When You Say, "I Do" Series

When You Say, “I Do” - 1 Corinthians 7:1-9

Series: After The Honeymoon #9

Well this morning we continue with our series of messages entitled, “After The Honeymoon.” This series is meant to help us build into our marriages; to help hurting marriages find healing, to enable good marriages to become great, to set the foundation for marriages which will glorify God as they build into the family and bless the church, because marriage is first and foremost God’s idea. It’s God who created the first man, Adam, and it’s God who created the first woman, Eve, and it’s God who brought the two of them together in this union called, “marriage.” This is God’s plan for marriage – one man, and one woman – joined in this amazing relationship that sets them apart from all others.

A number of years ago billboards began to appear with these words written on them: “Loved the Wedding, Invite Me to the Marriage. - God.” And that’s what we want to do, isn’t it? That’s what we need to do – to invite God into our marriages – to allow Him to mold and shape and influence the way we think about, and the way we live out, our marriages, because He alone has the full picture of what your marriage can really be.

It’s no secret that we live in a broken world. We see the results of that brokenness all around us - pain, suffering, hurt and dysfunction; evil and darkness, hopelessness, despair and desperation. We see it on the news, we hear about it in the lives of our neighbours, and sometimes we see it reflected in the face we see in the mirror. And perhaps one of the greatest areas of brokenness in our lives revolves around our own sexuality.

Chances are that our Scriptures this morning may make some of you feel uncomfortable. I want you to understand that that is part of the brokenness that we are experiencing – an unwillingness, a fear, an anxiety – of allowing God’s word to shape our understanding of our sexuality.

The truth is this: God has created us as sexual beings. He could have created us differently, but He chose not to. And that in itself tells us something important: our sexuality is part of what it means for us to be human and created by God. And as God designed it, and as He intends for it to be, the expression of that sexuality is a great and wonderful thing. Trouble arises though when we take our cues for how we are to express our sexuality from the world around us rather than from God’s word. And I would suggest to you that the further our society moves away from God, and the greater the world’s rejection of Him becomes, the deeper that brokenness is going to be.

There is a verse found in the book of Judges that says this: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges 17:6, NIV84) And that’s the very thing that happens to us when we don’t allow Christ to be king – each one does what seems right in his, or her, own eyes. That’s where our culture is at today. We’ve rejected the Lordship of Christ, we’ve worshipped false gods created in our own image, and we’ve refused to accept the authority of God’s word. And because people have followed their own understanding, trusted their own hearts, and done what seems right in their own eyes, the brokenness in our lives has increased exponentially. Sometimes we bring that brokenness upon ourselves by the choices we make – either not knowing what God’s word says, or knowing it and not walking in obedience to it. But sometimes that brokenness is brought upon us by the sin of others.

What does it look like when people do what seems right in their own eyes when it comes to sexuality? It looks like what the Bible calls fornication – that’s sex between two people that aren’t married. The world calls it “love,” but God calls it sin. Not because sex itself is sinful, or evil or bad, but because the expression of it outside of marriage falls beyond the boundaries of where God has designed for it to be experienced and enjoyed. What else does it look like? It looks like adultery which is when a married person has sexual relations with someone other than their spouse. That breaks the bond that’s formed when the two become one before God. It leads to hurt and heartache and sorrow and even more brokenness. It also looks like things like prostitution and rape and incest and pornography and a dozen other things that we could mention but which I will not. All of these are a result of, and result in, brokenness in this area of our lives.