Steven Furtick - It is Good for a Man Not to Have Sexual Relations (04/09/2017)
Pastor Steven Furtick begins a five-week series on 1 Corinthians 7 titled "Meant to Be: The Bible's best-kept secrets about sex, marriage, and being single." He teaches verse by verse from Paul's letter addressing real issues in the Corinthian church rather than just answering their questions, affirming singleness as good while upholding God's sexual standard within marriage. The message emphasizes that marriage and singleness are both gifts requiring God's grace, not desire alone, and calls believers to receive grace for their season and struggles.
Introducing the "Meant to Be" Series – 1 Corinthians 7
We're starting this series today, which I have boldly called, well, the title is "Meant to Be", but the subtitle says it's "The Bible's best-kept secrets about sex, marriage, and being single". And I say it because I'm gonna preach from a chapter of scripture for the next five weeks that I haven't heard a lot of preachers preach from because it's very bizarre.
Turn in your Bible to 1 Corinthians, chapter 7. Last week, we said goodbye to Jacob in our series, Death to Selfie. I have been mourning the loss of Jacob all week. I enjoyed preaching about him so much. I've been in mourning this week, just not even wanting to move on, but we have to go now.
I like to teach and preach in several different styles as well. I don't think you should come to church and just be addicted to one style of ministry, one style of music, or one style of preaching. I would say our last series was a pretty preachy series. It gave you a lot of opportunities to get up on your feet and respond to God's word.
I want to teach a little bit over the next five weeks and just get into this one chapter of scripture and just take it verse by verse and see what God has to say to us about the relationships in our lives.
I wanted to do it in a way that would feel fresh, and so I haven't divided up each week into this is the week for the single people, and this is the week for the married people, and this is the week. I don't want to do that because it's so predictable.
So, I'm going to let the Scripture be our guide, which is probably a good idea anyway, rather than me dividing up my opinions of what I think you need to hear about. Just let the text set the trajectory of the series.
And so, whereas in our last series we covered, I think, 12 chapters of Scripture, give or take, we're only going to stay in one for this five-week series and just take these verses and see what God would say to us today.
I know he'll speak to your situation wherever you are. He has the ability to do that, and only he can. This is a supernatural thing. We could have people in the room who are on their fourth marriage and people in the room who are 14 years old, and God can, through his word, just divide it and get you the portion that you need and the way you need to hear, and we're praying that he would do that.
We're believing for some really great things in this series. Let's get to it. I'm taking up all my time in introductory remarks, and I've got a lot to say to you. God has put a lot on my heart.
Reading 1 Corinthians 7:1-7
1 Corinthians 7, verses 1 through 7. I'll read it really fast, and then I'll back up and take it apart a little bit this week. You'll need to come several weeks of this series or you're going to get an imbalanced view of what we're trying to say. I cannot possibly address everything in the opening week, so you'll need to commit yourself a little bit to the series and also join one of those eGroups they've been badgering you about.
There's a good reason they're trying hard to persuade you, because we believe that it's one thing to hear God's word. It's another thing to flesh it out and apply it in a practical way. You're going to have to take some initiative for this to really make a difference in your life, and we believe that it will.
1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 through 7. Paul says, Now for the matters you wrote about, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, but since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife and each woman with her own husband.
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband in the same way the husband does not have authority over his own body, but yields it to his wife.
Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am, but each of you has your own gift from God. One has this gift. Another has that.
It Is Good for a Man Not to Have Sexual Relations
Let's go back to verse 1 to begin our study today where Paul says, Now for the matters you wrote about, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
The title of my message today, appropriately, I think is, It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. If you're looking for a title to put on top of your worship guide there, this is the title. Usually they're catchier and a little punchier, but this week we're just going to go with exactly what Paul said in the text, and we're going to talk about it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.
How many of you agree with the apostle Paul here on this point? It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. If you're uncomfortable already at this point in the sermon, you should definitely go to E-Kids. I'm sure they'd make an exception for you as well.
