Sex, Love, and Jesus, Part 4 // Singleness and the Glory of God

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

The Church of the Lookout is an old of Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with all-inspiring love.

Visit us online at thelookout.church.

So we've covered some ground in the last few weeks, and if you're new with us, I can't catch you up.

I can't possibly do that.

But I will let you know that we've been in a series called Sex Love and Jesus, all right?

In the last few weeks, we've been talking about biblically topics such as sexual immorality, same-sex relationships, what we believe to be God's design for gender, and other light topics like that.

Okay?

And uh it's actually been a really uh good time for me to have conversations with many of you.

So many of you have sent in amazing questions, and I know we aren't able to get to all of the questions in these sermons, but I do intend to thoughtfully uh you know uh create some environments where we can really get at some really complicated and nuanced questions and how we walk this stuff out.

Um but through this line of exploration, you know, as we've been exploring this topic of sexuality and spirituality in God's heart for that, um, you know, one of the through lines, the overarching ideas here is that we're not just discussing the technicalities of marriage and sexuality, like what's allowed, what's not allowed, what's on the nice list and the naughty list, what's sin, what's celebrated, but more so what is the point of it all?

And what it why does any of it actually matter?

And when we kind of back away from the list of do's and don'ts, even though there are those things that we have to talk about, when we back away from that, we catch this larger vision of what God is doing and this overarching story of God inviting us into a union with Him and pulling us into oneness with Him for all of time and how our lives reflect that here and now.

And so for the next two weeks, for this week and next week, we're gonna be talking about how we live this out through singleness this week and then marriage next week, where I'm gonna invite uh the beautiful Megan Humbreck to join me up on stage next week.

It's gonna be awesome.

Um and so today we're talking about singleness, and you might be thinking finally something a little less controversial.

And yet the teaching from Jesus that we're looking at today is actually a revolution in the realm of singleness, unlike any other teaching in history.

Okay?

It's actually a revolution, it's a revolutionary thought.

Okay, so if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew 19.

That's gonna be our kind of our core teaching passage this morning, Matthew 19.

And if you're married here and you're thinking, oh, maybe I should have stayed home.

We're talking about singleness, I don't want you to check out, okay?

You're one if you're wondering if this is going to apply to you, listen, this applies to all of us, okay?

And I want you to stay tuned in because all of this really is about the family of God, which is all of us together.

Okay?

So there's a cohesive, there's a collective invitation here for how we hold each other in these places of living out our fidelity to Jesus, even in our marriages and singleness and sexuality.

So Matthew 19, we come kind of right in the middle of some of Jesus' teaching.

It's actually the Pharisees were asking him about the question of divorce.

And uh and and it was in the moment of his response, in the middle of a teaching of divorce, he starts to insert a teaching about singleness, which nobody quite expected that he would go there or why he would go there.

Um, but this is where we pick up in Matthew 19, starting in verse 8.

He said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.

Then he continues.

The disciples said to him, If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.

But he said to them, Not everyone can receive the saying, but only to those whom it is given.

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have been made who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God.

But the one who is able to receive this receive it.

Real quick, hey Jeanette, what do ladybugs mean?

Like in dream dream world, dream dream world.

Do you know what ladybugs mean?

Okay, I was hoping you did, because there's an awesome ladybug crawling on my Bible right now.

Okay.

Somebody Google it.

Alright, I bet it means something awesome.

Um anyways, back to the scripture.

Let the one who is able to receive it receive it.

So you should know that this current generation in American history will live as singles longer than any other generation that's been alive.

Okay?

Since 2000, the proportion of single people in the 25 to 29 age range rose 9% from 50 to 59%.

The number of single people from 30 to 39 rose 10 percentage points from 24 to 34 percent.

Okay, so the median age in the 1970s was 23 years old, and the median marriage age in 2010 was 30 years old.

38% of young adults feel judged for their unmarried status, with 69% of women believing their mothers are the harshest critics.

Okay.

So there is a lot of anxiety around singleness in our society.

And having talked with many of you within our community here, our family here, um uh I know that there's a there's kind of a tension, there's this unresolved longing that many feel, especially as it relates to how to relate to their singleness and these desires, right?

Because it does seem like the world is designed to be in pairs, right?

