Living with Undivided Devotion to Christ and Eternity

Scripture References

• 1 Corinthians 7:25-40
• Luke 10:38-42
• Ecclesiastes 4:9

Introduction

• The men’s study through 1 Corinthians continues the series’ question, “What does a disciple look like?” with about 15 verses from chapter 7, where Paul counsels the Corinthians on singleness and marriage.
• The take-home question, given up front: what competes with our undivided devotion to Christ? (One man’s immediate answer: “Everything.”)
• Opening exercise: each man named his current “situation”–more content now that he is living with Christ, lonely, hungry for more (knowledge, Christlikeness, responsibility and stewardship), confused but trusting, in a battle, uncertain, or just “mid,” going through the motions. Until you locate where you really are, you can’t apply Scripture honestly.
• The teacher left the week’s fill-in blank until the end: “A disciple lives for ____.”

Key Points / Exposition

1. “Because of the Present Crisis” (vv. 25-26)

• “Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is.”
• Paul isn’t using “virgins” as purity symbolism the way Jesus sometimes does; he is simply speaking of the unmarried in his culture’s terms.
• What was the “present crisis”? Theologians debate it, and Paul doesn’t say. The group’s guesses: the church falling away from the Word, too many hasty marriages, and the rampant sexual immorality of Corinth, where temple worship and sexual license bled into the church.
• If Paul wrote to us today about our present crisis, the group named two: sexual immorality and constant distraction–both likely present 2,000 years ago as well.
• Paul uses singleness and marriage as real-life categories to show what it looks like to be a disciple, always circling back to the question of what competes with undivided devotion to Christ.

2. Marriage Won’t Fix What Only Christ Can (vv. 27-28)

• “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned… Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.”
• Married? That’s great–stay faithful. Single? That’s great–don’t rush into marriage as a fix.
• What does Paul want to spare us? The group’s answers:
  • The unfamiliar–either change means learning something new.
  • The added responsibilities of a husband: without the right North Star you’re distracted, because now you’re caring for a wife as well as yourself.
  • Doubled sin: in marriage you deal with your own sin and your partner’s, so the enemy can test you on two sides.
• About half the class was married and half single. Married men were asked whether they thought marriage would solve their problems; single men, whether they think it will.
  • One man had watched single friends living worldly lives assume they could flip a switch: “Once I’m married I’ll change; once I have a kid I’ll be a good dad.” It doesn’t work that way–you have to already be that man, then find a woman who is also chasing God. Another put it plainly: that is hoping your spouse will complete you rather than Jesus.
  • The teacher pressed further: how many assume marriage will end pornography, lust, and wandering eyes? Many do–and it doesn’t.
• The deeper lie: “If my circumstances changed, I’d be a better Christian”–more money, married or not married, different kids, a different job, a different city. One man noted people usually say “I want to be a better person,” not “a better Christian,” when becoming a better Christian is what changes everything else.
• Illustration: “Once I get the brand-new $600 driver, I’ll be a better golfer.”
• Paul’s challenge to our culture: don’t assume that changing your earthly circumstances will solve your spiritual problems.

3. Living Like the World Is Passing Away (vv. 29-31)

• “The appointed time has grown very short… let those who buy [live] as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.”
• What would change if we actually believed that? The men answered: rethinking daily habits in light of what matters most; far less stress and anxiety over day-to-day things; more Bible study, more reaching out to friends, and being a better witness.
• Everyone in the room said they believe it. So why do we struggle so much with our priorities?
  • One man: fear–the world keeps running toward accumulating things, and if you stop and go a different direction you fear you won’t survive or will end up with nothing.
  • At the end of the day, it is a lack of faith.