It's going to get a lot more awkward than this. I know there's a guy that is looking at the title of my sermon today saying, oh crap, I hate this church because this is the way you've always viewed church when it comes to matters of sexuality.
Paul is actually single when he's writing this. Most scholars believe that he had a wife at one point, but she died because to have a position like he had in Hebrew culture and Jewish culture, he would have had a wife. He would have been required to have a wife, but he doesn't have a wife anymore, we find out in the chapter. She probably has died because he would have not been permitted to divorce and then keep his position, so he probably had a wife and she died, but now he's saying it is good for a man to not have sexual relations with a woman.
Part of us thinks, well, is Paul like the guy who, because he isn't getting any…we're not allowed to either, which is how the church is often seen. You guys don't have any sex, so you spend all your time trying to keep all the rest of us from having sex as well.
There's a tendency to think that that's what Paul is doing here, but in order to understand the text, you do have to understand the context. It's always an important thing, so I want to walk you through this now. I won't take long. I'm just introducing the topic this week, and we'll get more in-depth in the coming weeks, but I just want to have a conversation and open the conversation with you from this chapter of Scripture that was originally part of a letter that Paul wrote to a church at Corinth that was experiencing great division and dysfunction.
Paul, like a good pastor, is taking the questions of the people in the culture of their day with the complications they were facing, and he's speaking into culture.
Tension Between Questions and Issues
The first thing…I have four of these that we want to talk about today. The tension between questions and issues. See, if you notice here in the first verse of this chapter, before Paul says it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman, he says in his introductory phrase, now for the matters you wrote about.
Apparently, the Corinthian church had put together a list of questions for the great apostle Paul, and they asked him questions, a list of questions. Hey, Paul, here's what we need to know about. Here's what we're dealing with.
In this list, you're about to see Paul answer many of their questions in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, like, What about widows? What about people who have been divorced? Okay, if you choose to be celibate, is that okay? Are people who choose to be single more spiritual than people who choose to be married? And on and on.
He's about to answer their questions, but I want to point out the fact that it's been six chapters and he's just now getting around to answering their questions. Here's why. Often there's a big difference between the questions that we ask and the real issues that we're dealing with.
God is not nearly as concerned with answering our questions as he is with dealing with our real issues. Paul does something really, really unique. He goes through six chapters where he doesn't even mention their questions, and he tells them the answers to the questions they should be asking.
Check this out. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5, here's one. He says, Hey, it's actually reported, like I heard this report, that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that not even pagans will put up with. People who don't even know God don't do this. You've got a man in your church who's sleeping with his father's wife. So, Paul addresses that issue in chapter 5.
Then, in chapter 6, he gets to another issue. He says, Hey, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? So, there are widespread prostitution rings in Corinth, and Paul finds out that some of the church members are going and doing this on the side.
Now, they didn't put that in their list of questions they sent to Paul, but Paul knew about it. So, he spends the first six chapters saying, Hey, I know there's incest in the church. Stop that. Hey, I heard some of you are going to hookers. Cut it out. Now, for the questions you wrote to me about.
Sometimes the questions we ask are not the questions we're really living. Sometimes the questions we ask don't really indicate the depth of the issues we really face. We have three children, and we'll probably stay right there. Holly will look at me many times. This has happened many times, especially in the last year, and she'll ask me a simple question when the kids are perhaps out of hand.
She'll say, Do you need me to make you an appointment? Or are you going to make the appointment? In other words, three is good. That's where we're at in our family planning. And so when we had our little girl, because our two boys are older and our little girl is three, and everybody would tell me, oh, it's different with girls, it's different with girls, it's different with girls, it's different with girls, it's different with girls.
I'm sure I do not understand the full extent of that claim yet, and I won't for some time. I did, however, happen to walk by my daughter on the way out to preach today, and guess what she was doing? She was looking at pictures. One of our staff members named Caroline, who is getting married, was showing my daughter pictures of wedding dresses.
First, I fired Caroline, and second, I told Abby, put the phone down. Step away from the phone. This is ridiculous. And that's just one of the many differences. I've never seen Elijah look at wedding dresses on an iPhone. Never. Never.
