First Corinthians 7:17-24 The stay-as-you-are principle

Okay, so let's briefly review last week. You know, we got into kind of the middle part of this where Paul talks about, you know, there's a couple of things that he, in verses 6 and 7, we started off the early part as kind of the general teaching on marriage. And then he got more specific as he got into 6 through 16. So he talked about the fact that, you know, he described the fact that it might be good for a couple to, if they had difficulties, to spend some time apart in prayer, but have a plan for getting back together. That was in verse 6.

And then in verse 7, he talked about, you know, Paul, we also kind of I went through some verses or a verse actually and some thought process on what Paul was married but apparently this time he certainly was not married and he actually talked about the single life being the desirable life and so that's presented in verse 7.

But what comes through here is that whether you're single or you're married, they're both gifts from God. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's a gift from God, being single or being married. And we need to view it that way, that God is interested totally in where we are at in our marriage situation.

Then as we got into verses eight and nine, he talked about direction to the unmarried and to the widows. And here he's talking about the single man, it seems like. And he basically, again, he puts forth his view about remaining single, both to the unmarried and to the widows. And then later on he's going to talk about some further teaching about that, about getting married. But if you don't have self-control, he says, let them marry. You know, better to marry than to burn with passion, he talks about. And then as we get into verses 10 through 11, he talks about direction to the married believers. Obedience in marriage, the wife should not leave her husband.

And then we see that wonderful verse, it's a principle that started back in Genesis. So there are no longer two, but one flesh, and therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate. And that kind of filters through all of his teaching, the one flesh principle. And then we saw, McCauley labels it disobedience.

But you know, if you think about it, it's actually, God is so gracious. In his graciousness, if a person leaves a marriage, he actually has some options. And we actually gave a family example of that in this one. But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. So it's neat to see that that actually can be lived out.

And he gave the same instructions to the husband. Almost all these are parallel for the husband and wife, the same direction to the husband and to the wife. So now we're down through 11, and then we got into 12 through 16. And this is what's called a mixed marriage, where we have a believing spouse and an unbelieving spouse, and he has directions to both, whether they stay or go. So he talks about describing it. He says, if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.

And it's the same for the woman. If she's a believing one, I mean, if the husband is a believing one, and she's not, and I get confused here. You know, so this is, it's the opposite of what I said in the first one. I get myself confused here if I don't be careful. Okay.

So the unbelieving husband is sanctified through the wife and the reverse of that is true. And that talked about having the children in that marriage are also sanctified. Sanctified is this word in scripture that's at its root is to be set apart, set apart for a purpose. So we see the unbelieving spouse in this being set apart, set apart to the influence of the Holy Spirit through their spouse and the children too are in that mix.

And then we see what happens if the unbelieving partner decides to leave. And he says, yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let them leave. And he talks about the brother or sister is not under bondage in such a case, but God has called us to peace. And then he makes an appeal to the fact that how do you know, brother or sister, how do you know if you won't be the instrument that God will use to bring your spouse to the Lord?

A beautiful thing to kind of end that in verse 16. And so now we move into the verses for today. And this is 17 through 24. So this is Macaulay's outline. I'd like to kind of start with his first. And so this is kind of the verse, verse 17 is a kind of interesting verse. It's a hard verse, I found. It's hard to kind of pick it apart. And it helps if you can diagram it. And so I did that, or actually I had, I looked at a diagram of the sentence and it helped out a lot.

So basically that verse talks about the understanding our earthly assignments in this world, what God has called us to in terms of, and this is a believer, what's He called us to in our profession or whatever it might be, at home or out in the workplace, and then our heavenly calling. So both those are contained in verse 17. And then the rest of the verses, 18 through 24, talk about understanding of the believer in terms of staying where you are. And we talk about that principle in verse 18. And then McCauley does this, he's able to do this, and I'm always amazed sometimes. He labels each of the remaining verses in a systematic way.

Verse 19 is explanation of staying as you are. 20 is exhortation of staying as you are. Exception in 21 through 22. Clarification in 23. and then the reiteration of the principle, staying as you are. So you get the idea that when you finish with this, the theme of this is stay where you are, right? Don't be, and actually in this day of COVID, right? We're staying where we are, right?

