1 Corinthians 7:12-38 | Episode #988

July 23, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Corinthians 7:12-38

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope.
Applying God's word to your daily life.
As we finish Faithful Finance, we want to produce our winter Bible study done at Lake Community Church on First Corinthians.
It'll be a fairly long Bible study.
We will break it up into different parts,
and so you will get a really good, really fast study through the book of First Corinthians before we move on to the book of Joshua.
But to the rest, I,
not the Lord, say, if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she's willing to leave him,
let him not divorce her,
and she's willing to live with him,
let him not divorce her. What he's saying is, if you're man and you're married to a woman who's not a believer and she's willing to live with you,
you can't divorce her.
You can't say that the reason you're divorcing her is because she's a. She's an unbeliever. He says, no, you're together.
Don't divorce her.
He says, in a woman who has a husband who is not a. Who does not believe,
if he's willing to live with her,
let her not divorce him.
Don't get.
Don't.
Don't make that the reason why you're getting divorced,
okay?
He says, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife,
and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Mean, there's a very spiritual thing that's going on in the context of that union between a unbeliever and a believer. And if you are willing to love that unbeliever in that context,
God's going to step in and do some amazing things.
He's going. Going to sanctify them because of your love.
Love's powerful.
In fact, this book's going to talk about love in the whole chapter.
That chapter will come on the last night. But, but, you know,
he's saying love has a sanctified power to it.
And if you're in a relationship with somebody who's not a believer and they don't want to live, leave you, and they want to stay in that relationship, don't divorce them just because they're not a believer.
Don't look at it as they're holding you back, because they're not holding you back.
They're not.
You are sanctifying them by your love, and you're glorifying God in it.
So don't do it.
He says, not Only that otherwise your children would be unclean, but they are holy. Meaning you're sanctifying your children. By doing this, you're doing a great service not only to the holiness of God, not only to the glory of God, but you're doing a great service of.
To your children by not getting divorced.
But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart.
A brother or sister is not under a bondage in such cases,
but God has called us to peace. So. Meaning. Meaning if you're married to an unbeliever and they just want to go,
and you've done everything you can and you've loved them and you've. You've done everything you can to have a good relationship, and you've done everything you can to live up to your promises and live up to that covenant that you made with them.
If you've done that and they want to leave,
let them go.
Let them go.
That's amazing. I think that's a fabulous passage right there. And it's great teaching. And a lot of times in the church, we don't teach that.
We just don't teach it.
For how do you know a wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, oh, husband, whether you will save your wife?
What he's saying is, is you don't know.
You don't know.
You might. You might. You might.
By staying with them and love them, you might love them into the kingdom,
and so you ought to stay if you can.
If you can't, it's understandable.
But if you can, you ought to.
He says, but as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk.
And so I ordain at all the churches,
was anyone called while circumcised? Now he's going to get back into this judaizing.
Let him not become uncircumcised. What he's saying is, when you came in, however you came into the church,
it's okay.
It's okay. If you came into the church and you were, and you got born again and your wife did not get born again and you came into the church that way,
then stay married.
Don't kick her to the curb because you were redeemed. Don't do that.
If you got born again and your husband's still living that old life,
it's okay.
He says, if you come in and you're uncircumcised, don't get circumcised.
He says, was anyone called while uncircumcised let him not be circumcised.
Meaning you're not under the law, we're not bringing you in under the law.
He says circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing.
But keeping the commandments of God is what matters. Keeping God's heart, His will.
And so many people don't understand that.
When we read through Scripture, especially the Old Testament and the New Testament,
it's the commandments of God,
it's the judgments of God, it's the statutes of God, it's the will of God, it's the plan of God, it's the word of God. When you go through all those things, all those things have a comprehensive idea to them.
It is the heart and the plan. God, it's the will of God for your life.
And that will is truth.
And we need to know that truth with sincerity. That's what we are studying earlier tonight. We need to know that truth with sincerity.
Okay, but we're not under the Old Testament law.
We're under the New Testament law, which all the Old Testament law hangs off of. And that's love God. Love your neighbor and love each other.
Love God with all that you are. Love your neighbor. And just like you would want to be loved and you love each other self sacrificially love each other as Christ loved you.
When we do those things and when we do them right and when we do them well,
when we come into the kingdom,
we don't have to be placed under a law. We're not trying to place you under the law. We're trying to give you the heart and the will of God, which involves his commandments, his statutes, his judgments, his will, his word.
Word.
He's going to teach you how to walk as he is.
And if you walk as he is, sure you're going to follow the commandment. Yeah, you are. You're not going to steal, you're not going to lie, you're not going to cheat, you're not going to have other gods before him.
You're not going to get involved in idolatry.
Those things come.
Those things come when you come. When you become one who walks after God and follows God.
He says,
were you called as a **** while a slave?
Do not be concerned about it.
But if you can be made free, rather use it meaning, if you're called as a slave, don't worry about it. You're going to be I.
And if you get let go and become a free person,
great.
He says,
for he who is called in the Lord, while a slave is the Lord's freedman. What he's saying is, even if you are a slave,
you're free. Now, you got to understand that this is not talking about perpetual servitude, slavery. It's talking about a different form of slavery. But even if it was that form of slavery, perpetual servitude, what we think of as the African slave trade, it's also,
the Muslims were heavily involved in that,
that type of slave trade. In fact, the truth is, is that the Barbary, the Barbary pirates and the Muslims along the North African coast took probably about 1.5 million Caucasian people into slavery by piracy of ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
You had,
you had Africans selling Africans to,
to Europeans, Europeans bringing them over to the New World.