But one of the things I have noticed, and this is probably the most evident way that it is different, even with Abby only being three, is not just the types of things she wants to talk about, but the amount she wants to talk about, everything, which I thought was a trait unique to Holly.
You know, it shocked me when we first got married. I have a very blessed marriage, okay? I don't mind sharing with you about how our marriage is. It is blessed. When I used to do a relationship series, I would start with a preface. Hey, you know, we've only been married for a couple of years, and I know as many of you have been married a lot longer, and I don't have a right to tell you about marriage, but I realize in this series, I've been married 12 years now, and I think that's long enough. I'm out of rookie camp.
We've been through some things together now. We've weathered a few seasons together now. And, yes, there are many who have been married much longer, and I probably will not write a parenting book yet until I have, you know, successfully shepherded my children through their teenage years without homicide occurring in our home.
But I do think I don't have to get up and, like, apologize anymore. Like, we have a marriage, and I have some things to say about marriage. We have a blessed marriage, and we're in ministry together, and we love each other. And, hey, it's not perfect. It's not. It's not perfect, but it's blessed. It's a blessed marriage, and there's a difference. There is no perfect marriage, but there is a blessed marriage.
And we have a blessed marriage, man. It's true, and I want you to know that, because you wouldn't walk in a gym and hire a trainer who was fatter than you are. Is that inappropriate to say? I just kind of thought it was instinctive. I don't look for the guy who doesn't look better than me and ask him to help me sculpt my body. You don't want a preacher with a jacked-up marriage. I'm just saying we have struggles, we have issues, but we love each other, and our family is in church.
Anyway, with that being said, one of the things I found very difficult in our marriage is that when I ask Holly a question, she not only answers that question, but I found that she will answer all of the questions that she believes I should have asked before she answers the question that I did ask.
So I've had to learn to budget my time appropriately when I ask her things like, how was your day? Or just a simple question like when I say, how was lunch today? I know you had lunch today with Nicole. How was lunch today?
Because when I ask her that, she will answer it, but she will not start with lunch. She'll start with when she woke up 15 minutes late and she was already in a hurry, and we had to get the kids to school. Now, the kids have been late two times, and so we don't want them to be late for a third time this semester.
So she got them to school, but she dropped them off at school. She remembered that she had that thing in the back of her car that needed to go back to Target, but then she realized that she needed more gas in the car. Now, the gas is cheaper at the gas station on the other side of Target, and so I didn't know if I should wait, but I stopped by Target.
While I was in line at Target, I met a lady who said she went to the church, and I couldn't tell if she comes a lot or if she just comes a little bit. She was from New Jersey, and she said she just moved to Charlotte, and she moved to Charlotte because her husband is in the banking industry.
She was telling me about how they're home in New Jersey, and I'm going, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. In this story you're telling, we're only at 8.30 in the morning. Is this going to be real time? I want to hear everything you have to say. I am so captivated by this conversation. I just need to know, should I cancel my plans for the rest of the night?
Come on, somebody. Don't you men dare leave me up here by myself on this. It's just different, because typically a man is going to respond to the question, how was your day, with one syllable. It's monosyllabic. That's all we need. We've got fine, we've got good, we've got great, and sometimes we can just shrug. We don't even have to be bothered with activating our voice box at all.
We have this ability to communicate more succinctly, and I used to think it was just Holly until the other day I asked Abby, what's your favorite thing to do, Abby? She said, well, I'd like to go to the pool, but this one time, Bubba, I said, oh, God, she's got the disease… I mean, the gift. She's got the gift, too. She's got the genetic generational blessing, too, of elaboration.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, the apostle Paul is acting like a woman, y'all. The Corinthians want to know, hey, like, is it okay to be single? What should we do about widows? And they ask him this sanitized list of questions, and he takes six chapters to deal with their real issues before he will answer the questions.
Now, it's very possible that you came to church today with questions about your relationships, valid questions about your relationships, like how will I know when he's the one, and how will I know when the time is right, and how will I find the right one?
But perhaps the question you're asking is not the real issue you need to be dealing with. Perhaps there's an issue that's more important than the question, and perhaps before God gives you some specific answers to your questions, he wants to give you some healing for some of your issues and some instructions for some of your issues.
See, before you find the right one and mess up the right One, because you're not yet the right one, because you've got issues that are undealt with, and you're looking for somebody for security, and before you reach out and try to put the weight of your life and the expectation of your happiness on another person, perhaps God wants to teach you some sufficiency inside of yourself in Christ so that when you do meet somebody, you won't project all of your dysfunction on that relationship, because you can turn the right one into the wrong one if you don't deal with your issues.
Touch three people, tell them we have issues. We do. The church at Corinth was crazy. Prostitutes and incest and rampant misunderstandings of marriage. This church of new Christians who were living under Roman rule trying to figure out how to do it God's way in a culture that was ungodly.
And Paul says, let's talk about the real issues. Now, historically, the church has been really good at answering questions that nobody is asking, while being silent about the struggles that everybody is facing.
So we put charts on the wall about when Jesus is coming back, even though he said nobody knew, because he's coming like a thief in the night. Meanwhile, we've got middle schoolers having oral sex on the back of the school bus, and nobody's standing up and saying anything about real issues.
We've got Christians miserable in their marriages, and just looking for a way out, and married people wishing they were single again, and single people trying all the wrong stuff on before they find the right one, and nobody's saying anything.
We've got people dealing with issues of sexual abuse, and they can't engage in a loving relationship in a healthy way, because nobody's talking about issues. Oh, we've got tips. We've got tricks, but we don't deal with the real issues.
I want to take five weeks with you and have conversations about real issues, because some of you, the questions that you're asking are not indicative of the real issues that you're dealing with, the issues that you don't even know how to talk about.
I've got teenagers in my church trying to figure out how they can deal with their sexual conflict, knowing that if they admitted to their friends what they're really thinking about inside, they wouldn't have any friends anymore, and some of them are considering suicide because they can't find anywhere to talk about their issues.
I'm supposed to stand up here and just talk about the book of Revelation, answering questions that nobody's asking while people are dying of issues. I've got couples that came to church this morning smiling, knowing good and well you're trying to figure out which divorce lawyer, because you've got issues.
Already making your escape plan, but came to church praising the Lord, and it's the only time you smile all week is when you're around other people, because you've got issues.
So, I'm supposed to stand up here and just pontificate about crap that nobody's really thinking about, making it sound spiritual, while our marriages look no different than the world? And Paul says, I want to speak to you about real issues.
He says, now that we've talked about the real stuff, I'll deal with your question. Here's a question somebody had posed to Paul. They asked him. They said, Is it okay if we want to not get married and we want to make a decision to be single? Is that okay?
And Paul says in verse 1, yeah, that's fine. Okay. Now about the questions you asked, look at this. It's good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. That's fine.
Paul's not saying you're better or you're worse. He's just saying it's fine. He's saying in different seasons of our lives, we'll all have different callings that we'll experience, and it's good.
One of the things I refuse to do in this series is to make single people feel second class, to make single people feel like, you know, like, no, this is for the big boys and girls. We've got a little table for you over here. Happy Thanksgiving, kids. Here's some Hawaiian punch. No, I'm not doing that.
I'm not going to do that. There is a verse, and this is a verse that single people really love in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, where God tells Adam after he makes Adam, he says, It's not good for the man to be alone. I'll make him a helper suitable for him.
He says it's not good for man to be alone. Now, a lot of people have taken that verse to mean that if you're not married, then you're alone, but that's not true at all. You can be single, and you can be unmarried, and still be complete.
You can be single, and not be married, and still not be alone. You can have a church family. You can have deeper friendships. You can have opportunities that those of us who are married used to have. Hello, those of us who have children have forgotten about.
There are things you can do. And I'm going to do this in the series. Okay, so you've got to come back. You've got to come back. I'm going to talk in a way that maybe you've never heard before about the advantages of singleness.
