Order In The Church (Part 1)

It's good to be in the house of the Lord this morning. We need to shake off those heavy bands and lift up holy hands. And we're going to um teach continue teaching in the book of first Corinthians uh order in the church. Sometimes we we talk about, boy, we want to we want to emulate that that primitive church, the early church.

We want to be like them. I'm here to tell you this morning that we are probably closer to being like them that you than you can imagine. Did they have problems? They had messes.

They had they had lives that were just totally disrupted sometimes. So, we are we are actually closer to the early church than than we think sometimes because we still have those things. And so, I'm going to teach a lesson this morning from 1 Corinthians chapter 7. And as they say, fools rush in where wise men fear to go.

I already made a prediction that probably nobody's going to shout about this lesson, but I want to give us some principles to guide us not only for this lesson, but also uh for for further study when when you're studying the word of God. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, which is a u it's a I I'll just be upfront with you. This is an emotional mindfield for people because probably there's not a one of us in this place that hasn't been touched by divorce, remarage, things like that. All right.

There's there's probably not any of us that are exempt. Maybe a few, but but not very many. And so um so Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. He he he steps through this minefield and uh he he does so very carefully and I want to do that this morning also to be careful when I handle the word of God to make sure that I am totally in agreement.

I I sometimes am uh uh amazed at the beliefs that I hear from people who sit on these chairs and pews in other churches. It's just amazing, Sister Donna, to hear some of the things that people believe. And I have made it a point to not correct people. So if you want that belief, you just go ahead and believe that.

But it's not what the Bible says. Okay? We build up, we as Christians build up mythologies, things that we that we just believe because maybe it sounded good, but it has absolutely no basis in scripture sometimes, right? I I it wouldn't take me very long in conversation to bring out some of these things, but again, I don't I don't feel a an urgent need to correct everybody.

I just don't feel that. If you ask me, I'll I'll talk to you about it, but I I don't feel the need to correct anybody's beliefs. And probably that's wrong, but but it just avoids a lot of conflict because I'll tell you something. Belief sometimes is much stronger than truth.

Hello. It's getting quiet in here. What people believe, the truth becomes no obstacle sometimes. And they just believe stuff because that's what they believe.

And you can't shake them from it. Not even with a confrontation with the truth. You can't you can't shake them from that belief because belief is that strong. It's really that strong in people.

So we're going to we're going to launch here from 1 Corinthians 7:es 1 and 2. He starts off with a with a just an explosive statement here. Now, concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. I didn't get any amens on that.

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. And and I'm going to unpack some of these things this morning. See uh I want to start with a basic principle and that is the opposition and attacks of hell on the family have been noted since God first defined and ordained it when he spoke those words and he said it is not good for man to be alone and so he created for him a help meat that was suited for him basically and uh that came from God. So if you got any kick about these things, argue with God.

But God said it is not good for man to be alone. Not only for the purposes of repop or populating the earth or propagation but as the cure for what God had considered a bad situation and that was being alone. God said it is not good for man to be alone. And almost immediately we see that Satan set out to do two things.

First of all, he wanted to derail the purpose of God. He wanted to derail God's purpose. God said it's not good for man to be alone. He he creates uh Eve for Adam and immediately Satan comes along and tries to drive a wedge between the two of them.

And so uh so he is trying to derail the purpose of God from the very beginning. And the second thing and maybe something that we haven't considered here before and that is to isolate mankind. What God said was not good. That's exactly what Satan loves to do with humanity, with us.

He wants to isolate us because he realizes that in that isolation, we can become vulnerable to his attacks. So God said it's not good for man to be alone. He created the family unit starting with Adam and Eve and uh and he built from there. Our present American culture is perfectly aligned with hell's purpose.

It's a direct assault on the family much like that of the ancient Greco Roman world. If we look at what went on back then and if you've traveled in that part of the world, I'll tell you something. If you travel in the region of the Mediterranean, Greece particularly, uh there are places that you don't want to take young children because they are proud of their cultural heritage and the debauchery that went on there. They're proud of it.

And and so uh it was it was a world that was steeped in this this depravity and debauchery and and Paul ministered in this culture that accommodated every type of vice or perversion that was imaginable. You you cannot imagine. We went to in in the in the city of Pompei. We went to this place down this little narrow street and the and the guide said this is this was a an ancient brothel, right?

I'm I'm just going to speak. I'm talking to adults here. This is an ancient brothel. And so uh this was a cosmopolitan city.