It just seems like that's the right design.

You have Adam and Eve, right?

You have Batman and Robin, you got peanut butter and jelly, right?

We could just keep going.

And so it seems like that's a natural design, and so that's why it brings up all of these questions, all of these questions that we can hold.

For instance, is it sustainable to live without a partner or without sex?

Is it possible to be content in singleness while still holding on to the longings for marriage and companionship?

Is a spouse something that I'm allowed to even keep hoping for?

Right?

So some people can sometimes feel like you only really matter once you get married, and that life really begins when you have a family and you have children.

Until then, many feel like junior members of the body of Christ are second-hand, second-class citizens, and and and with that, there can be this kind of prolonged sense of even loneliness or rejection.

And because of the incredible benefits that social media brings into our lives, you scroll and you see a lot of types of photos.

You see families on vacations, you see spouses on their date nights, you see children having an endless amount of first experiences, and then you contrast that with your photos, which are mostly coffee with friends or photos on your own or photos with a pet.

And it can produce a sense in the heart, will anybody want me?

Will I be able to have these kinds of experiences?

And as I get older, will I eventually quote age out from the category of desirability?

And then when it comes to dating, the questions keep rolling and they even get more complicated, right?

And I just have to say, like, I am very fortunate that I found Megan and didn't have to like search around to date for, like, I just would have no idea what to do, all right?

I would be helpless if I were dating right now.

And then with the advent of dating apps, there's all these questions.

Should I use technology and dating apps?

Should I be more proactive or do I just wait on God?

Where are all the good men and women?

Are they at the gym?

Are they at the library?

Are they at the bar?

I'm not sure there's enough eligible prospects at the lookout.

So is it possible to find another church exactly like this one?

Or to increase my chances, should I just join five churches and uh and try to just get involved as many communities as possible?

You guys are smiling at me because you know that that's true, right?

There's this question, I'm so lonely.

Should I just should I date a supportive non-believer?

What about the sexual baggage and mistakes I've made?

What does that mean moving forward?

How do I thrive as a single when everyone I date seems to lack self-control and pushes to the boundaries of intimacy farther than I want?

Finally, if I don't have the gift of singleness and I'm burning with desire, dear God, what am I supposed to do?

And some of you guys have asked these questions, some of us hold these questions or variations of these questions, and then we come into church and we hear preachers often talk about singleness being a gift, and then secretly you wonder, yeah, but is there a return policy with that gift?

Is there free shipping?

All right, because I'd like to exchange this gift for another gift that I actually want, okay?

And so I'm just acknowledging some of the tensions around here because within singleness we have to be able to talk about that together.

What is the viability of those living as singles before the Lord?

Some of us are some of some of you are single for a season, some of some are single for all seasons, and some are single again.

Maybe you were previously married or previously dating and you're single again, maybe for the first time in your life.

Some are single for a longer time than they wish, and they get married longer in life.

Some people never get married without making and without making peace with how they with the state of their heart.

And some people, the truth is, become so accustomed to life on their own, that the life on their own that a partner would actually break up their way of life and it would cause a lot of turmoil.

So there's all of these vectors and variations that we face.

And what makes it difficult is this culture we're facing, because you guys know this.

We're living in a world that is a youth-obsessed culture combined with a hypersexual culture, which sends this constant message on every side that if you're not married young and having a lot of sex, then you've missed the boat.

Okay?

This is actually a message that's that's coming from all sides.

Now, in a post-Christian culture, what adds to this, because we're living in kind of a secular moment, a post-Christian culture, what adds to this, there's been a removal of taboos in our culture.

Because it used to be that if if you were um you know, if you were sleeping around, that kind of thing, that would have been like a demerit, that would have had a negative stigma in society.

Um, and and back in the day, people thought, you know, like, hey, it's better to marry than to burn with lust.

So you, you're not perfect, but you're also not that bad.

So let's get married, right?

And so there was, there used to be a thing of marriage being at least a uh a desired outcome, and now we live in a in a time of fluidity where it seems like there seems to be no uh uh foundation on which to stand on, and what should we want or what should we not want.

Now, we also have to acknowledge that in the church we haven't made this easier on singles.

Okay?

We have not made this easier.