It's easy for you to say. I mean, I understand. I don't understand what it would be like to be single. Holly and I got married right out of college. But can I be honest with you? Each season has strengths and struggles. Each season.
And Paul says, if you're in a season called single, that's not bad. You're not some half-baked person walking around. You're not some zombie walking around. You're not a freak because you're single.
Hey, virgins, you're not weird. I was a virgin when I married my wife. I'm proud of it. Look at me crazy. He said, it's good to do it God's way. It's good. It's good. It's good.
I want to say to my single brothers and sisters, you're good. You don't need somebody on your arm to make you good. You're good because God made you, and God makes good stuff. You're good. You're good. You're good.
And Paul says, so it's good. It's good. This takes all the pressure off. It's like, it's good. It's good. It's good if you're single.
Suggestions and Standards
But then he goes on to say, it's also hard. He said, it's good. It's good, but it's hard. Watch verse 2. He says, but since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife and each woman with her own husband.
Huh. So the second thing we see from Paul is that there is still a standard. I want to talk for a second about suggestions and standards. Suggestions and standards.
Paul says, in the church, there is sexual immorality that is occurring. That means there's still a standard. If there's such a thing as sexual immorality, there's such a thing as sexual morality. That means there's still a right way to do sexuality.
Here it is. He defines it. We don't have to make this stuff up, because the Bible gives it to us straight. Here is God's sexual standard. It's so clear.
Verse 2. People ask us all the time, What is the church's position on this? They say that all the time. That's exactly how they say it. And so we say this. We say, Okay, 1 Corinthians 7-2. I'm not making something up.
Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife and each woman with her own husband. That's like what we believe. Let's read it again out loud together as a class. Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife and each woman with her own husband.
I don't have a husband. Then you don't get to have sex yet. I don't have a wife. Then you don't get to have sex yet. There's still a standard. This is not a suggestion.
And God does not impose standards on you to make your life more miserable. You know, it fascinated me. A friend of mine told me this the other day. I never saw it before. He said, Did you notice what God did in the garden to Adam before he gave him Eve?
I said, No, I never thought about it. Well, in Genesis 2.18, it says it's not good for man to be alone. But in Genesis 2.17, God shows the man the tree in the garden that he is not to touch, and he says, You can eat of any tree except this one, for when you touch this one, you will surely die.
And then in verse 18, he gives him Eve. So watch this. God sets the boundaries before he gives Adam the blessing. Because he knows if he gives you a blessing and doesn't give you any boundaries, it won't be a blessing anymore.
And none of us in this church really believe that there should be no sexual standards. All of us in this church have known someone who has been the victim of someone whose sexual passion created, in a way, a type of sick obsession.
We've all known somebody who was touched inappropriately, violated inappropriately. It's not that anybody in the church thinks there shouldn't be any sexual standards. We just all want to define what they are. There's a real problem with that.
And so there is a standard. There is a standard. There is still a standard. Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife. If she's your girlfriend, she's not your wife. And each woman with her own husband.
Okay. I had my first person walk out, so I'm doing good now. I'm doing good. Have a good trip home. Amen.
And I'm not ashamed to talk about these standards. See, because when you go against God's standards, you don't break the standard. The standard breaks you. Okay. And so we need to raise a standard. We're going to do that in this series.
Desire and Duty
There's still a standard. The next two words we'll talk about… I only have four of these, so we're over halfway done with this uncomfortable sermon, which is the least uncomfortable of all in the five-sermon series. See you next week. I'll talk about desire and duty. Desire and duty. Desire and duty. Desire and duty.
Look at verse 3. Is it all right if I just teach you verse by verse like this? Yes. Is it all right? Okay. He says, the husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife. He's talking in the context of sexuality, and he says, hey, dude, you've got a job to do at home.
Now, I know this isn't the most romantic language in the world. How many of you women, when you used to fantasize about the man you would meet one day, you prayed that he would see you as his duty? Raise your hands, please.
I just want a man that kind of puts me on the same list as taking out the trash and washing dishes and paying bills. But he says here, he says, the husband should fulfill his marital, let's say the word, duty.
