"Celibacy Between the Advents," 1 Corinthians 7:17-40, Jacob Rodriguez

Well, good morning. Let's try that again.

Good morning. Thank you.

My name is Jacob Rodriguez. I used to be on staff here as a

priest at Church of the Resurrection, now based in.

I'm based in the Pittsburgh area, teaching at a seminary

there. But it's my joy this summer to

be back with you guys for a few Sundays.

Before we get started this morning, let's go ahead and

pray. Heavenly Father, let your word

be our rule, your Spirit our Teacher, and your greater glory

our supreme concern through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. As a church, we've been going

through First Corinthians tackling 1 thorny issue after

another. Well done for persevering with

us through this text. It's always worth it to meditate

on difficult passages of Scripture because even in them

we find the words of eternal, flourishing life.

Last week we covered the first section of First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

Chapter 7, verses one through 16, where Paul discussions

discusses the vocation of marriage.

Today we'll be looking at verses 17 through 40.

So go ahead and turn in your Pew Bibles if you have one page 898.

In your ESP Pew Bibles, we're looking at verses 17 through 40,

which addresses the topic of singleness.

In First Corinthians Chapter 7. Paul has already introduced this

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

topic in verses 7 through 9, but he begins his discussion in

earnest in verse 25 with the phrase now concerning those who

have not yet married. The ESV you might notice in

verse 25 unhelpfully translates the phrase the betrothed.

But betrothed or engaged is just one subset of the unmarried that

Paul talks about in all of Chapter 7, verses 25 to the end.

So I would, for the sake of of discussion today, I'll refer to

all of those states as singleness.

Paul will talk about the unmarried and about the widows,

but more broadly in this section, he's talking about

singleness. Paul is beginning his full

discussion on being unmarried in this section.

I realized that this topic is very personal to many of you,

and for some, not for all. For some, the situation of

singleness has caused years of unfulfilled desires, perhaps

many nights of pleading with God to satisfy the ache of

loneliness. We as pastors are keenly aware

of this, and we pray for you regularly.

And please feel free to come to us for prayer, for counsel, and

for encouragement. Also, there are many single

people who live very fulfilled lives and don't experience that

day-to-day ache of loneliness. And so when we discuss

loneliness from a passage or we discuss singleness, sorry, from

a passage like First Corinthians 7, it's important to remember

that the experience of singleness is not monolithic.

So some things will apply in a very particular way to a set of

single people in our church today and others will not.

However, the call for for all of us to be faithful to Christ in

discipleship, that applies to each and every one of us.

Also, we have already been talking for several weeks about

the goods of marriage. I mean, we've had four wedding

wedding sermons here in the month of June.

And so I think we've all got the map, the memo that marriage is

good, marriage honors God, and if you can get married, get

married. But today I want to give our

texts, our text, its proper focus.

I want to let Paul's Apostolic voice come through regarding

singleness. Paul's advice today is pastoral,

and it's rather straightforward. It is pastoral in that Paul

gives guidelines, not direct commands.

Paul acknowledges the freedom within the boundaries of God's

law that the Corinthians have in making their own decisions about

getting married or staying single.

See especially verse 25 where Paul specifies now about the

unmarried. I have no command from the Lord,

but I give my judgement as one who by the Lord's mercy, is

trustworthy. Paul's judgement Paul's

guidelines are straightforward. If you are single, don't

automatically pursue marriage, but rather lean into your

singleness towards greater, undivided devotion to the Lord.

If you are single, don't automatically pursue marriage,

but rather lean into your singleness towards greater

undivided devotion to the Lord. Paul's pastoral advice here is

based on three principles that I'd like to unpack one at a time

for the rest of our time here. First of all, singleness is a

calling. Secondly, singleness points to

the new creation. 3rd And finally, singleness demonstrates

to the whole church the call to radical discipleship, calling

new creation radical discipleship.

Let's look at those one at a time.

First of all, singleness as a calling.

Turn your eyes to page to to verse 17 of Chapter 7.

Paul says only let each person lead the life that the Lord has

assigned to him and to which God has called him.

Verses 17 through 24 are a little bit of a sidebar

discussion about calling, sandwiched between Paul's

address to the married in verses one through 16 and to the

singles in verses 25 through 40. In this sidebar discussion, Paul

encourages the Corinthians to remain in the situation that God

has assigned to them and to which God has called them.