I don't know. It's supposed to be a joke, but it's not too good. Not by, pretty poor joke, okay. All right, okay, so what I like, so just let's look at these verses and kind of look at a bird's eye view. We start off with the first verse, and I'll just read that verse, then I'm gonna make some observations about the rest of the verses. So the first verse, which is kind of a toughie in a way, only as the Lord has assigned to each, each one, as God has called each one, in this manner let him walk.

And so I direct it in all the churches. And then, if you look carefully, in 18 and 19, he talks about an example of circumcision and uncircumcision. Then he states his principle in 20, he says, each man must remain in the condition in which he was called.

Speaking of their salvation, when we see called here, I took that, most people do, that's speaking of a believer. From the believer's side, it's putting his faith and trust in Christ. From God's side, he can say, I called that believer. And that's a paradox that we see. You know, we believe and God has called us. And we wind up, you say, how can that happen? And that's another whole discussion, but anyway.

Called means that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in 21, 21, 22, and 23, he talks about the slave and the free man. He talks about some examples in there that'll help us out. And he closes it out in 24, he says, brethren, Each one is to remain with God in the condition in which he was called.

So that's kind of the wrap-up verse. So we kind of had a couple ways to look at these verses. So now we're going to go in verse by verse and look through each one. So what I found was in looking at verse 17, if you look at how it's put together with the subject and verb, the main verb here is actually, let him walk.

And the subject is only in this manner. So with that in mind, only in this manner describes the believers in light of their earthly situation. He says only in this manner. And he's going to give two modifiers to that. And like I said, the main verb is let him walk, peripateo. It's a word that typically is used in scripture for walking. And it describes living your life. Walk in scripture is used to describe I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna conduct my life. And there are many cool verses that use this word, peripateo. A lot of very familiar ones.

Ephesians 5.2 says, walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself for us.

Then in Ephesians 5.8, you were formerly darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Think of it, conduct your life as children of light. Conduct your life in Christ's love. And then the last one in Ephesians here is, therefore, be careful how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise.

So now we're gonna look at the two modifiers here, two prepositional phrases that modify that verb. The first one is, as the Lord has assigned each one. And this is kind of cool. This is, you know, at first you say, I don't see how in the world, I listen to typically to Chester McCauley and he starts off talking about this and I said, boy I'm lost. Where is he talking about our earthly walk? Oh, it's that word assigned. Man, I didn't even see that.

So hopefully, this will maybe be more, it will pop out to you as the Lord has assigned to each one. So the idea is here, it's meridzo, means to deal out or to portion out. And Macaulay says, assumes the sovereignty of God over the lot of each believer.

And in a way, he's talking about the earthly situation. And think about what we've been studying. This whole bunch on marriage, the first 16 verses, we've been talking about marriage a lot. Then he moves into the examples of circumcision, uncircumcision, a slave and a free man. So he has all these examples which are man's or woman's earthly existence.

They fall into those categories. So the first part of this, walk in a manor according to your assignment. If you're assigned to be, you know, a president, you're a president. If you're assigned to be, you know, a salesman, you're a salesman. Walk in that. But it's not, but you don't do that independent of God. And that's the second part of the verse. The second part of these prepositional phrases.

As God has called each one. So we're back to our word called again. And called is this word kaleo. It's used typically of the divine call, but really it's a very rich word. And we're going to look at a bunch of verses on this. It's a word that talks about the believer's position. We're certainly called. But it also talks about, in a heavenly sense, to salvation. But we're also called into our daily walk and aspects of that. And one point here, you know, people get all wrapped around the axle sometimes. They say, well, was I really called by God? I don't feel I was called or I should be called. And they use calling in a different way.

But if you look at Scripture as far as salvation is concerned, every single believer who's put their faith and trust in Christ can claim that they are called by God because Scripture declares that. And that's one of the many riches they have in our Savior. And we teach that riches of God's grace. in a separate class, actually. So actually, I like the, Macaulay had a listing of verses that used the idea of called. So let's just go through some of those. I think it kind of helps to kind of get you, you know, the idea of called is very rich. So first of all, we are called into fellowship.

That's in Corinthians 1.9. We studied that several months ago. Then we're called to inner peace. And that verse is, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. We're called to the Holy Spirit and to truth. We're called to eternal life. We're called into his marvelous light.