He doesn't say anything about the husband fulfilling his sexual desire. Why? Because desire is meant to be a byproduct in relationship, not a goal. He said, the husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife.
This includes sexuality. This includes emotions. This includes physical provision. And likewise, the wife to her husband. Look at verse 4. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but yields it to her husband.
I just saw a lot of crossed female arms. Before all of you men go home and make, you know, magnets for your refrigerator with 1 Corinthians 7, 4, like, that's my verse, yo! Now you're preaching!
Now look, because in a misogynistic society where men often saw women as their property, all the men in the Corinthian church were saying amen right here, but then Paul flips it and says something that would have been very controversial and uncommon in the day.
He introduces a concept called mutual submission. Watch this. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.
So, if I could break it down in a contemporary version of what I think, Paul is trying to say, it's not about you, boo. Inform the person next to you, it's not about you, boo.
It's just not in a biblical context. If you want to do what the world does, it's all going to be led by desire. So, whatever you feel like, whatever you want, you're going to take it, and then you're going to consume it, and then it's going to end up, creating reactions in your life and habits and addictions in your life, because you're led by your desire.
But Paul doesn't talk about desire here. Desire is a good thing. We all have desire. Desire can light a fire, but only duty can keep it burning.
Now, I'm a fan of marriage. It is never a job to be married to Holly. Ever. Ever. She would say the same about me. Assuming I could relate to this verse, I'm trying to scare some of you off from your ideal of marriage.
The other day we were looking at some really cute pictures of the kids, and they were being obnoxious in the house, and I had this thought. Sometimes I like looking at pictures of them better than actually being with them. You can pose them like you want to and go through and get the good ones and filter it.
A lot of you are in love with the picture of marriage, the picture of relationships, but then we introduce a word like duty. That word doesn't even sound… That's like the most unromantic-sounding word, and it's the one Paul uses.
He said, it's a duty sometimes. We have all these people going into marriages based out of desire and not knowing about the duty. If you're going to get married, you better be ready to go to work some days. Not just go to work. You're going to go to work and do a job. Then you're going to come home and do another job because it takes work to make this thing work.
My marriage isn't working because you're not. If you went to your job like you came home, you wouldn't have a job. Is this okay? We have plenty of empty seats next week if you want to bring a first-time guest.
I know some of y'all are in overflow today, but we'll be able to accommodate your friends and family members next week. I have a feeling this is a space maker.
But somebody needs to say this. Somebody needs to tell you. It is sometimes where you come home and you have to do a drive-by before you pull in your driveway and just do a couple laps before you can go inside and face what's going on inside because sometimes it's not pretty like a picture.
Sometimes it's challenging. Sometimes it's difficult to go through different seasons and you change and they change and maybe they change in a way that you don't change. You have to accommodate each other.
Where are you now? I have to overlook a fence. I know what you look like when you first wake up, and you know what I look like at the end of a hard day. We're not fooling each other anymore because we had a whole lot of pre-memorized, pre-programmed stuff we did for each other during dating.
All that crap is out the window now because it just got real. Without a sense of commitment, if you come in here to this marriage thing, this relationship thing, this life thing with, What can I get out of it? You've missed the point, Paul says.
He says, Come to it, whether it's sexually, emotionally, relationally. Come to it, not for what you can get, but what you can give. You are giving yourself away.
I think a whole lot of us want the gift of a relationship without the giving of ourselves in a relationship. I think a whole lot of us are messed up about this. Marriage is the best thing, but it's not the easiest thing.
If you go in knowing that, you'll probably have a blessed marriage. If you don't, here's what will happen. You'll go in with expectations of romance, and then you'll meet a friend called reality. Romance and reality don't always get along.
Then romance and reality get together and they have a baby, and the baby is called romance and reality. Then it's probably going to be resentment, which is going to create rebellion, if you go into it looking for what you can get.
I'm not just talking about marriage anymore either. This is why some of you don't have any deep relationships in your life, because you go into relationships so needy. You're a taker, not a giver.