If you're a circumcised Jew, don't stop being a Jew.

If you are an uncircumcised Gentile, don't stop being a

Gentile. As another side note, notice how

Paul treats ancient slavery in a different category.

He gives the all important caveat that if you are enslaved,

gain your freedom If you can. You belong to Christ, so no

human should enslave you. Paul right here plants the seeds

of the abolition movement. Nevertheless, Paul does make the

point that whatever your situation in life, whatever your

calling is, remain in it and remain faithful to God through

it. Now, Paul uses this word calling

several times. So it's important for us to

define that term. The primary connotation of

calling relates to the effectual calling of God to sinners,

raising them from death to life and making them his people.

Being called means being saved. This calling is primarily a

gospel category, but a second connotation flows from the

first. If God has saved you from your

sin. If God has claimed you as his

own, what walk of life has he given you to show the world now

that you're saved? His goodness, his love and

mercy? Paul uses both of these

connotations in verses 17 through 24.

But it's the second connotation, the particular walk of life that

God gives to each of us. It's that second connotation

that Paul uses to frame his whole discussion of singleness

in verses 25 through 40. Now, how can we understand this

second sense of calling? Imagine that you're one of nine

core players on a basketball team.

OK, it's the national championship.

Fourth quarter down by one point.

Your team gets the ball. Coach calls timeout.

Coach calls a set play. Each player has given everything

they have the entire season. Personal training, proper

nutrition, practice videos, game time.

But some players will be on the bench for the final play, only 5

will be on the court, and of those five, only one will shoot

the final shot. Others will set screens, pick

and roll, box out or cheer from the sidelines.

The coach gives a specific call to each of the players, and if

they want to win the championship, they will heed the

coaches call. Some players may not like their

specific call. Some players may wish they had

the glory of getting that final shot.

Others may wish that they had the scoring title of the whole

series. But the appointed time has grown

very short. There's only 10 seconds left in

the game, and chasing one's personal goals is now

irrelevant. The true champions leave all of

that to the side for the sake of The Maine prize.

Now, of course, every analogy has its flaws.

This this analogy will fall short if you press it too far.

I totally acknowledge that. But let's appreciate the

correspondence. You see, in a similar way, God

calls some to marriage and others to singleness.

He calls some to marriage until old age with grandchildren

surrounding them. He calls others to marriage only

for a season to be ended by the untimely death of a spouse.

He calls others to singleness for a season to be ended by the

joy of a marriage that never that they never dreamed could

happen. And he calls still others to

lifelong singleness. Singleness might be a temporary

calling or it might be a lifelong calling, but each of

these callings serves a greater purpose to show the world the

all surpassing worth of the Lord Jesus Christ through whom we

have soul satisfying fellowship with God and with one another.

Paul describes this aspect of calling in the very, very first

paragraph of First Corinthians. One look at all the times he

talks about the Saints being called and and how that shows

the glories of God to the world. Now singleness plays a

particular role in that great narrative that God is telling

through and in His people, which leads us to our second point.

Singleness points to the new creation.

In verses 25 through 31, Paul makes the following slightly

unusual statements. Look at verse 26.

He says in view of the present distress, it is good for a

person to remain as he is or as she is, that is, whether

unmarried or married. And he goes on to say in verse

29, what I mean is this. Now, it's always helpful when

Paul says, hey, everybody, this is what I'm talking about.

And let me explain it to you. Awesome.

Thank you, Paul. Hopefully this will be rather

clear. OK, What does he say?

Verse 29? What I mean is this.

The appointed time has grown very short.

From now on let those who have wives live as though they had

none, let those who mourn as though they were not mourning,

and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, those

who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with

it, and so on. For the present form of this

world is passing away. What do you mean, Paul?

What do you mean by the present distress?

What is the appointed time, and how has it grown?

Very short. If I'm married, can I pretend

that I don't have a spouse, especially on game day on Sunday

and I want to watch the football game and not do the dishes?

Good luck with that, Paul. Not at all.

What Paul is saying is that since the time of Christ's death

and resurrection, the appointed time of His return and the

consummation of all things is drawing nearer every day, at the

consummation of all things, the present form of this world,

wealth, possessions, career, success, will all pass away

without any fanfare. Other facets of the present form

of the world, marriage and procreation, will give way to

the eternal reality to which they point as only a shadow.