What's interesting here, starting right here with this one here, there's four more to go, four or five more to go. And this makes me thankful we've been studying 1 Peter. All the rest are in 1 Peter. And I was thinking, wow, look at this. This calling, the aspects of God's calling are all contained, and Peter is much about the suffering that we're going through as he was writing to these believers. So we're called into his marvelous light. Basically, that's 2.9. So it reads, of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Then in, we're called to patience when sinned against, and that's in 1 Peter 2, 20 and 21. You know, call to suffer for Christ's sake, if you look at that verse in detail.

Then in 1 Peter 3.9, to confer a blessing and to inherit a blessing. And this is the one that talks about not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for that very purpose, that you might inherit a blessing. Beautiful verses.

Then it wraps up with 1 Peter 5.10, which has, after you've suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you, to His eternal glory in Christ. Just beautiful verses that talk about just, you know, the subject of calling and description of calling of the believer is just, is incredible, magnificent. So God wants us to keep our feet in the ground in terms of our heavenly calling but conduct our life in light of that, in light of our heavenly calling we are conducting our life. It's just a beautiful Beautiful thought there. Okay, so now we start into the next section, and this is the section where he's gonna deal with circumcision and uncircumcision as an example of staying where you're at. So he starts out, was any man called when he was already circumcised?

So I looked at this and I didn't find, actually there wasn't a lot of, I looked at what people said and I thought, I don't think they really, to my mind, he's talking about Jewish believers. Not many people talked about that a whole lot. Some did, but this is a sign of their Judaism, that they were circumcised. And this is a man who became a believer who was a Jewish person. And we surrenders this, was any certain person divinely summoned when he was in a state of circumcision? So this is talking about people that were called out as Jewish believers and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is not to become uncircumcised. Boy, you think, okay, well, truth is stranger than fiction. Okay, according to Macaulay, and I think I'd heard this before and we looked at this before, the verb uncircumcised describes a procedure, apparently it's in medical journals. that they camouflage circumcision. And there was a need for that. Apparently, if you wanted to be a Jewish believer and hang out with the guys, that was an important thing. And so, you know, medical science stepped to the task.

I'm kind of jabbing here at Bob there. So anyway, a Jewish believer, you know, in a sense, he's trying to shed his Jewishness. And God says, don't do that. He says, stay where you're at, accept that you're a Jewish believer, and you can thank the Lord. There's many wonderful things that you can thank the Lord about, being a Jewish believer. So that's kind of one of his points to start off here.

You don't want to eradicate, they're trying to eradicate their Jewishness. Okay, in the second part of the verse, Has anyone been called as uncircumcised? Well, this is, you know, if you look through Scripture, you'll see the uncircumcised typically are the Gentile nation. They're the folks that are the Gentile believers.

He's not, you know, he's not to try to be circumcised as a badge of, well, I'm really super spiritual. I only believe on Christ. I'll get circumcised too, and that'll make me doubly good with God, right? Hey, I'm good. You know, Paul spent just a tremendous amount of time, and we went through it all in the last year and a half or so, in Galatians about don't do that, don't, you know, and this is one of the verses of many that he talked about being circumcised. They're not, don't go, don't become circumcised. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you, Gentile believers, circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. It's one of many verses that says that's not a good idea. The motivation of those people are not a good motivation.

So again, be content where you're at. So the theme flowing through here, be content where you're at. And isn't that kind of a Isn't that the problem we see so many times? The grass is greener, it always looks better. I don't care where it is. It would be interesting to get a person here in greener grass A and you're in greener grass B and you're looking at each other and you say, boy, it's really nice over there in A. No, it's really nice in B. And then you swap spots. Haven't you seen movies like that where they'll swap spots and they find out, it was actually pretty good where I was. So why'd I wanna change that? So anyway, that's a good part of what's happening here in these verses. Okay, so that's verse 18.

Okay, so now he's gonna talk about just the very fact, circumcision, it was a wonderful thing. It was instituted by God with Abraham in Genesis 17. So it was something given by God to the nation of Israel and it was valid for that time period to identify them. But then we looked in Galatians, we saw this in our study in Galatians, for in Christ Jesus circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. God doesn't want a badge for us to hold up to Him and say, hey, I've been circumcised.

