love life? What do we want to have and hold more of? Outside in the lobby, we're signing up for small groups to talk about this very subject. We call it Reengage, and it'll go on for about 14 weeks. We cover 14 topics of love. If you want an ad-free sermon, the subscription price is a little higher, but that's the commercial. So right there, you can sign up today. Re-engage. Love is focused. Here's the last thing. And it's a surprising thing coming out of Paul in this day. Love is mutual. Love is mutual. Eight times, eight times in chapter seven, Paul will direct his comments to husbands and wives. Both of them. Husbands and wives, this is for you. Husbands, wives, do this. Husbands, wives, eight times. Both have responsibilities and both have power. And I know when I read that verse four, where it said, Women, you don't have wives, you don't have authority over your own body. Your husbands do. I know some of you winced in here because somebody's misused that Bible verse on you. Made a harsh, hurtful demand?

unknown 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Is the Bible saying that we don't have autonomy over ourselves? That when we get married, consent goes out the window? No, no, no, no. In 1 Corinthians, Paul will also write this. Love does not insist on its own way. 1 Corinthians 13. Love does not seek its own advantage. Chapter 10. Love always seeks to please others. Chapter 7. Well, what does it mean that I've got authority? He says, I've got authority. What does authority mean? I think we need a better definition of this word. It's the Greek word is exusia. If you want to flesh it out, you can go all the way to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, where God gives authority to Adam and Eve. Chapter 1, verses 26 through 27. God creates everything, and then he gives the keys to Adam and Eve, and he says, I want you to subdue and have dominion over my creation. Now, what do you think God meant by that? Hey, I made all this for you. Here are the keys. You can trash it if you want to. No. He's inviting them to cultivate, to enjoy, to harness, to elevate, to co-create with God, to make it better. Power. In my little family, our two girls, our favorite holiday spot, some of our favorite family memories down on Highway 38 in Florida. We had friends who had a beach house, and they were kind enough to let us go down there and stay in that place for years. We'd go down there and just be able to do things we could never do all by ourselves. It was wonderful. When we pulled up in that parking space of that house, do you think we said, okay, it's ours? Do whatever you want. No, all the way to the front door. Okay, everybody remember this isn't ours. Let's be careful with everything. Don't break anything. Let's be grateful for what we have, and then we would have a wonderful week. We didn't say at the end of the week, hey, it'd be great to have a bonfire. Let's bring the furniture out in the front yard and light it up. What do you think? We didn't say, hey, let's get the golf cart and see how far it'll go in the Gulf of Mexico. Just I'm curious. No, no, no, no, no. That wasn't the spirit of it at all. We had the keys and we enjoyed it, but we knew what we needed to do with that. It was a gift. In Matthew chapter 10, it says that Jesus gave his disciples authority. Exusea, same word. Authority to do what? Boss people around? No. To be served? No. Jesus gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal all kinds of diseases. Do you know what kind of power we get in Christ? The power to stop evil in its tracks and to bring health where sickness once was. That's the power. Can I say it one more way? Power in Christ is not commanding power. It's power to take care of somebody. That's what it is. Paul says, you've got that power. Each of you have a gift. Wherever you are in your life right now, however old you are in your life right now, whatever relational status you are in your life right now, I give you power in my name as my follower. To love like this. That's power. That's important. That's big. Each has his own gift, Paul says. And I know it may not feel much like a gift on any given day. I had a friend ask me recently. He said, Do you know anybody that loves like that? I was a little offended because he knows me. I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to say from that. I thought about it. And I said, Yeah. I know people who love like this. But I said, let me tell you, honest though. If I gave you their names and you went to them, you would find out that they have struggles. They've got problems. They're working on things. And I told him that you would also find out that at least one of them's probably not really satisfied completely in that relationship. One of them's probably having a great time, and another may say, Well, I think we have room to grow. But I said, I think they're doing a great job because they have these two things. All of the thriving relationships have these two things. They're always grateful for one another. I'm glad you're in my life. I'm glad I got you. I'm glad we're doing life together. They're grateful. And they're growing. They're not in despair. They're not stuck. They may not be where they exactly want to be, but they're moving. Grateful and growing. And the good news is God helps us with both of those. He'll give us his eyes to see one another in ways that we would never do it all by ourselves. We can see their beauty, their worth, their value, their goodness, their giftedness. He'll teach us to see that way. He'll give us his resources to love in ways that our willpower could never do it all by ourselves under our own effort. But he says, if you will love me and trust me and invite me into your life, I'll equip you to love like this. It always starts in that way. Surrender to God and love him with all our heart. And then he teaches us to love everybody else. That's the way it works. Before I go, I want to, at the end of the service, we normally speak a blessing to the congregation. But this is a unique Sunday. And I want to speak a blessing to our married couples that are here. I know that's not everybody. There's an old blessing of the church that's been around a long time. And if you want to, I'm not, I don't want to embarrass you, and you don't have to. You may have had a fight on the way to church, but you can even fake it for this moment. I'm going to invite you, if you're sitting near your spouse or by your spouse, hold hands. And if if you're here by yourself, you can still participate. Maybe your spouse is attending a Shaker church somewhere. And if you're here by yourself, it's okay too. Even if you're not married, you can absorb these words and make it a prayer for you. Here are the words. Let me explain the words and then we'll say them to you. I'm going to say, may God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit bless. That means give you whatever you need. Preserve means protect you and keep you. Sustain you. May God fill you with every spiritual blessing and grace that you may faithfully live together. That means gratefully and growing. You may faithfully live together in this life and in the age to come. Have life everlasting. Amen. I want to say that over you, if you'd allow me. If you'll take the hand of your spouse and look at them, try to keep a straight face. I'm a clown, I know it's hard to do. But if you'll face one another while I speak these words over you, I'd love to give you this gift today as a final prayer. May God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit bless, preserve, and keep you. May God fill you with every spiritual blessing and grace that you may faithfully live together in this life and in the age to come have life everlasting. Amen.