As Jesus told the Sadducees at the resurrection, people will

neither marry nor be given in marriage.

Why? Because the marriage of all

marriages will be forever celebrated.

Christ and His Church, whether married or single, we must live

with this as our goal. Now.

In Paul's day, there was a present distress that he

mentions here. Perhaps he's referring to the

famine of 51 AD, which affected several sectors of the Roman

Empire. Now that famine, that present

distress, it should have reminded the Corinthians of the

finitude of this present age. It should have given them a

fresh impulse to pursue the things that will last in the new

creation. For Paul, those who in their

unmarried state experience experience intimacy with God

through undivided devotion to Christ, those whose devotion to

Christ shows that the family of God is not born by procreation,

but by the baptism and renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Single people with their vocation, with their calling,

demonstrates the goods of the of the new creation that is coming

and will come in its fullness. Which leads us to 1/3 function,

1/3 principle of singleness that Paul develops in Chapter 7.

And that is that singleness demonstrates to the whole church

the call to radical discipleship.

Look at what Paul refers to in verses 30 and following.

Those who buy should live as though their possessions were

not theirs to keep those who deal with the world as though

they had no dealings with it. He goes on in verse 32.

The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord,

how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious

about the things of the world, how to please his wife, and his

interests are divided. He goes on 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 the things of the world, how to please her husband.

And then he finishes off this section with a statement in

verse 35. I say this.

I say this to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Undivided could also be translated as undistracted, the

singular devotion to the Lord. Quite simply, friends, they're

only 168 hours in a week, and someone who leans into his or

her singleness has a greater capacity to give him or herself

to the Lord through prayer and devotion and radical

discipleship. They say that it takes 10,000

hours to become an expert at anything.

Now, of course, that's a round Number.

There's also some other factors that feature when you're trying

to gain an expertise at something.

But if you spend five years, Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM

to 5:00 PM, practicing something with undivided attention, you

will reach a level of expertise that you can only truly know

through the embodied experience of the blood, sweat, and tears

of those five years. Now, you may know that I play a

little bit of piano and there are a couple of genres that I'm

fairly comfortable with, but if you listen closely, I think

you'll quickly notice that I'm not an expert.

In the past two years, I've had just the tiniest taste of what

it feels like to get a little bit better.

I mean, I've set aside 20 minutes usually every evening to

learn a little more complex piano theory and a little bit of

improvisation. So now I can, I can feel a

little bit of what it's of what it's like to have have this

beauty flow out of my fingers in something more than just four

chords in the key of C. But then I come back to Rez and

I hear some real experts play. If you were at Catalu for the

4th of July celebration, you know exactly what I'm talking

about. I can only imagine what it feels

like to have the music of Beethoven or Chopin or

Rachmaninoff flow perfectly through my fingers.

I have a little bit of a taste, but there's a whole world that I

probably will never be able to experience.

But these friends that res who have dedicated more time and and

their energy undivided devotion to the beauty of music, they

taste something that is is incredible to behold.

What about if we applied this principle to the undivided

devotion to the Lord to seeking him in prayer and fasting.

What if those who are single for two years, five years, 10 years,

20 years or more pursued the heart of God with all the

passion that one would otherwise spend on a spouse?

What levels of spiritual written richness could you access when

the hunger of your singleness tastes the honey from Christ the

Rock? Or if your experience of

singleness is not that of of of hunger and unfulfilled desires,

what if you could lean into the the the freedom that you have to

pursue Christ even more in the joy that you have in your

everyday experience? Let me be careful to clarify

what I'm not saying. First of all, I'm not saying

that if you're single and unhappy that it's your fault for

not praying or seeking God fervently enough.

Some single Christians in DC are overwhelmed with incredibly

taxing jobs, and they just need the reassurance that God is for

you and not against you, and the last thing they need is to hear

someone telling them that they're failing in their prayer

life. I'm also not saying that you

just have to. If you're single, you just have

to hold on for one more day and I promise tomorrow will feel

much better. I'm not saying that if you just

prayed a little harder and fast, a little longer than all the

sadness of your singleness would just one day completely melt

away. No, I'm not saying that.

But what I am saying is that the journey further up and further

in into the soul filling glory of God sometimes takes us

through sorrows like singleness. Which when steward and well move

us into undivided devotion to Christ.