Paul says you have to get past this. A mature view of marriage, a mature view of relationship, a mature view of Christian living. Being a follower of Christ looks like this.
Look at verse 5. He says, don't deprive each other. When you go into relationships led by desire and you end up disappointed, the next step is deprivation. Now, because you didn't give me what I expected, I'm going to withhold from you what you need.
It happens in marriages all the time. Sexual deprivation, emotional deprivation. He said, stop depriving each other. He said, there's an exception. There's an exception. He's speaking here specifically about sex, but he says, if you want to agree together for a time and devote yourselves to prayer, look at verse 5.
Then you can do it, but make sure you come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. Verse 6. He said, I say this as a concession, not a command.
Now watch. His expectation is in a marriage that if you're coming to it for what you can give, not what you can get, and it's functioning in this way where you're not going in with a self-satisfying view of sexuality and relationships, if you're going into it this way… He said, there's going to be a continual passion.
He said, it'll be so strong that if you do take time off, you'll have to agree together to do it. He said, but it doesn't even have to last that long. You can get right back to it. He said, you can take a little prayer break if you need to and get some Gatorade.
Now listen, I know this sounds way far off from the way a lot of you see your marriage, but you'd be amazed what happens when you stop seeking to satisfy yourself. The ways God can bless you… Paul says it's a beautiful thing, and we'll talk about it in the weeks to come, but I have to stop for today.
Gifts and Grace
I want to show you one more thing, and I hope this will speak to the heart of this series and God's intention for you. I want to close talking about gifts and grace.
It's very interesting how Paul closes this particular section. He answers their first question. He says, hey, if you're single, it's good. If you're married, it's good. It's how you approach either one that determines what it'll be in your life.
Look. Verse 7 he says, Now I wish that all of you were as I am. Who says that? Paul does. I find that striking in a culture where everybody is all about getting married and finding the one.
Paul is like, hey, look, it'd be great if you were all content enough in Christ that you didn't have to get married like me. It'd be great if you were all awesome like me. I wish you were all like I am because there is a way in which, he says, my singleness gives a focus to my life and it's very complicated to be in a relationship with another human being and become one.
He says, now this is powerful. He says, but each of you has your own gift from God. God. Stop envying somebody else's situation. Each of you has your own gift from God. One has this gift. Another has that.
Usually when we talk about spiritual gifts in the church, we talk about preaching and singing and serving. That's what we talk about when we say spiritual gifts. But Paul says, look, if you're going to be married, you need to have a gift. If you're going to be single, you're going to need to have a gift.
Some of you in this season of your life, you've been given the gift of singleness. I know it wasn't on your registry. It's like, God, can I please exchange this gift of singleness? This is not what I asked for for Christmas.
Some of you have the gift of marriage. I know some of you, when you opened up the package, it didn't look like you thought it looked when you were looking at it when you ordered it on Amazon.com.
But he says it's a gift. Now watch this. This is deep. The word gift in this passage is a Greek word. The Greek word is charisma. Charisma in this sense does not mean a personality type. Charisma literally means gift of grace.
He says, look, there are some of you in the church, and you're married right now, and that's a gift. That's a gift. He who finds a wife finds a good thing. It's a gift.
He says some of you are single right now, and that is also a gift. It may not feel always like a gift, but it is a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift.
But this is what blew my mind. He said whether you're married or single, the real gift is not the marriage or the singleness. That is a gift, but it's not the greatest gift. The greatest gift God gives is called grace.
He says one person has one gift. One has another. But no matter which gift you have, you're going to be married. It's going to take grace. If you're going to come home to the same person night after night and year after year in good times and bad times and lean times and fat times, it's going to take grace.
There are marriages in our church today that need grace if they're going to work. We need grace to do this right. It is not easy to stay committed. It is not easy to be faithful. It is not easy to be selfless. We need some grace.
If you're single, I know there are some times where you're crying at night because there's nobody for you to watch Netflix with right now. I'm not trivializing it. I'm just trying to bring it to a practical level. It's not all the time some deep thing. It's just like, man, I'd like somebody to do something with on a Saturday.