And in order to overcome the language barriers, what they did was they put murals on the top of the along the top of the wall so that the customers that were coming into this house of prostitution, they didn't have to speak the language any. They could just pick stuff off the wall that was depicted up there. The type of uh pleasures and depravity that they wanted to enjoy. It was that kind of world.

It was everywhere. It this this culture was saturated with all kinds of depravity and perversions that went on. And ironically, even in that world of of Rome, marriage was regarded as monogamous and it was considered a lifelong relationship. Now the contradiction to that in Roman society was that they had uh they had this equality clause that not only could man request a divorce but a woman could request a divorce too.

And you didn't have to go to court, you didn't have to get a lawyer. All you had to do was write out a document of release and you say, "I'm through with this marriage." and you just walked away from it. The man or the woman, either one could do this. And so even though they the the Roman world advocated staying together and being monogamous, they they in contradiction they gave them this right to end marriage with simply a writ of termination by either party.

I told you you wouldn't shout about this one. But there are some principles that we need to understand particularly when we're reading the word of God and and uh for interpreting what what Paul is saying here. There were letters. There are epistles and and brother Spa and I got a an email that that kind of prompted my thoughts toward this direction.

Some were letters and some are epistles. It would be as as though when you're reading this, look at it this way. Brother Parky, our district superintendent, right? If we were having a problem in this church, he would send a letter to this church.

He would deal with this church particularly if it is a general problem issue with the district. He would send out an epistle, not a letter, an epistle that was a general epistle or a general letter to everybody, all the churches in the district. And so the the New Testament is somehow divided into those those two categories. Some were letters and it doesn't preclude the the fact that they were profitable to be read among all the churches.

But some were specifically to address problems in a specific situation in a specific church. This was called an occasional letter. It was written for a specific occasion. A and there were general epistles that were good for everybody to hear about.

And so, uh, this church at Corenth had written and and brother Spaul mentioned at the beginning of these lessons that to be Corinthianized was a derogatory term. It their their city, their their local had become so depraved that that when you said someone had been Corinthianized, it meant that they were totally debauched. They were they drunks and and and near to wells, no good people. And so Paul uh gets a letter from the several as a matter of fact questions from this church and uh they had written to him asking for counsel for certain situations.

We we need to understand folks that that some of the things that we take so for granted were not taken for granted in that fledgling church. I I don't have to stand here and tell you people today, all right, all you thieves out there, stop stealing, right? Hopefully I don't have to stand here and and tell you that but this was a fledgling church new Christians newly minted Christians and he he would say u it's not good to go visit those houses of prostitution I think we all understand some of these things as we have developed a as a a church and there are some things that we don't necessarily address that they had they they were new at this and they didn't know which direction sometimes to go. A and so there was there is u the difference between epistles and letters.

There is also the cultural consideration in debauch society. There was a tension in this church between saints and and we we heard about it in the early uh part of the letter that there were some said that I'm of Apollos and I'm of Paul, I'm of Cphus and and they had all kinds of divisions that were going on in this church. But there was a a real tension be between opposing philosophies within the church among the saints. There were those in this church that believed we've got the grace of God.

Therefore, anything goes, man. We can do whatever we want to do because the grace of God is great enough that it will cover. These were the libertines among the people that were there. And uh they believe that you could just do anything.

And and so Paul addressed this in 1 Corinthians chapter 6:12. He said, "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." Listen, the church doesn't deal with legalities. The church deals in right and wrong, in morality.

Amen. Abortion may be legal, but it's not right. Getting drunk and getting high may be legal. It's not right.

It's not for Christians. Amen. We are not guided by what is legal. We are guided by a higher law than that.

And that is the law of God. right and wrong as according to his word is given. And so Paul addressed their their their division. Some of you are thinking that that we can go to any extreme pleasures and there are others among you that think that you have to adapt this monastic aesthetic lifestyle in order to be pious and and and so he addresses these things.

Finally, when you're reading through these things, ask yourself, is this a part of the narrative? Is it specifically corrective? Or is it normative? Is it supposed to be something that is universally applied uh to our lives?

Is it a principle? And sometimes there were those, as there are today, there are those that live by the letter of the law. Sometimes you can't find specifics in the Bible. Sometimes you have to look for a principle to guide your actions and your activities.

Right? So is it authoritative or is it authoritarian? And there's a difference in this. One establishes boundaries and limits.

I've talked about this before. That's authoritative. Pastor has the authority to set boundaries for this church. Amen.

He has the the authority and and this is what God did when he gave those 10 words. Now the difference and the distinction can be this. Authority establishes boundaries or limits. But authoritarianism institutionalizes things by the use of rules, policies, and procedures.