We perpetuated the message that God's ultimate discipleship destination is a Christian marriage.

And I just need to tell you, that is not true.

Our ultimate destination is Christ Himself.

And we need to acknowledge that and actually repent of this whole series, every message, there's an invitation to repentance because we've got this so wrong.

It makes what makes all of these topics so hard to talk about is because even in the church, it's not like we've nailed this, we haven't made this easier on ourselves or for each other.

But the good news of the gospel is this the good news of the gospel is everybody gets to flourish, married and singles alike.

And you can say amen to that.

So when Jesus went into this teaching about eunuchs and singleness, this was also a time that this was not a popular message, okay?

So in the world in the Roman culture, there was you didn't really have much of a status without a spouse.

It was a patriarchal society, so they were seen as less than.

And it was revolutionary in the church as the church was spreading, because the singles were welcomed in, they were honored, they were valued, they were full participants in the body, the community of the church as it was forming.

But also in the Jewish culture, many singles were not viewed, like eunuchs in particular, were not viewed as full participants in the covenantal blessing.

Because the original mandate in Genesis was to get married, to have children, and possess the land.

And so those who weren't able to do that oftentimes weren't able to even participate to the full extent of worship within the temple.

And so the Jewish culture had a high value for it.

Yes, get married, be fruitful, multiply, possess the land.

That was kind of the high watermark of living in the covenant blessing of God, okay?

So this is what makes Jesus' teaching so revolutionary because for the first time he was suggesting that choosing or simply embracing a life of singleness was a legitimate and even a desirable option for the flourishing kingdom life.

And they would have just been like, What?

What?

What are you talking about?

And so going back in his little teaching about eunuchs, Jesus points out that there's really three kinds of eunuchs.

Now, eunuchs, as we talked a little bit last week, are those whose genitals had actually been removed, but mostly men whose genitals had been removed.

And they had been removed for a few different reasons, Jesus points out.

Some from birth, right?

So Jesus is advocating that some are eunuchs from birth, likely meaning hermaphrodites or intersects or those who just didn't have any discernible parts even from birth.

Others that they were made that way by other men, Jesus says.

And so we know that historically eunuchs were made that way in certain societies where you were serving royalty.

They would actually castrate you or remove your parts so that you were not a threat to the other servants, that you were not impregnating other servants, and they to make the men less aggressive and more effeminate.

But he introduces this third category of eunuchs that was not something that anybody had actually even considered or thought about.

He said that there are some who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Some people make themselves eunuchs for the for the sake of the kingdom of God, and which doesn't actually mean they cut off anything.

What he's referring to is not necessarily self-castration, but living a self-restrained life, choosing purposefully to not be married.

And he knows, and here's the thing Jesus knows this is a hard teaching.

So he ends this teaching with this word let he who is able to receive this receive it.

If you're able to receive this, you should receive it.

And obviously, to his listeners, the Pharisees and the disciples, this was just like they don't have quite a category for what he's talking about.

What a self-made eunuch?

Which is why it took a work of the Spirit of God to actually change the paradigm of how they were thinking.

And we see this further, and we talked about this last week.

We see the way this actually plays out because in Acts chapter 8, as the early church was forming and the Spirit of God was moving among his people, we read about a eunuch who made his way to Jerusalem.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And the eunuch comes from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship.

And we read that as he's he's leaving, he's he's leaving, he's in the wilderness, and he's he's meditating, he's reflecting on the scriptures, the prophet Isaiah, and he's trying to understand what is going on.

He's under trying to understand his place in this larger story arc of what God is doing.

And so in the middle of this exploration, God tells the disciple uh Philip to go out to the wilderness.

And he does, he goes 60 miles out of his way.

Just a second here.

He goes sixty miles out of his way.

The Philip met him out there, and he asks him what he's reading up in up in his um his carriage, and and the the eunuch tells him, I'm I'm trying to understand what this prophet Isaiah is saying.

And and so Philip starts to walk with him through the scriptures.

Ultimately, they um the the the the eunuch concludes that maybe there is a place for for those like me in the scriptures, and they would probably come across Isaiah 56 that talked about eunuchs.

There's coming a day when eunuchs would have full participation in the church, in the the work of the kingdom of God.