But did you know that the same grace that God gives to somebody for marriage is the same grace that he will give you as a gift in your singleness, in your times of loneliness, in your times of feeling like you're never going to have somebody? It's the same grace.
So watch this. God told me to tell you that the real gift is grace. Some of you are so focused on the gift that you want from God, you're missing the grace that he's already given you.
I know some of you want a man. Some of you want a woman. That's awesome. It's good. It's good. But don't miss the grace because you're so focused on the gift you think you want.
I know some of you have some things in your marriage right now, some real issues, but the real gift isn't that God would fix all the issues about your spouse. The real gift is that God would give you the grace in the midst of the issues to trust him and be faithful.
The gift is grace. I don't think there's anybody in the room today who wouldn't say before the Lord, I need this gift of grace. If we're going to do it right, if we're going to do it God's way, it's going to take grace.
Anybody in this place who needs the grace of God for the season and situation you're in today, I want you to stand on your feet right now at all of our locations. If you need grace, if you don't need any grace, if you've got it covered, if you're good, but if you need grace, stand on your feet today.
Come on. Grace for the temptations you're facing. Grace for the parts of your past that keep catching back up with you again. Grace. Grace. Grace. God's great grace is available today to everyone who will receive it.
Grace. Grace. I know we talked about standards, but you need grace for the times that you fall short of the standard. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so the real gift is grace.
Grace. Grace. You're waiting on something to change in your life right now, to change in your home, but in the meantime, you know there's a gift called grace. It's available to you. It's available. It's yours for the taking. Right now. Right here.
You don't have to wait until you have a relationship with another person to have grace. His grace is sufficient. One time, Paul had an issue that he was praying about, and he prayed about it three different times. He didn't even say what the issue was. He simply calls it the Thorn in his flesh.
I wonder if he didn't name it because it was so humiliating to him that he didn't want to specifically say what it was. I don't know. But whatever it was, he asked God to take it away. In other words, he asked God to fix the situation. That's where we start. Fix the situation, God. Fix the situation. Fix the situation.
Three times, God said no. Nope. I'm going to give you a gift, but not the one you're asking for right now, because sometimes you don't know what you need. I'm going to give you a gift, and the gift is called grace.
He said, My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness. So I came today not to offer you in this series a lot of easy solutions. I don't know how to lose a guy in 10 days or how to get a guy in 10 days. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Seven easy steps to fix your marriage by Monday. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Read the magazine. I don't do that.
I came today to offer you the inexhaustible supply of God's grace for whatever season and whatever struggle you're facing. If you want that grace, would you slip your hands in the air right now?
And would you just say out loud in this moment of ministry, I need your grace, Lord. With your hands still lifted high, now say, I receive your grace, Lord. I receive your grace. I receive your grace in Jesus' name.
Now, God, we thank you for great grace. We thank you for the great grace that breaks chains of addiction. We thank you that nobody in here today is dealing with a sexual dysfunction or relational failure that is greater than your grace.
We declare your grace is greater. Your grace is greater. Your grace is greater. Your grace is greater. Your grace is greater. The blood is stronger. The blood is stronger. The blood is stronger. Your name is higher. Your name is higher. Your name is higher.
Great grace. Great grace. Heads bowed, eyes closed. There's somebody in this place today who needs to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ, we can't let you leave until your relationship with God, your relationship with your heavenly Father is secure.
Until you get that relationship right, none of the others will ever be. Heads bowed, eyes closed. If that's you today and you say, you know, I'm far from God and today I want to give my life to Jesus Christ, pray this prayer with me. We'll pray it together out loud as a church family.
Heavenly Father, I receive the grace of Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. I believe he died to forgive my sin and Rose again to give me life. I turn from my sin. I embrace you now as my Lord and Savior. I'll follow you all the days of my life.
If you just prayed that with me, on the count of three, I want you to slip your hand in the air. Let's celebrate your new beginning. On the count of three, one, two, three. Shoot your hand up. Thank God for you. Thank God for you. Thank God for you. Come on, church, let's celebrate. Come on, let's celebrate.