Stay with me. Don't don't check out on me yet. The difference is this. You raise your kids, you know, you get them to a certain age and you and try this.

You just tell them, "You be home at a decent hour, otherwise I'm going to ground you." You may have widely diverse ideas on what is a decent hour. So, they come dragging in at 2:00 and you say you're grounded. Why? Because I told you to come in at a reasonable hour.

Well, it is reasonable in their eyes. So now that's being authoritative and that's setting the boundary, but you've got differing ideas about what that boundary should be. So now you go, okay, here's the rule. 12:00.

And if you come in past 12, now you're you see what I'm saying? This was the same thing that happened. God gave only 10 commandments, 10 words that they were to abide by. And I am almost certain that 613 laws that were derived from that came from.

Okay. What does this mean? How do we do this? How do we fulfill this part of the law?

How do I love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? And all these dietary, civil, and religious restrictions came about because as human beings, we don't have the same standards as God. So he gives us his word and gives us his principles by which to live. A and so in the body of this letter that Paul writes to the church at Corenth, we find elements of each of these.

Sometimes it is a commandment. It is limited. His statement is limited to in this present distress for this situation. Basically, this is what I have to say.

And another time he will say this is not just for the present distress. This is a commandment to live by. He said not I am commanding this but the Lord is commanding this. And he is he has he speaks with the authority of of the Lord himself.

But let me let me just state that neither of these is mutually exclusive. Nor do they undermine the authority and the inspiration that Paul took upon himself. He didn't step outside the bounds. He didn't go outside what God would say or or I'm sure that he heard from the Lord.

And he wraps up this whole thing by telling them that. And so uh it doesn't exclude Paul's authority doesn't supersede that of God. He doesn't take it to himself and say what I have to say is more important than what God has to say. It was built upon and based upon the principles that God had established himself.

And so in light of that we look at this address to the church at the Corinthian uh city. A church that was steeped in such a culture has to fight for its survival. Listen, we are in such a culture today. The church must take a stand.

It is not. And I've heard this statement. Do you know somebody was talking about do you lean to the right or do you lean to the left? No, we stand.

We don't lean. We stand for the principles and the word of God in such a culture that we live in. It It's not much different from the one that the Corinthians were living in. And so we have to fight.

We have to make up in our minds. There are some people that are still on the fence and on the bubble about whether they want to live for God or whether they don't want to live for God. Let me tell you that is the most uncomfortable position to be in. Make up your mind.

I am going to go with God. I am going to live for God in spite of this culture in which uh the pressures come to adapt and assimilate into this culture. No, God is going to have a people that will stand and fight for its very survival. And so Paul says, "Concerning the things about which you wrote to me." It wasn't Paul's idea.

Listen, when when we read this, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. We if you read that superficially, you think that Paul is the one that's saying this. He is not. He's addressing an issue that was presented to him.

He said, "Concerning this, the things that you have written to me." Here's one of them. It's good for a man not to touch a woman. Some of them among the Corinthians believed that piety and purity could be obtained by abstinence from intimacy with their spouses. I'm telling you, it was a fledgling church and they had no they had no prior experience in these matters.

And so some of them thought, well, if it's good, fasting is good and prayer is good, we just need to give ourselves to that totally and become and and let's just live like monks. There was a teaching in last century that that held that husbands and wives should basically just live together as brother and sister. Oh yeah. It it resurfaced in the 20th century.

There was this belief that hey this is the way to go. We'll live like monks. we'll we'll adapt this aesthetic lifestyle. And this was what the Corinthians believe that piety can be attained and purity can be attained.

If it's if it's good for us to fast and withhold and abstain, then then it must be good to do this all the time. And we'll we'll get really holy by doing that. And so Paul addressed not only that, but he he just gets on a tangent here. And he addresses a total of four statuses to consider.

They were I'm going to talk to married people. I'm going to talk to divorced people. I'm going to talk to people about being remarried. And I'm going to address single people all in one fell swoop.

And so he referenced his own template of the practical application of scripture from second Timothy. He said there in 3:16 of 2 Timothy, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for what? Doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness. And when Paul launches, he adheres to his own principles that the word of God will give us instruction.

It'll give us correction. It will reprove us when we need it. Right? It hasn't changed, folks.

If we get lost, if we get lost in this maze of culture, go back to the word of God and see what thus saith the word of God. And so this chapter hits on several of those points of emphasis. He addresses husbands and wives which is the only marriage.