But don't just take my word for it.

Hear the voice of the barren woman of Isaiah 54, who's

rejoicing is greater than her who has a husband.

Hear the voice of the eunuch of Isaiah 56, whose name and

memorial is greater than sons and daughters, and is written

right there in the walls of the temple.

Hear the voice of the Virgin Mary, whose soul, undivided by

marriage, magnified the Lord and rejoiced in God her Saviour.

Indeed, all generations have now called her blessed.

Hear the voice of Anna the prophetess, widowed yet filled

with hope. Hear her as she prays and

prophecies of the restoration of all things in Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

It was her eyes that recognized the Saviour in the flesh.

Hear the voice of John the Baptist, the friend of the

bridegroom, with no mention of his own bride.

Hear him as his joy is made complete when he sees the true

bridegroom. Come and hear the voice of our

single Savior Jesus Christ when he says sell everything you have

and give to the poor and you will have treasure, treasure in

heaven. Hear the voice of the single

minded, Paul, and consider your life of little value to yourself

except that you may finish your race and the ministry that you

have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel

of the grace of God. If you are single, I exhort, you

find a more radical way to demonstrate that all of your

academic success, all of your career achievements, all of your

accumulating wealth are worth nothing in comparison to the

surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord and

making His greatness known throughout the whole world.

There are far too many Christians today chasing the

American Dream, living for the prosperity of this present age,

a spouse, a house, wealth couple kids, and sometimes baptizing it

with Christian language, but really pursuing it as an end in

itself. People like Paul, who steward

their singleness faithfully, can lead the way in giving the whole

church the prophetic challenge that the pleasures of marriage

will soon fade away. Academic and career achievements

will soon be forgotten. The prosperity and wealth of

this present age will soon rot, and only the Kingdom of God will

endure. Only what is done in Christ's

name will last. Brothers and sisters who are

single challenge us married folk to give more sacrificially, to

welcome others more radically, to live as if our time, our

possessions and our qualifications were not ours to

keep. Now, today we have heard Pauls

pastoral advice that if you're single, don't automatically

pursue marriage, but rather lean into your singleness towards

greater undivided devotion to the Lord.

And of course, we know from this passage that that Paul gives

this as as an advice, as a pastoral judgment, but also

giving the freedom to the Corinthians that if they desire

to get married, and it is in their power to do so, they

should get married. That is absolutely true.

At the same time, Paul invites all Christians who experienced

the situation of singleness to steward that as a gift, as a

calling towards that deeper knowledge of the Lord, whether

temporary or lifelong. Your singleness points to the

new creation and it demonstrates the whole church, the radical

nature of our discipleship. In other words, hear me clearly,

you are not second class citizens in the church.

You are integral members of the body of Christ, whose walk of

life, whether by circumstance or choice, is vital for the whole

body. Marriage and singleness are

complementary icons of the gospel, but they can only serve

their complementary functions if they are in fellowship one with

another. Simply put, if you are married

or if you have children, invite single people into your daily

rhythms of life. Go deep enough in friendship

with with your single brothers and sisters that you can invite

them to the sober yet joyful calling of being a godfather or

a godmother. Invite them into the calling of

raising your children in the faith.

And if you're single, pursue those deep friendships also.

There are many single people among us in our church who are

already living this life of radical discipleship.

If that describes you, press on. God is pleased.

Your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Single folks in our church volunteer for the hospital team,

for the hospitality team, for children's ministry, for music

ministry. They're having people regularly

in their homes. They're tutoring kids from the

neighborhood. They are giving sacrificially to

the mission of the Church. Let us celebrate these brothers

and sisters as they lead the way in showing us what radical

discipleship looks like. And let us invite them in as if

those of us who are married. Let us invite them into our

daily spaces of refreshments and revitalization and Sabbath rest.

Let's set up meal trains for single folks who have long time

sicknesses or even just the flu. Let us show them their value not

for their status as single, but their value for who they are

made in the image of God. And let us celebrate the way

that their singleness shows the radical discipleship Christ

calls all of us to. Let each of us together in our

corporate calling as the people of God, whether married or

single, let us bear one another's burdens, spur one

another on toward love and good deeds.

And in so doing, we will show the world a beautiful witness of

the gospel in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the

Holy Spirit. Amen.