4. Mary or Martha? (Luke 10:38-42)

• Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha. Mary sits at His feet, laser-focused on what He is saying; Martha is cleaning, cooking, and being the hero of the house.
• “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
• In your weekly routine, are you the Mary or the Martha? There are bills to pay, kids to raise, wives to love, life groups to teach–so how do we discern what faithfulness requires in a given season or moment?
• The discussion:
  • One man sees himself as a Martha–taking care of things so others can do what they need to do–or keeping busy because he isn’t sure what laser focus on Jesus looks like. The proverbial house still has to be cleaned.
  • Martha feels empty and complains; she is convicted because she sees Mary doing the right thing.
  • Another man is fighting so many demands on his time that Jesus is getting edged out, and he feels the emptiness and conviction as he fights to give Him more.
  • Another has been praying about stewardship: staying laser-focused on Jesus while being a good steward of the opportunities, gifts, talents, and money He has given–take the steps you need to take, but still tithe and still use your gifts for His kingdom. It is a gray line, it looks different for everybody, and it means deliberately keeping God first.
  • Laser focus is the right word–but anything that takes your focus off Him means you don’t have it.
• A recurring phrase from one man: “What’s the next right step?” Even after getting 54 wrong in a row, what is the next right thing to add?
• Are we giving 100% of our God-given gifts to the church? Many of us can’t, because we don’t know what our gifts are. The practical answer: get out there and start serving. One man served in many areas, discovered what he didn’t enjoy, then used Lake Pointe’s spiritual gifts assessment and found his fit. The group debated spiritual gifts versus natural abilities like administration, landing on this: everything comes from God, and knowing your gifts helps you discern which direction to go.

5. Undivided Devotion (vv. 32-35)

• “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.”
• We can easily name the bad things that pull us from Christ. The harder question: what good things can quietly become more important to us than Jesus?
  • The group listed sex, work, children, jobs and vocation, money, comfort, success, reputation, politics, hobbies, and health.
• How can you tell when something good has become ultimate? One man recalled Pastor Josh’s line from that weekend’s sermon about talking the most about what you love: what has taken God’s place shows up in what we talk about, what we wear, what we drive, and what we do.
• “I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
• What does undivided devotion look like on a Wednesday morning? One man answered honestly: he sets aside time as part of a routine, and sometimes 45 seconds is all the Lord gets before a to-do item divides his attention; sometimes it’s 10 minutes.
• When “What does it look like to be perfect?” short-circuits the brain, the teacher reframed it: “What would it look like to be more perfect tomorrow than I was today?”

6. Under No Compulsion (vv. 36-38)

• “Whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control… will do well.”
• How many decisions do we make under compulsion? Most of them.
• Story: the teacher had planned a slideshow of everything he ate at the State Fair of Texas the day before–“100% compulsion,” no control over his own will–including a Flaming Hot Cheetos cheese pizza he is convinced will be on the menu at the banquet in heaven.
• We should have complete control, but we give a lot of it up–through lack of faith, pleasure, and selfishness.
• One man: self-control is a muscle. If you give in to your most carnal desire daily, you’ll keep doing it; it takes practice to strengthen that discipline so you don’t constantly cave.
• Another recalled the line often attributed to Vince Lombardi: “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Getting it from all sides wears you down, and sometimes you give in even after a long stretch of victory. He shared that he got close this week and God stepped in and held him back.
• “So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better” (v. 38). Not anti-marriage, but pro-focus.
  • One man raised Ecclesiastes 4:9–“two are better than one”–and joked that maybe Paul just never read the Old Testament.
  • The group’s reading: a single person has more time to focus on serving God and expanding the kingdom; Paul would rather you marry than fall into sin, but he’d rather still that you give yourself to the body of Christ first.
• A Lake Pointe maxim fits here: “Reject good for great.” Good is acceptable and gets a pat on the back; what does it look like to reject it for great?
• Verses 39-40 close the chapter: a widow is free to remarry, “only in the Lord,” though in Paul’s judgment she is happier if she remains as she is.