That makes me something special. He wants our trust and faith in Him. But what matters, in this case, he's trying to kind of change the verbiage here, but what matters is keeping the commandments of God. So I looked at that and I think, mm, boy, we gotta look at this a little bit closer. And it's actually not hard. In the age of grace, what does it mean to keep the commandments of God?

And I think we've actually already studied this out a bit in Galatians again. when we were back in Galatians 5.16, we talked about walking by the Spirit. The New Testament believer has a relationship with God, he's in Christ, and his daily walk is to be by the Holy Spirit. And you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. So that's the way we're able to keep the commandments. We do it by walking by the Holy Spirit, with our focus on Christ, and who he is. That's the way we accomplish that in this age. So now we go kind of this little summary verse for a bit.

Each man must remain in the condition in which he was called, speaking of believers, must constantly remain, in this case it's the idea, a condition which the calling finds in his situation, Have you ever heard, in the British, this is, you know, if you're kind of a British anglophile, is that the right word, honey? You know, you like, what's that? Anglophile, thank you. Anyway, if you like British things, you enjoy that.

Well, they're always talking about their situation. You know, I have a good situation or I have a bad situation. I want a better situation than I got. Like, made me think of that. So someone's rendered this word, situation, and it's your, what you're doing. This is your life. This is what I do. I'm a student. I'm a doctor, a lawyer, Indian chief, whatever you are. So, okay. So he says, remain in that condition or that situation in which you were called. It's used, as I mentioned before, this is a divine calling based on your redemption. Okay, so this verse says, remain in the situation when you become a Christian.

And haven't you seen that? You know, this is just kind of another aside. Think about that. And there is a desire. When you get excited about the things of Christ, your first thought is, well, wow, I gotta get busy for the Lord. I gotta go do this. I gotta do that. I gotta sell my house. I know I'll become a, you know, there's a story about this guy Sadhu Sundar Singh. He was a, I think from India. And he literally, he literally tried to live Christ's life. He lived off the streets. He had no place to live. He was like an evangelist. And maybe for him that was right. But he virtually lived in the streets.

I'm going to live just like Christ lived. And it sounds wonderful, it sounds very spiritual, but be careful, be careful, think it through. It's wonderful to be excited about the Lord, but be careful and look at scripture and these verses are there to help us in that vein. So Paul's gonna expand this a little bit, this idea of remaining where you're at and what that means in the following verses. Okay,

21. So Paul's gonna give us an example here. Now I'm going to switch pictures here.

Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it. But if you are able to become free, rather do that. So were you called while a slave? So there's two parts to this. First of all, don't worry about it. It's kind of neat to see that in scripture, right? Don't worry about it. Wait a minute, God can't say that to me, don't worry about it. He's gotta be worried. Aren't you worried, God? Aren't you worried about what's going on? He says, don't worry about it. That's really cool, I thought. Don't be concerned about that. But it's the same idea.

That's not to be our focus. If that's our focus, if our focus is constantly upon that, then we're not going to have time to spend with the Lord. We're so wrapped up in doing that that we won't have time to spend with Him. He says, but if you're able to become free, rather do that.

That's really kind of just down-to-earth advice. Take advantage of your opportunities. I mean, if something comes along, if you're in job A and job B comes along and it looks, you know, this looks like a pretty good job and it pays more money, don't be foolish and say, well, God called me to this lower-paying job. I'm just gonna stay there. No, you should take the higher paying job.

If it's okay, it's not going to cause you harm or whatever. So basically, Macaulay says whatever our condition on earth, Maybe he does not handicap our relation to the Lord. So basically, you know, don't worry about the details. Worry about your relation with Christ. Worry about that. That's what you should be worried about. Focus on that. The details of your earthly life, they're certainly important. If you have a family and children, they're really important. But don't, you know, your relation with Christ is what is the focus of the Christian.

So now he's gonna continue with the example. for he was called while a slave is the Lord's freed man." So Paul's going to talk about Corinthians who trusted Christ. He says, So it kind of reminds me here of the idea that Paul then reminds them of their freedom in Christ from the slavery of sin. Now many people before they're a believer don't see that they're slaves of sin.