Slavery has been in the world a long, long time, okay? It's not an institution that God's all that much in the business of keeping around.
In fact, he delivered the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, okay? We don't want to be slave to the world. And it's not the best.
Quite clearly, even our governments found it on principle that slavery is wrong, okay?
It is we all endowed with our, by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among them are life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of our own will, pursuit of happiness.
We have a right to pursue our own desires and our own will, and we have a right to be free, and we have a right to our own life. Nobody can own it, Nobody can have it.
But if you find yourself in that situation, Paul says that should not be the main concern of your life. The main concern of your life ought to be glorifying God.
And if you get set free,
you're free,
great. If you're not set free, you're free man as far as God's concerned.
Likewise, when far as the United States Constitution is concerned, also likewise or Declaration of Independence, likewise, he who is called while free is Christ slave.
And you know, Paul's the one who brings this up. He calls himself a bond slave to Christ all the time.
And that's what we are. We are his bond servants.
We're bought at a price.
He paid for our sins.
He paid off the debt. And so we are a servant of him,
bonded to him by his blood.
And by the way, I want you to hear me today because you do need to understand this.
If you are, if you have a,
a loan out to a credit card company, you're a bond servant.
If you have a loan out to a company for your automobile, and your automobile is not worth what you owe to the.
To the bank. Well, you're a bond servant.
If you have a $250,000 house and you owe $300,000 on it, then you're $50,000 in the hole and you're a bond servant. You're a bond slave to the bank.
So we still are bond servants and bond slaves, even today, even if we're not involved in perpetual servitude, slavery, it still exists.
He says you were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men.
Now, I want you to hear me. That's important.
That's real important.
Quit indulging yourself in the worldly ideas of getting loans for things.
I could teach a whole Bible study on that, but I'm not going to right now.
Brethren, let each one remain with God in the state in which he was called.
Now, concerning virgins. Boy, we're moving all over the place, aren't we? He says, I have no commandment from the Lord, yet I give judgments as one whom the Lord in his mercy has made trustworthy.
What he's saying is, I'm going to give you some godly wisdom here. I suppose, therefore, that this is good because of the present distress that is good for a man to remain as he is.
He's going back to it. If you can remain celibate and single. Remain celibate and single. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be loosed. Or are you loosed from a wife?
Do not seek a wife. Meaning if you're. If you have a wife,
don't get rid of her. If you don't have a wife,
do not seek one. But even if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Nevertheless, such will have trouble in the flesh.
But I would spare you. What he's saying is if you get involved in sexuality,
you're going to struggle.
And that's true, isn't it?
It's hard to get away from it.
He says. He says. But I say, brethren, the time is short,
so that from now on,
even those who have wives should be as though they have none. Those who weep as though they did not weep. Those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice. Those who buy as though they did not possess.
And those who use the world as not, misusing it, for the form of this world is passing away. And now he is talking. This is, in my opinion, a prophecy.
And he's stating that the world that they were living in, which allowed for Christianity to flourish was quickly going away. And it would.
In the next 20, 25, 30 years,
the church is going to become a church that was persecuted by the Jews in Jerusalem to a church that's persecuted by the Romans in Rome,
okay? It's going to become a church that is being persecuted by the world.
And what he's saying is, do not invest your life in worldly things,
okay? He. He says. He says if you, if. If you have. If you.
Because of what's about to happen,
if you don't have a wife, don't take one.
If you, if you don't. If you don't need to weep, don't weep. If you don't need to rejoice, don't rejoice.
If, if you don't have anything in the world, don't tie yourself off to anything in the world.
And that's a great. I mean, he needed to teach that. He needed to tell us that. And why is he telling us that? Well, he's telling us that because he knows that there's a great.
Well, there's a great tribulation that's about to take place.
And that tribulation that is going to take place,
that tribulation that is going to attack the world,
it's going to be rough,
and you don't need to be tied to anything of the world. John says this in first, John, do not love the world or anything of the world because if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you.
What he's saying is you can't love the world and love God at the same time. And especially concerning, considering the times that they lived in and the season that they lived in.
They were going to have a bad, bad time if they lived in a love affair with the world.
But I want. I do. But I want you to be without care.
He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord,
how he may please the Lord. But he. He says, he who is unmarried, all he's got to focus on is. Is God. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.
There's a difference between the right wife and the virgin. An unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit. But does she.
But she who is married cares about the things of the world how she may please her husband. And this I say for your own profit. Not that I may put a leash on you,
but for what is proper.
And that you may serve the Lord without distraction what he's Saying is, if you can keep from being married, don't be married.
Now, I've not found many that way, but if you can, you can. And he's given you permission to.
And we ought to celebrate those who can.
We should.
Because those who can't,
well, we just can't.
Okay,
he says, but if any man thinks he's behaving improperly toward a virgin,
if she is past the flower of youth, meaning she's an adult,
and thus it must be, let him do what he wishes.
He does not sin. Let him marry. What he's saying is, if you desire to get married, get married.
Nevertheless, he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but has power over his own will and has so determined in his heart that he will keep his virginity, that's what he's saying does well.
So then who gives her in marriage does well. But he who does not give her in marriage does better.
That's a tough teaching. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not very good at that. Okay.
That this doesn't fit me. And so I can definitely celebrate with those who are great at it. But I am not one of those. I'm just not.
I've been with Kathleen since I was 15.
We've been married since we were just turned 20 years old.
And,
well,
it's been a long ride with each other. We've been together for a long time. And I don't know what it'd be like without her.
And so she might do better without me, but I definitely would not do better.
As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you,
that he'll make his face to shine upon you. And that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.