7. The Fill-In: A Disciple Lives for Eternity

• The men’s guesses for the blank: God, Christ, serving, the Lord’s affairs, living by example with wisdom to direct others. All true–but Paul is honing in on something more specific.
• Are you living for Christ in whatever situation you named at the start–in contentment, in wanting more, in trust, in loneliness, in confusion, in battle, in the mid, in the low? Bloom where you are planted; don’t wish you were planted somewhere else before you bloom.
• “A disciple lives for eternity.” Single or married, live for eternity, not for your circumstances. Your wife, your children, your happiness, your job, your successes and failures–all of it will pass away.
• Why are we so good at living for things that so easily pass away? Because we want them now.
• Imagine knowing with absolute certainty that everything you own, accomplish, and experience here is temporary, and everything done for Christ has eternal significance:
  • One man: “If I kept it in the forefront of my mind and lived like it always, I would never waste any time”–and would never get angry over temporary things. So why doesn’t he? “Out of sight, out of mind.”
  • Another: our nature drifts toward comfort, but there should be drastic changes in our day-to-day.
• If the Lord came back in five days, what would you do differently? Almost everything–like cramming the night before a test. One man pushed back: that is exactly why He doesn’t give us a date; if He did, our faithfulness would be fake, a rush to prove we deserve to be with Him. He wants to see whether we will follow Him without knowing.
• The teacher flipped it: if your best friend, spouse, or mother who is not a Christian had three days to live, what would change in the next three days? You would pour into them like nothing else mattered. Why don’t we live with that urgency every day?
• Philip Anthony Mitchell on the Lake Pointe podcast: “I preach scared to death,” because someone in the room may never have heard the gospel and may never hear it again.

Major Lessons & Revelations

• What competes with our undivided devotion to Christ? Almost everything–including good things.
• Changing your earthly circumstances will not solve your spiritual problems; character is formed where you are.
• Marriage doesn’t cure lust, insecurity, or a lack of discipline; you have to already be the man before you find the spouse.
• Good gifts become idols when they dominate our speech, thought, spending, or schedule more than Christ.
• Undivided devotion is impossible without deliberate self-control–a muscle strengthened by practice.
• Our struggle with priorities is, at bottom, a lack of faith that this world really is passing away.
• “Reject good for great.”
• A disciple lives for eternity.

Practical Application

• Name the situation you are really in and ask how to live for Christ in it this week, instead of waiting for different circumstances.
• Identify the one earthly concern currently stealing your devotion and confess it to Christ.
• Schedule specific daily time at Jesus’ feet before tackling the day’s tasks–and aim to be “more perfect tomorrow than I was today.”
• Serve the church with your gifts; experiment, take the spiritual gifts assessment, and notice where joy and fruitfulness meet.
• Practice restraint in one area where compulsion rules–food, media, spending.
• Speak the gospel to at least one person this week as though the days are short.
• Ask the diagnostic questions: If eternity is real, what deserves less of my anxiety? If eternity is real, what deserves more of my attention?

Conclusion & Call to Response

• Paul’s counsel cuts through every life-stage debate: single or married, content or confused, busy or bored–live with eternity in view, because everything else is passing away.
• The group left with more questions than answers, and with the line that had been rumbling through the teacher’s head all week: “If eternity is real, what deserves less of my anxiety, and what deserves more of my attention?”
• What are you giving your anxiety to, what are you giving your attention to, and how many of those need to flip-flop?

Insights

1. Everything that feels urgent is temporary; invest in what outlives you–eternity is the only deadline.
2. Marriage, singleness, success–all gifts; none should steal your undivided devotion to Jesus.
3. Stop waiting for perfect circumstances; bloom where you’re planted and let faith flourish right here.
4. Reject merely good distractions so you can chase the great things of God.
5. Anxiety fades when you remember this world is passing; eternity holds your true address.
6. Identity isn’t built by what you own; it’s forged by who owns you.

Flash Cards

Test your recall of this week’s message–click or tap the button to show the cards, then a card to flip it over.