They don't understand that, that they really are a slave of sin and they don't have the ability to act outside that. They say, well sure, I'm free. I can do this or do that. But no, they really can't. Scripture says they cannot. They're slaves of sin because they have a sin nature. So they need to trust the Savior for that to change. So there are verses that talk about the slavery of sin and talk about the freedom that we have in Christ as a result of His death on the cross.

So John 8.36 says, For if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Then Romans 8.2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. And then lastly, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. So the believer, we are free in Christ, but that really, that really is another, a wonderful form of slavery that God has, and it's for our benefit.

Likewise, he was called, while free, is Christ's slave. Now here's where it kind of talks about that part of it. Now Paul talks about the opposite situation. Christine trusted Christ as her Savior, So he's Christ's slave. Then Paul points out every believer is Christ's slave, but the slavery is freedom. So there's a bunch of verses on this.

Ephesians 6.6, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ do the will of God from the heart. So we're slaves to a wonderful master who loves us, who died for us. It's the best slave there can be. And then in Colossians it says, it is the Lord Jesus in whom you serve.

And then in 1 Peter 2.16, act as freemen and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of Christ. So a Christian is not to be in slavery to the world and to sin, but he's to be in slavery to Christ, which is his true master and true Lord.

So now it talks, it kind of expands that a little bit more. You were bought with a price. So Paul's speaking of our salvation. You were bought out, another picture of this whole being the slavery thing, you were bought out of the marketplace of sin. The price required was the death, Christ's death on the cross. For you have been bought with a price, I quoted part of that, therefore glorify God in your body.

And do not become slaves of men. In earthly service, he is to recognize that his service is to God, not men. And I think we had this verse earlier. Not by way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

Okay, so now he's gonna kind of wrap it up here. In 24, he says, brethren, so brethren is each one, each one is to remain with God. Very similar, we're remaining with God, but this has a new little part that's interesting. So remain here is to dwell, it's minnow in the Greek, abide, dwell, stay in that condition with God. So we're to abide, hang out, that was Hal's favorite term for abide, hang out with God by faith. And John 15 says, abide in me and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. So this is a starting point. The starting point for the Christian life is that we are focused on Christ, hanging out with Him, abiding with Him, and that's how we're to live our Christian life. He combines that, that's the first part of the verse.

And the second part says, in that condition in which you were called. So we take our heavenly position and it flows into our earthly condition. in the sphere, we have it in the sphere in which you were divinely summoned. So what I did, I thought, you know, we've gone through, we started with marriage and we kind of marched through all these examples. So I just kind of put this little last part together.

In the previous verses, starting back in verse eight, we were told, if unmarried, stay unmarried. And he had some qualifications for that. If widowed, stay widowed. And the qualifications were, if you don't have self-control, then you're allowed to marry. If married to an unbeliever, stay married. If circumcised, stay circumcised. If uncircumcised, stay uncircumcised. If a slave, stay a slave with the qualification that if you have a chance to be free, you know, do that.

So God's very practical. And then lastly, if a free man, stay a free man. So he's marched through, Paul's marched through marriage into kind of earthly conditions of circumcision and slavery and shown that all those situations, staying where you are and focus on Christ is what he desires.

So lastly here, it's a couple of, and I used one before, whatever our condition on earth, whatever our condition on earth may be, does not handicap us in our relation to the Lord. All secular conditions, you know, we think, many times we think it does. People always say, well, if I only had, if I only was richer, better looking, whatever, you know, and it doesn't, it doesn't. All secular conditions, whether a family life or social caste, the vehicle or expression of Christ's character. Earthly condition is irrelevant. Christ's character is everything. You know, He's our life. He's our Savior and that's our focus and that will flow into our earthly condition. That will make it, and you know, our earthly condition many times may be beneficial to our Christian service. We may find great benefit by being able to serve the Lord in a place, you know, that nobody else could.

I mean, like the folks of us who served, like out at Buckley, I'll call it serving, but we weren't really serving, but I guess some people said we were, anyway. We were in a top-secret facility. There's only a few number of believers, actually more than you might think, but we were able to hold Bible studies at that time and tell people about Christ. So you're sometimes, and Bob's able to, in the midst of the medical world, to be there and be God's servant right there.

So your earthly condition is hugely important and a huge opportunity to serve the Lord there. So let's close in prayer. Dear Father, we thank you for our time today, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. Thank you for your word, and thank you for our time to study it. In Christ's name, amen.