And so they come across some water, and the eunuch says, Is there anything hindering me from being baptized?

And they conclude, no, there is nothing hindering you from full participation.

So they baptize him.

And so it what it took was the work of Jesus, and Jesus fundamentally changed the rubric by which one lived in blessing and sended it to the world.

Now, this is very important that you understand that we understand this between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

See, in the Old Testament, covenantal blessing was based on marriage and children and living in the land.

It was about land, it was about replication.

That's how you actually lived into covenantal blessing.

And that's why it mattered so much to the people of God, to the Israelites, that you would actually take part in that.

And that's why they they they oftentimes would exclude those who weren't taking part in that as kind of a high watermark because they believed that God's mandate was to fill the land, to possess the land.

But something so fundamentally uh different happened when Jesus came and he brought a new kind of covenant.

So in the Old Testament, it was about marriage, children, and living in the land.

In the New Testament, covenantal blessing was based on not marriage and children and land, but living in a new spiritual family and making spiritual children and living in the kingdom of God, not just possessing a land.

And so there's no mandate in the New Testament about being married or having children.

It's celebrated.

But there's no specific mandate.

Rather, the mandate is to love God and to love others and to go into all the world and to make disciples and spiritual children of all nations, which means that because of Jesus, nothing stops us from living in oneness from Him and having a significant impact on this earth.

Eunuchs get to participate, singles get to participate, married get to participate.

We all can live in security and significance and belonging because of the new covenant of Jesus.

He changed everything, which means all of our lives matter.

And it's unbelievably good news for all of us.

Now, not all of us are called to a life of singleness.

So just because Jesus held that out as an option, he wasn't assuming that all of us were called to it.

And so some here have been holding this place of singleness and with the tensions and the questions that I asked earlier.

And we have to ask the question how to how to how do singles live a flourishing life before God while holding on to these longings?

And so to do that though, we have to debunk some of the lies.

We do have to debunk some of the lies the enemy uses to devalue, diminish, and rob singles of joy.

We have to debunk some of these lies, alright?

So, myth number one singles are incomplete and lacking.

And you'll hear this sometimes.

I'm I'm not fully complete unless I'm dating or married.

And now at this point, you cue every single Hollywood movie and Hollywood love story, specifically the iconic Jerry McGuire, which in in this particular love story we were brought back into that infamous line, you complete me, right?

And we even hear this at wedding ceremonies, which is completely bananas to me.

That you know, you sometimes you'll hear this at a wedding ceremony of look at you two, you have one part, you have one half that met this other half, and now you're gonna come together and make a whole.

And it's at that point in time, every time I I hear that now, I want to run up and and and and and and put this past you, give him a he that he should be fined for saying stuff like that.

You should be put in time out for saying stuff like that.

The reality is when you're married, it's not two halves becoming whole, it's two whole people in Christ joining their lives together as one flesh.

And if we have this idea that you get married to complete each other, you are signing up for a lifetime of misery.

And if any of you married, you know what I'm talking about.

If you are married and you are looking for that person to fulfill every particular desire and the deepest longings of your heart, I'm telling you, that's you're setting yourself up for a bad marriage.

Because that's not God's design.

God's design is not for two halves to become a whole, but for two wholes to be joined together in his love and covenant blessing.

And that is the pathway to actually overflow the love of God into our lives, right?

And so the idea that I am not who I am without another person is actually not from the scriptures.

Marriage does not make us whole, even though it's great.

Sex does not make us whole.

Only Christ makes us whole.

And so, and again, this is why a lot of marriages fail.

But Genesis 2.18, it does say it is not good for man to be alone, so we have to reconcile that.

You know, it's not good for man to be alone.

This is absolutely true.

However, the gospel is the good news that Jesus has formed us again into a family.

And the design of the church should be that no man or woman is ever alone.

We are a family together, surrounded by brothers and sisters, bound in love and unity through the Father and the Son and the Spirit.

So, yes, it is not good for man to be alone, but there's other ways to not be alone than to just have to be in a marriage.

Okay?

Are you guys hanging with me?

So I admit in our Western independent culture, this is where the church we often fall short.

We ought to surround every member with love and affection, and in doing so, remind each other that we don't need to be married or dating in order to feel complete.

That is not what anybody should feel.

But just by the virtue of being part of the family of God, there ought to be a sense of we are known and loved together.

Ronald Rollheiser says it like this.

He says, To be single is not necessarily to be asexual or sterile.

Today, sometimes the impression is given that sexual union is happiness, and no happiness is possible outside of that.

That is a superficial and dangerous algebra.

Sexuality is the drive in us toward connection, community, family, friendship, affection, love, creativity, and generativity.

We are happy and whole when these things are in our lives in our lives, not on the basis of whether or not we sleep alone.

Okay?

And so there's a drive in us, all of us are sexual beings at some period in time, but that goes so far beyond what we think of when it comes to sex, but we are designed to live in intimate relationships.

What about unfulfilled desires?

So every human being lives with unfulfilled desires, and this is this goes for singled, married, straight, gay.

The power and hope for us is that as we hear Jesus' invitation to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him, we trust that his grace is sufficient for us.

All of us in some degree live with unfulfilled desires, but all of us have the same call to follow Jesus and to take up our cross.

And for the desires that aren't fulfilled, we trust him, knowing that his grace at a certain level is going to sustain us in all of the longings of our hearts.

This is what Ephesians 3, Paul prays, he prays for the people.

Ephesians 3 18.

He says that you have made have strength.

He prays that you have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

I pray this for my kids at night.

This is like my go-to prayer when I'm talking to my children in at night.

I pray, God, would you fill them with the fullness of God?

Meaning, God, they are being offered so many things, they are being told so many things, they're being taught so many things, but God, what they need at the core is to be filled with the fullness of God.

And that's what we need to do, to be filled with the fullness of God.

So singles are complete and are lacking nothing.

But here's another lie, here's another myth that marriage is the ultimate Christian ideal.

And so while marriage is good, we're going to talk about next week, making it the ideal ignores the teachings in the life of Jesus in particular and the Apostle Paul, who were single and fully satisfied in God.

And that's what makes this conversation a little bit easier, is the Bible does not keep this part hidden.

Jesus Christ was single and tempted in all the same ways we were, yet he was deeply happy, joy-filled, fully functioning human being, embedded in friendships and community.

He is the archetype of how we can live fulfilled in God.

Paul is is the same.

Paul the apostle, the entire church spread like wildfire, was single, but he was seized by this beautific vision of Jesus.

He was captivated by a vision of Jesus.

And though, even though he saw the glory of God in marriage, he was the one who wrote Ephesians 5 about husbands and wives.

And he wrote that as a single man, he saw the glory of God in marriage, and yet he kept getting pulled back to this upward call.

There was something about the eyes of his heart that kept being called back into the glory of Jesus.

And we see in Paul this contentment with the Son of God that nothing else would do.

We see it in him.

It drove him forward.

He knew what marriage could do, but he also knew what complete devotion to God could feel like, which is why he said that he was content.

He'd learned the secret of contentment in Christ.

And those weren't the only two.

It wasn't just Jesus.

It wasn't just Paul.

That just through the beginning to the end of Scripture, there's so many people who lived full lives, fully significant, making kingdom impact.

Miriam and Elijah, Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Daniel, Nehemiah, Anna, Martha, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Barnabas, Timothy, Lydia, John, and probably several other of the other disciples.

And to be sure, we we remind ourselves, marriage is a beautiful thing, but it is not the ultimate thing.

And I want to keep saying that.

Marriage and singleness both demonstrate the beauty of God's purposes.

Sam Alberry, who I quoted a couple weeks ago, he is a he's he considers himself a same-sex celibate, same-sex attracted celibate Christian.

He said it like this.

He said, if marriage shows us the shape of the gospel, singleness shows us its sufficiency.

Okay?

Marriage is the shape of the gospel, meaning marriage is a prophetic picture of heaven.

It's a picture of heaven showing us what it looks like to concentrate our love towards our spouse in complete surrender and sacrifice.

And in doing so, we're announcing to the world, we're announcing to powers and principalities what the love of God actually looks like.

Okay?

But singleness is not less powerful.

This is so important, guys.

Listen, singleness is not less powerful.

Marriage is the shape of the gospel, singleness is the sufficiency of the gospel, meaning that singleness is a prophetic picture of heaven by demonstrating that our lives are meant to be satisfied in Christ.

Married and single alike, we are meant to be satisfied in Christ.

And our deepest desires for belonging, security, and intimacy are found in Christ alone.

And there's coming a day, even when we get to heaven, where even marriage passes away.

The scripture says that you will not be married in heaven.

You won't be given to marriage or be married in heaven.

Why?

Because we will all be married to the Son of God.

He will have the bridegroom will have his bride once and for all, and our hearts would be fully caught up in complete devotion to Jesus.

That is the future we're heading for.

So singleness demonstrate the power of God, and marriages demonstrate the power of God in two different ways.

Okay.

Okay, myth number three.

You guys hanging?

We alright?

Alright, we're gonna keep going.

Myth number three: marriage and sex are the only way to find intimacy.

Now, a lot of people feel this.

I need to be dating or married to feel the ultimate version of love.

And our culture really has rewired our understanding of love and our ability to give and receive love, especially in a dating app culture or hookup culture.

We've been trained to view each other primarily based on physical attraction and romantic desires.

Ronald Rollheiser again, he says it like this.

He said, one of the deep wounds in Western culture is that men and women find it very hard to be friends.

It's easier than it's easier for them to be lovers but not friends.

In our culture, a lot of people are starving for friendships.

It's actually easier to become lovers in our culture than it is to have uh covenant friendships that stand the test of time.

And what's interesting to note though is in the New Testament there's actually four words for love.

Some of you guys know this.

When we read the word love, we're out of discredit in the English language because we say love, we assume it means the same thing every time.

I love my wife and I love cheeseburgers, right?

That's difficult when we kind of bring it back and forth.

It's kind of it's hard to use the word love.

And in the New Testament, there's actually four words for love.

C.S.

Lewis writes about this in his book, The Four Loves, which is a fantastic book.

There's four words for love.

Number one, Eros, which is where we get erotic love or we know as romantic love.

There's storge, which we know is philanthropic love or familial love.

Like a love for family and brothers and sisters.

There's phileo, which is brotherly love.

That's where Philadelphia comes from, right?

City of brotherly love.

Phileo, which is a friendship kind of love.

And then agape, which is sacrificial love.

Husbands, love your wives like Christ loved the church.

This is what we're talking about, a laying down of life.

It's a different kind of love.

That's what agape is, and it's kind of the highest of the loves in the New Testament.

Now, what's interesting in our culture is we've taken these four loves and we completely flip them upside down.

Most in our culture, we start with Eros.

We start with the physical attraction, romantic love.

And um, and and we think if we can make it past there, then maybe we can get into a um like a familiar love, a storgay kind of love, and and an affection for one another, and then a deep friendship.

And then maybe after we made it through all that, we can get to agape, which is sacrificial love.

But the New Testament says that we start because of the love of Christ, we start with agape love, a laying down of our lives for each other, and upon that we build into friendship, into family, and ultimately to the closest, most intimate kind of love, which would be that Eros love.

So in the church, one of our challenges is we have to recover rightly ordered loves.

We have to recover rightly ordered loves, which means that the love of the church is first marked by a sacrificial, surrendered, laying down of life for each other and then building into it the other kinds of loves.

C.S.

Lewis again said affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives.

So we have a responsibility in the body of Christ for every single one of us to make sure that affection is flowing.

And it's not just romantic affection, it's familiar reflection, it's deep covenant friendships, it's the laying down of our lives for each other.

Because when we can do that in the church, we actually make it possible for every single person to win and to thrive and to flourish in the body of Christ.

That's what the world needs to see, right?

All right.

I'm not convinced you guys are hanging with me, but I'm gonna keep going anyways, all right?

Um myth number four.

Okay.

Marriage and sex will make your problems go away.

Marriage and sex will make your problems go away.

Now, this one is funny, but people actually believe this.

I I love this quote from Eddie Cantor.

He said, Marriage is an attempt to solve problems together which you didn't even have before when you were on your own.

When you get married, you're signing up for more problems, and then you have to join together to figure them out.

Okay.

So ironically, when I talk to a lot of young single married men, um or I mean, do I talk to married men who look back at being single as the glory days, quote unquote?

Because now they're actually being corrected and expected to level up, and they wish they could go back to that time where they felt awesome again.

Um, and you know, for single men who feel that way, of like, you know, you're you're married, things are different than when you were single and you and you kind of missed those days.

Let me help you.

You weren't awesome, all right?

You felt awesome because you were babied by your mother, and now that you're married, you're expected to put away your dirty laundry and actually be present with your family, all right?

You weren't awesome before, you're just growing up.

It's okay, all right?

Um, and this is why so many young singles start living together even before marriage, it's cohabitation.

And among uh unmarried couples in the survey, three out of five already live together before marriage.

In our culture, it's kind of seen as no big deal.

But statistically, couples who cohabitate before marriage, and you got to understand this.

It doesn't to a lot of minds, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but cohabitating before marriage, there's actually a higher chance of getting a divorce.

And so you're not practicing for marriage, you're practicing for divorce.

It's just in the statistics because uh the deepest form of love is is actually marked by self-restraint and respect.

And it's marked by covenant and the mutual giving of yourselves upon a lifelong covenant.

And the reality is sex is powerful.

Sex is a fire with it that we we actually burn with desire.

And fire is great when it keeps you warm, right?

Fire is a gift because it can keep you warm.

Fire is also dangerous, which is why it has to have a container.

And anybody who's ever made a campfire in the mountains, you know what I'm talking about.

You want that fire to be contained on some level.

If it's not contained, yeah, it'll warm you for a bit, but it can get very destructive very fast.

It can spread like wildfire, right?

And this is why the scriptures talk about the only safe container that can actually preserve the gift of sex is a lifelong covenant of marriage.

Otherwise, sex does have the power to destroy and to break us apart.

Sex is good, but it is powerful, which is why it needs to be in a container.

So, all of this, and all of the in-between, of all these questions, what Paul talks about is he does talk about receiving singleness as a gift.

Here's what he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

1 Corinthians 7 · chapter mention

He says, Now, as a concession, not a command, I say this.

I wish that all of you were as I am.

But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind, one of another.

To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it's good for them to remain single as I am, but if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Okay.

So in in some way, you know, Paul is making allowances for different ways of living before God, different ways of being in relationship.

But even Paul says, guys, if you can, this there's actually a level of desirability of being able to hold yourself before Christ, actually give yourself fully to his work.

And so we do have to talk about the gifts of singleness.

And this is this is a big deal, and it's not just cliche simplistic stuff.

It's it's possible to hold the gift of singleness and still hold the desire and the longing to be with com to be with somebody in companionship.

It is possible to do both.

Some of some of some of you in the room, you're single, and you're not single by choice, you're single because that's the season of life that you're in.

And so you are holding on to your an openness to God.

If you have somebody that you want to put me in relationship with, I'm open to that.

But while you're in the waiting, here's the here's the thing.

While you are in the waiting, there is an opportunity.

You have to be able to receive singleness as a gift while you are single.

Okay?

If you're always putting it off as my fullest life is going to come later, you are going to miss out on the opportunities before you.

Okay?

And gift number one is just to be devoted to God.

Because when you're always longing to be in a different life stage, it's too easy to miss where you are.

And one of the things that Paul is talking about here is to embrace devotion to God, to use the time to develop rich friendship with the Holy Spirit, to show the world what it looks like to burn with white hot passion for Jesus, the Son of God.

Because that picture actually becomes a testimony to all of us.

When somebody sees a single person burning for the Lord, it is a testimony of the work of God.

To use the season to devote yourself to prayer and the scriptures or even the mastering of theology, to use the time to devote yourself in a way that you can't in other places and other seasons of life.

Pete Schizero, he said it like this.

He says, Your marriage or your singleness is your loudest gospel message in the world.

And it's possible that as single, as even in your singleness, the way that you're living out your singleness right now is your loudest gospel message in the world because it's a way that people can see where your heart is devoted to and who is sustaining you at the end of the day.

So it's the gift of devotion, the gift of devotion to Jesus, but also the gift of giving yourself to kingdom work.

And again, Paul says that the goodness of singleness should make you see that your life and goal is not marriage, but the kingdom of God, which includes joining the Spirit of God and the holy work of making everything on this earth new until it becomes the fitting place for Jesus to dwell.

And the reality is in singleness, you have a disproportionate amount of time to give to kingdom work more than anybody in any other life category.

See, children have no responsibility, but they also have no autonomy.

They can't do whatever they want when they want.

The elderly, uh, they can they have maybe autonomy, but they don't have the resources or they lack the energy.

When you're married, you're responding to the needs of your spouse and your family.

Um once you're married and you guys know this, you have kids, the oblig obligations just become a black hole that swallow up your life.

So someone wants some of your time.

People come and like, hey, can we get some you know, time with you and Megan?

Or can I schedule a meeting with you?

I'm like, yeah, how about three Thursdays from now at a really bizarre time frame, right?

It's like such a specific window because my primary, my primary focus right now is my family.

It's like I'm trying to build the kingdom in a family, which means that there are built-in limitations to what we can focus on.

And those are beautiful limitations, but in singleness, it's a disproportionate amount of time and resources and freedom to do what God has called you to do.

And I just want to say, do it while you still can.

Don't waste your time on trivialities.

If you're a young man in here, really the studies show that by the time a person is 21, they've already played 10,000 hours of video games.

10,000 hours.

I just want to cry.

10,000 hours.

Our time can be sucked and evaporated in so many places, but there is a gift in singleness, it's a disproportionate to be able to go do the missions work, to give yourself to service, to go make an impact, to live significantly like Paul, like the disciples, to get after it.

And yeah, maybe there's comes a time where God brings somebody into your life, but while you're single, make the most of it.

Please, we need you to.

We need you to go for it.

Amen.

Um sorry, my iPad keeps turning off here.

All right, I'm I'm wrapping up here.

I'm wrapping up, guys.

The last gift here though is to take this moment.

It's the gift of to build community and spiritual family.

Julie Rogers says we can live without sex, but not without intimacy.

And I think one of the greatest opportunities both among our singles and in the body of Christ, is to develop a rich community of friendships.

Because the truth is this the world is facing an epidemic of loneliness, and it has become one of our greatest health crises on planet earth, especially in the West.

Loneliness is actually a health crisis.

And as a church, we have it makes it a tremendous opportunity.

And this is not just on the singles, this is all of us.

We have to become a community where our singles have a chance to win, which means all of us must open up our homes, which means all of us need to open up our tables, which means all of us need to get used to holy touch.

I have friends that, I have uh man friends, just really good guy friends who love getting hugs.

And they they told me, like, I need you, can you hug me?

Because I need you, I need somebody to hug me right now.

I need to be touched in a holy and honorable way.

And and sometimes in the body of Christ, some people come in and are like, why do you guys touch each other so much?

And part of it is God's design.

It's not because we're weird, it's because we're actually designed to be embraced.

And whether that's through a handshake or whether it's a full-on hug, in the scriptures, it was a holy kiss.

We don't really do that anymore.

But I'm saying touch actually matters in the body of Christ.

We have to be a community where we help our singles feel the affection of the Father.

That happens through words, that happens through touch, that happens through times, that through through through quality time, that happens through meals.

And I'm just saying, guys, we have fallen short in this area.

I have fallen short in this area, but we have a ripe opportunity before us because all of us get to participate in the kingdom of God.

Okay.

So all that said, all that said, I I if you hear nothing else this morning, I singles, I want you to know that you are loved.

I want you to know that you we need you, we need you to live full, devoted hearts to God.

We need you to be on fire for Jesus.

And we want to help you win.

We want to help you be a part.

The married need you as well, the families need you as well.

Our children need you as well.

And as we're in this together, as we're holding on these longings and tension together, we want to be a community that actually builds on these friendships, builds on these deep connections, and creates a place and a picture of God.

That He has done something in our relationships and among us that the world can't even quite see right now.

I believe it's an opportunity before us as a church.

And I just want to speak courage and strength and grace into your heart for anybody who's feeling the pain, for any of you who's feeling the longing, for any of us who's feeling the what if and what about and why not me.

I'm just telling you, you have not been left alone.

The God of grace is with you, the God of cover of comfort is with you.

And I say, Be full of courage, be full of boldness.

Your days are not over.