To Commit, Honor And Forgive

To Commit, Honor and Forgive

1 Corinthians 7:1-5 (NLT)

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Intro: I want to start the sermon this morning with a riddle. The riddle is:

. The perfect man, the perfect woman, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus are all in a car crash. Only one survived. Does anyone know who?

. The perfect woman of course. The others don’t exist.

. I’m sure that most of you ladies will agree with that .

. Don’t get too comfortable just yet.

. I did a survey among men and I came up with some things that the guys would like for the perfect women to hear.

1.Learn to work the toilet seat. you’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it

down.

2. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine. Really.

3. Crying is blackmail

5. If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

6. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

7. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done - not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

8.Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.

9. Shopping is not a sport and we will never think of it in that way.

10. If it itches, we will scratch. We are just made that way.

. Ladies we do love you and appreciate that you also can have a sense of humor.

. Valentines day is Today and I’m sure that you are already thinking of a way to show your valentine that you love them.

. Today is the love day.

. Some of us are as confused about love as little five-year-old Kari who told her teacher, “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”

. The human love, the Eros love that we have for each other is different from the Agape love that we have for other people.

. The Agape love that God has for us and we should have for other people is one of care and concern for their well being and their eternity.

. While we do have this love for our spouse, we also have this Eros type of love.

. This is the root from where we get the word erotic.

. This is the sensual love between a husband and a wife. The love between people who are married.

. On this valentine's day, I want to share with you what God's word has to say about marriage.

. We are back in 1 Corinthians and God has the perfect scripture for us this Valentine's Day.

. We are entering into a section of 1 Corinthians where Paul answers specific questions that the Corinthian Christians had asked him.

. We assume Paul had received a letter asking for clarification on some issues that were in question. The first one was marriage.

. These were young Christians (in faith) and they wanted some guidance on marriage.

. Marriage in the Roman world was much different than it is for us today.

. Let me quickly explain.

. In the Roman world, slaves had no rights. They didn't even have the right to marry. The owner controlled what they did, even in this regard.

. If slaves wanted to be together, they would ask the owner if they could share a tent. The owner could allow it or not. This were called "tent companionship". nothing binding. this was called "contubernium"

. They had a common law marriage called "usus". when a man and woman had lived together for a year, they were considered married if they were not slaves.

. They had a marriage that was called "coemptio in manum" which involved the father selling his daughter to a perspective husband.

. The fourth marriage was called "confarreatio" which involved a ceremony and vows. Our marriage ceremonies today are modeled after this type.

. Divorce was rampant in the Roman world in all of these marriages. These new Christians were bringing all of this culture into the Church with them and they wanted to know what God had to say about marriage.

. Let's look at the first part of Paul's answer to this question.

. 1 Corinthians 7: 1-5

1Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations.

2But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

3The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs.