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Father, we thank you for this day that you have given us. And thank you for your grace and mercy which flows out from your throne on high. Father, I pray as we go through this lesson tonight that you will protect us from the distractions of the world. And let us hear your word today and what your spirit says.
And hear it, Lord, in the way that you have meant it to be heard today. I pray that we will glorify you as we do so. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Good evening, everyone.
Welcome back to church of the Bible. It's great to be here to worship with you all tonight and to lead you in tonight's lesson in God's word. Just a quick, very fast recap where we are. We're in first corinthians. We're looking at all the major issues.
Just like as a wide scope, we're dealing right now with issues of impurity, chapter five through chapter seven. And tonight we're going to finish the issues of impurity with the focus, point being today marriage within the impurity and moral laxity that's taking place in the church. As I prepared for tonight's message, this chapter is 40 verses long. Normally we'll break these chapters into two to three weeks. And as a study for tonight, I decided it is best to try and cram it into a 1 hour session, because to understand how it all fits together, we need remember each part.
So I'm going to go through tonight extremely fast and try and keep you all with me, with where I'm at. But if anyone does not fully understand at the end of the night, please let me know if there's one or two of you. I'll work with you privately. If the whole church feels like we need to go in more depth, we'll revisit it next week as well. On that note on our website for the sermon, my notes notes are available from my study before this, if that will help anyone clarify stuff.
With that said, let's look just real quick at verse one of this chapter. Paul says, now, in response to the matters you wrote about, is it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman? So, as Paul has dealt with issues regarding sexual impurity, the last two chapters leading into now, he's turning his focus to a question they specifically asked. And we need to frame this entire chapter in light of he's answering their question. As we read this chapter, you might say Paul is very anti marriage, and that's the way it seems initially.
But as we look into what Paul really said, I think God's spirit will show us a different light from what he's saying. So he's answering the question tonight. Is it good for man not to have sexual relations with woman? Let's see his response in two seven. He says, but because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband.
A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. Do not deprive one another, except when you agree for a time to devote yourselves to prayer, then come together again. Otherwise Satan may tempt you. You, because of your lack of self control.
I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all people were as I am, but each has his own gift from God. One person has this gift, another has that. Okay, so a lot of stuff to unpack here in these few verses, but let's jump into it. Because sexual immorality is so common.
Corinth wants to know. They say, is it good to not have sexual relations with a man? And we need to view this in light of Corinth and not the whole church as a whole right now. And corinth sexual immorality was so deep, so disgusting, that Corinthe started to take this attitude of, well, it's better to just have no sexual relations at all, even within marriage. They said they were looking at, should we just go to complete abstinence?
Now Paul is responding to this perspective and not his own beliefs. And Paul says, Paul is celebrate right now himself. And to Paul, celibacy is a good thing, but not within marriage. Celibacy is not good in marriage. Paul does not command marriage here.
However, he does command that those who are within a marriage maintain their sexual relationship. Here's what he says. Because sexual immorality is so high for those who are married and who have partaken in sexual relationships, those drives stick with you. And with the rise of sexual immorality, especially so high here, Paul says this. Each man should have sexual relations with his wife and each woman with her husband.
His advice is there's so much temptation out there that if you are in a married relationship, you should be pleasing one another. You should be fulfilling your duties. He says a husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise to her husband. As he goes into this, he tells us why he says this. He says that you should not abstain for too long.
Otherwise Satan the tempter may tempt you because of your lack of self control. So he's painting this image that within a marriage, if you abstain from each other for too long, then the tempter may come in and tempt you to get gratification outside of marriage.
Right? And we've seen that as truth. If we look through human history, we see often that when one spouse or the other begins to feel neglected in their needs, they look for satisfaction outside of the marriage. Paul's solution to that is to not deprive your partner for too long a period of time, that such temptation should not come. Now, Paul is not excusing in any way.
Just so you know that temptation, or given into that temptation, the fact that your spouse has not given you your satisfaction is not an excuse to step outside of marriage. But Paul also acknowledges that men have a lack of self control and seeks to mitigate that lack of self control within the marriage. Now, what he says about this, he says, do not deprive one another except when you agree for a time to devote yourself to prayer, then come together again. So Paul says the only time you should be deprived is when it is to devote yourself to goddess. And it's agreed upon and only for a short time.
And he says this, even he says I say this as a concession, not as a command. So Paul does not say.
He does not say that you have to separate, even for a time. There's no need. He says that he concedes that married couples may have stained if they desire. But there's no requirement or inclination on his part to command such separation. Right?
It's not required. And then he ends this passage. He says, I wish that all people were as I am, but each has his own gift from God. One person has this and another has that. So Paul says here, I wish that everyone had the gift of God that I have.
Now, let's be honest. All of us who have a precious gift from God desire that everyone else has it. And Paul recognizes that his celebracy is a gift of God. But he also recognizes, on the other hand, that marriage is also a gift of God. And he recognizes that when he says each has his own gift, one person this and another that.
So Paul does not say that marriage is not a gift, but merely that he expresses a desire that everyone had the gift of celebracy. Moving on, let's look at verses eight and nine real quick. He says. I say to the unmarried and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they do not have self control, they should marry, since it is better to marry than burn with desire.
Okay, so to the unmarried and to the widows, he says, and we need to unpack who he means by unmarried and widows. By unmarried. What he really means here is by dismarried. He is speaking to people who were once married and are no longer. Whether that's because of divorce or death or whatever other reason, they are no longer married.
And he will contrast this later with people who have never been married with virgins. We'll see that later on in the message here. So this is really demarried people. To those who are divorced and widowed, it is good for them to remain as I am. This opens up the possibility.
We know that Paul is not married right now. However, there is heavy speculation. There's no solid evidence, but heavy speculation that Paul was married and is either divorced or widowed. He never really talks about his life to that great of an extent, post salvation. However, what we know about Paul is that he is a jew.
And jewish custom is to get married, that he was a pharisee. And pharisees are typically required to be married. And that he is, one way or the other, not married now. But he says it is good for the divorced and the widows to remain unmarried. But he says this if you do not have self control, it is better to marry.
Paul's view of marriage here in this aspect with the divorced and we're going to talk about divorce in a minute, it's better to remain divorced or reconciled with your spouse and with widows. Paul stances, you are free to remarry, but it's better to not remarry. In any case, he says, if you have no self control, it is better to get married again than to burn with desire. It's better to get married and have a spouse to meet your needs than it is to go and commit acts of sexual immorality. That's his take on the divorced and widows in these two verses.
Moving on to verses ten through 16, he says to the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife is not to leave her husband, but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But I, not the Lord, say this to the if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.
For the unbelieving husband is made holy by the wife and the unbelieving wife made holy by the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean. But as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave. A brother or sister is not bound in such cases.
God has called you to live in peace. Wife, for all you know, you might save your husband. Husband, for all you know, you might save your wife. So there's two sections to this. There's section one, commands from God, and section two command separation from Paul.
And he makes that distinction. So to the married, he says that God has this command, and we can see this command throughout all of scripture. He says, a wife is not to leave her husband. Not only that, wives are not to leave their husband, but on the flip side, the husband is not to leave her wife, his wife. The biblical view of Marianda marriage is that a man and a husband will leave their parents and be joined together, and the two become one flesh.
Right? God's view of marriage is when you are married, you become a single person, a single entity, one person joined together in that bond. And to separate that is to tear apart what God has put together. So he says this, if you are divorced, remain unmarried or be reconciled to your spouse. That is the viewpoint of Paul.
Now that's not to say because a lot of people, especially before salvation, have been divorced and remarried. Don't worry if that's happened, you are with your spouse and remain that way. There are people who have been saved and divorced and remarried, and you are already bound together in marriage. But Paul's advice overall is that in which the Lord has given that to divorce is to tear apart that which God has put together. And that's not what God has intended for marriage.
Now, as we jump into the second part of this here, Paul is going to discuss something that was not as common back then, but it was common because people were getting saved. Gentiles are getting saved, and they had spouses that weren't. However, we see a lot more back then, that whole households got saved. But jump into today's world and it is extremely common to have a saved wife and an unsaved husband, or vice versa. So here's what Paul says, and he's talking specifically to people who get saved after they're married for the unbelieving.
He says if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, him, he must not divorce her. And he flips it around for the wife as well. If you have a husband, wives who is not a believer, Paul says as long as he is willing to stay with you, you are not to divorce. What he says is if you are married and you get saved, that is not an excuse to leave your spouse. And a lot of people want to.
When you get saved, that creates divisions in households. It can, all of a sudden, a wife gets saved and the husband gets jealous of all the time and love she has for God. Or the husband gets saved and the wife gets jealous at how much this guy is going to church or suddenly talking about God, suddenly telling their kids about God when they were both atheists and never believed. It causes problems inside of a marriage. And the natural tendency to that when it causes a lot, a lot of big problems is, okay, well, I'll leave.
And Paul says, as long as the unbelieving partner is willing to reside with you, you must not divorce. And he tells us why he says this. He says, for all you know, you might save your husband, or for all you know, you might save your wife. The rationale is, as you live with this unbelieving spouse, you embody all in which Christ has commanded you. You love your spouse, you fulfill your duty to your spouse.
You show your spouse how God has changed you, how you are better in every way because of him, the way he has blessed you, you, the way he has taken things in your life that were strongholds, addictions, sins, other things, and he has removed them from you. And for all you know, that example might just be what brings your spouse to salvation. On the flip side, he says this. If your unbelieving spouse wants to leave, you let him leave. All right, so now if I get saved, right?
Shawnee and I were married before salvation and I get saved and it tears her family apart and she's unbelieving and she decides, you know what? I don't like this God thing that you've got going on. I can't stand it and I won't live with it. And she wants to leave. The Bible says, then let her leave and you have no obligation to her at that point.
So within, within biblical Christianity, the believer is not to divorce the unbeliever, but the unbeliever is free to divorce the believer and there will be nothing held against the believer for that.
Alright, let's jump on to the next passage here. This next passage is verses 17 through 24. Before I read it, I'm going to just tell you as I read this, this passage right here is key to everything that Paul has told us so far. But when you first read it, it's difficult to understand how and why it fits. So let's read it and then we'll dig into it.
Let each one live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him. This is what I command in all the churches. Was anyone already circumcised when he was called? He should not undo his circumcision. Was anyone called while uncircumcised?
He should not get circumcised. Circumcision does not matter and uncircumcision does not matter. Keeping God's commands is what matters. Let each of you remain in the situation in which he was called. Were you called while a slave?
Don't let it concern you. But if you can become free, by all means take the opportunity. For he who is called by the Lord is a slave as the Lord's freeman. Likewise, he who is called as a freeman is Christ's slave. You are bought at a price.
Do not become slaves of people, brothers and sisters, each person is to remain with God in the situation in which he was called. So as you can tell, this is a slightly difficult passage, both to swallow at face value, but also how does it fit into marriage? What in the world does this have to do with marriage? Well, let's look. So he begins.
And the first thing he says is he commands all churches, all people in all churches to live his life where he was at the station he was at when God called him. No matter what station you have in life, when God calls you, God is a sovereign over a station in life, but b, able to meet us where we are in life. And Paul gives two different illustrations here to demonstrate what he means. The first is that of circumcision.
He says, were you circumcised when God called you? Do not undo your circumcision. I find that just slightly humorous because it's kind of hard to undo a circumcision. Nonetheless, were you uncircumcised when God called you? He says, don't go and get circumcised.
For anyone who was with me when we went through the book of acts, you'll remember there was a period of time where Paul and his companions were preaching the gospel to gentiles. Most gentiles were uncircumcised, and they were remaining that way. Then the Judaizers were coming behind them and complaining. They were saying, look, you can't be a Christian. You can't follow Christ.
You're not circumcised. And there was a big fight over this, so big that they assembled a council in Jerusalem with the original apostles to settle once and for all whether or not a Greek was bound to circumcision. Here is what Paul wants us to know. He says, for those who get saved in uncircumcision, do not rush to get circumcised.
He says, don't worry about that.
The point that he is making when he shows this, he says, and this is important here, circumcision is not what matters.
Believers should not worry about changing their social status, their circumstances, their up and their lives, as if such matters were crucial for their relationship to God. If such matters were crucial for your relationship with God, he would not have met you where you were.
Salvation changes, changes your moral attitude. It changes your view on sin, it changes your relationship with God. But it does not have to change that which is physical. You don't have to go and get circumcised just because you got saved. He says, more important than religious rights and circumcision is that a religious is that you keep the commands of God.
Now, as we look here, he gives a second illustration, a second example. Many in the church of Corinth, when they got saved, were slaves. In fact, estimates of the city of Corinth at the time of this writing say roughly 33% to 35% of all citizens in Corinth were slaves. It's a high percentage of slaves. Now, we also have to understand something else about slaves.
When Paul says, remain a slave, this is not like the North Atlantic trade route. Slave trade, right, where we went into Africa and targeted people of color specifically to bring them here and make them slaves and treat them harshly. Slaves. Slaves back then often soared themselves into slavery. Slavery willingly.
Many slaves said, hey, look, I've got $400,000 in debt, and I can't pay it down. I'm going to sell myself to you to pay my debt, and I will work it off with you. And sometimes they would work it off and be free. Sometimes they live their life that way. Oftentimes it was a willing thing.
You have to remember that in biblical Christianity, slavery that was done through the kidnapping of somebody was illegal. Some people did become slaves due to legal issues where they did not pay a debt and the court mandated them into slavery. But in any case, race played no factor in slavery back then the way it does today. People of all backgrounds, races, and classes could become slaves. Slaves back then often were treated or better off than the people who they served.
Often, slaves became doctors, nurses, all sorts of great things, because the people they served sent them to school, and they became more schooled and knowledgeable than the people they served. It's nothing compared, and I'm not going to get into all the differences of the slaveries, but nothing compared when we read this. We cannot read the north atlantic slave trade into biblical history, but there's a problem here. A lot of these slaves, they are getting saved as slaves, and they are worried that their social status would make them less effective or less useful or less desirable to God. That was their worry, because society said slaves are.
Are less desirable and less valuable to society. Right? Slaves back then, just like here in the US, they had no rights, no property rights, no protections from the law, just like here in the United States, there were, you know, that was the same. No protections to the law. They were, as it were, a different subset of society with no protection.
And so they worried. They said, our social status makes us less valuable to God.
First, Paul addresses them directly, and this shows that he values both their person and their dignity. But second, he tells us this about them. He says that he who is called by the Lord as he is as a slave, is the Lord's freedman. Even if their social status on earth was that of a slave, they are free in Christ. They are free from the bondage to slavery of sin here, and they are free as personages in God's kingdom in the life to come, Paul says, you are no different.
And he tells us later, there's no jew or gentile, male or female, slave or free in the sight of God. So he tells him, he says, if you were called while a slave, don't let it concern you. In other words, don't let it bother you or worry you. You are no different to God. But if you can become free, by all means take the opportunity.
And then he says this about all people. You were bye bought at a price.
All people, male and female, jew and gentile, slave and free. All people were bought at the price of the blood of Christ.
So to those who are free, he says, do not become slaves. But then he reiterates remaindeh with God. In the situation in which you were called, there is no social status or situation in which God cannot reach you and cannot love you. Now how does this fit into marriage? This whole chapter is about marriage.
The first 16 verses before this and the next 20 verses after are all about marriage. So how does this fit in? Well, it fits in like this.
Paul is both looking back at what he said previously and looking forward to what he is going to say. If you look back to what he said though, he says if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. And if any man has an unbelieving wife and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. Paul brings verses 17 through 24 in to demonstrate what he means. When you get saved, you should not rush off to make drastic social changes.
You should not rush and get divorced because you got saved and your spouse doesn't believe. You shouldn't rush off and get married because you got saved and had the freedom to go and get married. You shouldn't go and get circumcised, he says. But relating to marriage, he is saying, do not jump the gun, right? Looking back, don't jump the gun and get divorced, but stay put with your spouse for their sake that they might get saved.
Looking forward, we're going to see how this can apply moving forward here.
Let's start in verse 25 and read through 38. He says now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I do give an opinion.
As one who by the Lord's mercy is faithful because of the present distress, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife. Do not seek a wife.
However, if you do get married, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But such people will have trouble in the life. And I am trying to spare you. This is what I mean.
Brothers and sisters, the time is limited. So from now on, those who have wives should be as though they had 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 didn't own anything.
And those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it. For this world in its current form, is passing away way. I want you to be without concerns. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord. But the married man is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided.
The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord so that she may be holy both in body and spirit of. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am saying this for your own benefit. Not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is proper so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction. If any man thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, if she is getting beyond the usual age for marriage and he feels that he should marry, he can do what he wants.
He is not sinning. They can get married. But he who stands firm in his heart, who is under no compulsion, but has control over his own will and has decided in his heart to keep her as a fiance will do well. So then he who marries his fiance does well. But he who does not marry will do better.
This is difficult here. Like I said when you first read it, it sounds like Paul is anti marriage.
But he's not. And we have to understand it from the context of which he's writing. So, to the virgins, he says he has no commands from God, but he has thoughts for them, some opinions to give them. He says, because of the present distress, it is good for a man to remain as he is. Now, this is tying into what we just read about remaining where you are circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free.
Here he is bringing marriage into that discussion. He says, are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Now, we need to read this carefully so that we don't misunderstand it. Because the next thing he says is this.
Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. However, if you get married, you have not sinned. It almost sounds like if you are married, don't seek divorce. And if you are divorced, don't seek marriage.
But if you marry, you're not sinned. That's how it sounds. But it's not what he's saying. Remember who the subject of this passage is? Virgina.
He says about the virgins. So virgins are the subject of this entire passage here. So when he says, are you bound to a wife? Remember on Wednesday we talked about marriage a little bit. You were considered married from the time you got engaged.
From the time your parents arranged the wedding and the groom's father paid the dowerly to the bride's father, you were considered married even if you had not yet come together. Sometimes you could be engaged for six months, sometimes a year, sometimes longer, and you were considered married the whole time. So he says this. Are you bound to a wife? Don't seek release.
If you are engaged and you are obligated to someone, continue through. And this is in the context of just getting saved when God meets you. Don't just seek to be released. And he says, if you are released from a wife, right. If you are single and unmarried and you are not engaged and not seeking to be engaged, he says, don't seek marriage.
And this isn't a forever thing either. He's not saying, you know, a year or two years or three years from now, don't get married. But he's saying, don't just run off and find a wife because your moral code and your spirituality with God has changed. Don't just jump into this.
He says this. He says, if you do get married, you have not seen if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. He's saying this in the negative, right? There's a negative and positive way to say something to say if you get married, you did well. Congrats.
Is the positive way of framing this, the negative way of framing it is to say, you have not sinned. He's presenting a negative which did not happen. And the reason he's presenting this negative is because of the view of the Corinth. Remember, he's framing this in response to their question in verse one. And their question was, is it sinful for us to be with woman?
And that's the light in which he's framing it is he is saying she or he did not sin contrary to what you are believing right now. Celebracy is not commanded from God. There is no sin in getting married. But he does say this, people who get, who do go and get married will have trouble in this life. What does he mean by that?
Because isn't marriage a gift from God? Even Paul consented earlier today that marriage is a gift of goddess. So what does he mean that you who get married will have trouble in this life? Well, he explains it for us. Thank you, Paul.
He says, this is what I mean. Time is limited.
Jesus has already come. He's already died for us. He's already resurrected. He's already ascended to heaven. And so now the time of this age is closer than it ever has been.
And before the time of the end, before the kingdom of God was at hand, people found their ultimate joy and their ultimate satisfaction in their spouses or in their wine or in their work or in whatever thing they found it in. And Paul's concern with them is that as they go and get married, especially in Corinthe laborinth, that their ultimate satisfaction will be found in their spouse.
So here is what he says to them.
He says those who have wives should live as though they had none, those who weep as if they had not weeped, those who rejoiced. And so they did not rejoice. Those who, as if they don't have anything. Right. It goes on this list.
And the sounds contradictory to what he earlier said. He earlier said, if you have a wife or you have a husband, fulfill your obligation to them. In other letters of Paul, Paul writes, to love your wife, to cherish your wife, to love her with that same sacrificial love that Jesus loved us. So we have to frame this in light of what he means. He does not say right now, for any of you out there who are married, to forget your spouse and live like your spouse doesn't exist, to stop loving them, to stop caring for them.
But what he is saying is this. He is saying, do not find your ultimate joy in them, right? In light of the fact that the end is needed, everything in our life needs to be recalibrated, needs to be rethought, reconsidered in the light of the imminence of the end of the sage. But we need to consider it in light of the fact that Christ is coming back and he has taken us to his kingdom. So Paul is not canceling out his instructions to love and cherish one another, to show them sacrificial love.
But he is saying, this marriage is temporary. It's for this world, this age, and we should not live like our ultimate joy and satisfaction comes from our counterpart, because marriage is nothing, because joy in this life is not permanent. Because the things we buy in this life, in this life, the belongings that we own, are not permanent. We must seek our ultimate joy, not in marriage, but in Christ.
That's what he's saying there. He then goes on for the sake of condensed. He goes on to describe how the celebrate is able to focus his whole life on God, where the married person is split in his focus between God and his family. And he also says, though, that he who marries does well. Paul is not against marriage.
Paul does not think that marriage is bad, he and his. And he makes it clear that God does not say this. He does. His personal opinion of marriage is that celebracy is better.
He finishes out the last two verses, 39 and 40. He says, a wife is bound as long as her husband is living, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she remains as she is, in my opinion. And I think that I also have the spirit of God. So, you know, Paul even adds here, in my opinion, I think you'll be happier if you remain a widow as you are.
That's what I think. But if you want to get remarried and you think you'll be happier that way, go and get remarried. Paul is, because he kind of heavily lets us know his take on marriage. And I wonder if there's any chance at all that Paul really was married and it ended badly. And he reflects that into this letter.
But in any case, not just a wife, but a husband as well, right? Marriage inside of God is until death. It's a permanent bond that survives through the life of both people. But if one or the other were to die, you were released from that bond, from that marriage. And he says, and you are free to remarry.
But he clarifies something only in the Lord and what he means by this. You can go and get remarried, but you cannot just go and marry anyone. You might have been married to an unbeliever when you got saved and the unbelieving spouse died, but when you get remarried, you are only to remarry within the church of God. You are only to marry a believer.
And then he adds his final thoughts. But you'll be happier, in my opinion, to remain as you are. I might disagree with Paul on that one, because I think life is better with my spouse. In any case, as we come to an end of this, this also ends our entire section on sexual immorality and moral laxity within the church of Christ Corinth. Next week we'll begin providing all of you, don't reach out to me and say, we need to do this again.
We'll beginning a new section in the book of Corinth. But just to recap, for those of you who are married, love your spouse, right? Fulfill your obligation to them, both as an obligation and both as a resistance to temptation. For those of you who are unmarried, remain sexually pure until such a time that you were married. For those of you who are married and recently got saved, do not leave your spouse if they are an unbeliever, but remain with them as long as they will, that you might save them and for anyone else, remain content with your position in life, wherever God has found you, until such a time that God allows you to leave.
Hereafter our closing prayer, we'll partake of the Lord's communion. For those who want to stick around. On Wednesday, we'll be joining together here at 630 for our Bible study through the book of Luke. We're going to hopefully finish chapter one this week. It'll be our third week in chapter one, but I think we're going to finish on Friday.
For those of you who meet in person in Cedar, there will be no church in light of the 4 July weekend. So for anyone I don't see between now and then, be safe and enjoy the holiday. Enjoy what it is that we celebrate this weekend. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your instructions that you have given us. We thank you, Lord, for the instructions over the last three weeks that you have given us over sexual immorality and moral lapsity. And Father, I ask that you will work in us to remain pure, to be moral and to glorify you in our actions. Father, I pray for any of us who have have an unbelieving spouse, that you will give us the strength to remain with them. But also, Lord, the display of your love and your power, that they would see you and be saved.
Father, I pray for those who are unmarried, that you will keep them from sexual immorality, that you will give them the self control that they need to remain pure in your sight and also with their appearance in the world. And Father, I pray ultimately that we will glorify you in all things that we do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.