SPEAKER_02: Today's reading comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 25 to 40.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is.
SPEAKER_02: Are you bound to a wife?
SPEAKER_02: Do not seek to be free.
SPEAKER_02: Are you free from a wife?
SPEAKER_02: Do not seek a wife.
SPEAKER_02: But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned.
SPEAKER_02: Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.
SPEAKER_02: This is what I mean, brothers.
SPEAKER_02: The appointed time has grown very short.
SPEAKER_02: From now on, let those who have wives live as though they have none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.
SPEAKER_02: For the present form of this world is passing away.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to be free from anxieties.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.
SPEAKER_02: But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes, let him marry.
SPEAKER_02: It is no sin.
SPEAKER_02: But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.
SPEAKER_02: So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
SPEAKER_02: A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Yet in my judgment, she is happier if she remains as she is.
SPEAKER_02: And I think that I too have the Spirit of God, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We've spent the last eight weeks looking at uh gender, sex, sexuality, men and women, uh, all of uh all of those things.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh and so we conclude that this week.
SPEAKER_00: Next week we begin our uh our summer series in the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we started six or seven years ago in Psalm 1, and we just do Psalm every week, and uh we pick that up next week for Psalm 68 68.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so Peter is going to be preaching and gonna be off for a couple of Sundays.
SPEAKER_00: Uh every week I've been uh encouraging you to check out the book table that's there uh at the Connect uh space.
SPEAKER_00: Let me mention one that is going to uh help with your thinking on this week's topic, which is a book by a guy called Sam Albury, uh entitled Seven Myths About Singleness, uh, because that is our final topic, an idea this morning, uh thinking about singleness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let me give you a rundown of some of the chapter titles.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness is too hard is myth number one.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness requires a special calling.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness means no intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness wastes your sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness is easy.
SPEAKER_00: And so it goes on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, all that to say, that's what we're going to be talking about.
SPEAKER_00: As we conclude, if you're married, don't switch off.
SPEAKER_00: Stay with us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm sure that there, uh, in fact, I insist that there will be things that are important for uh for those who are married uh to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Uh historically, the church has swung uh between the two extremes of viewing uh marriage and singleness.
SPEAKER_00: It used to be that uh the single people were the elevated holy ones.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they were the holiest people in the church.
SPEAKER_00: If you remained single and celibate in uh in the offices of uh of City Church over in the Irish Church Missions building, uh there is a basement which I've taken you some down, uh some of you down into uh to kind of see the kind of the catacombs, but there's lots of old books there.
SPEAKER_00: And uh one of my favorite uh books is uh a book entitled uh The Goodness of Sacerdotal Celibacy, that is priestly celibacy.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's a reason why I think that that book is out of print.
SPEAKER_00: Uh because the second mistake is the pendulum swings and we elevate marriage above all else, making it the ultimate form of uh of existence, particularly within the church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that if you're single, your your life is kind of in a holding pattern.
SPEAKER_00: It's circling the uh the airport, waiting to land on the glorious one runway of married life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so uh and so people say things, oh you know, still still single, you haven't found anybody yet, uh, and other annoying things like that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh there is a uh there was a 20s and 30s ministry uh in a church uh that uh that I was aware of.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't attend, I mustn't insist on uh on pointing out, but a 20s and 30s ministry in London, uh, which was entitled Pears and Spares.
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, yeah, we're not gonna pick that name.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Um because that's you that's the elevation of marriage, right?
SPEAKER_00: Seeing it as the uh as the most holy estate.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh let's just say the people approach uh singleness differently.
SPEAKER_00: There are, I am sure, some quite happy and contented singles.
SPEAKER_00: They enjoy the the freedom that it affords, the uh the disposable income, assuming you don't live in Dublin, um, the the autonomy that it affords them uh to be able to go and travel the world and uh and see things, hang out with with friends.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are those who are uh, shall we say, reluctant singles, those who who long uh to be married, to the point where it became it can become quite painful even to talk about this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to acknowledge that the idea of uh of remaining single is something that is quite uh painful.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are those who, by circumstances, find themselves single, those who have been widowed, or those who sadly whose marriages have broken down and who are divorced now.
SPEAKER_00: They know what it is to be married, and yet that season, for whatever reason, has now ended.
SPEAKER_00: And they have to navigate the complicated spiritual and emotional uh landscape that that then creates.
SPEAKER_00: As a consequence, then different singles have different pressures.
SPEAKER_00: For some, it's loneliness and the desire for a spouse or for children.
SPEAKER_00: For many, it's the, like I said, the foolish comments in in churches and among Christians being set up and being people trying to pair you off.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, for the person who enjoys being single, perhaps some of the greatest pressures can be that temptation towards selfishness and getting stuck in your own ways and not finding it easy to then to accommodate others.
SPEAKER_00: So, how do we navigate this these issues as Christians?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, from our passage this morning, Paul would say, Look, rather than elevating one over the other, you're kind of free to do what you choose.
SPEAKER_00: Paul begins in verse 25 by saying, Now, concerning the betrothed, that is, those who are engaged to get to get married, congratulations again to Andrea and to and to Amber.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the irony is not lost on me.
SPEAKER_00: Um the that this is what we're talking about today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh now concerning the betrothed, he says, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: What's Paul saying there?
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying there is, there's no there's no right or wrong prescription, thus saith the Lord, this is what you must do.
SPEAKER_00: It's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's a bit like the book of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Proverbs is, you know, you read something like Proverbs uh 25.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 25, and around kind of verse 5, it says, uh, do not answer a fool according to his folly, uh, lest he be thought wise in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 6 says, but answer a fool according to his folly, lest his foolishness spread.
SPEAKER_00: You can say, Well, which one is it?
SPEAKER_00: Is that not a contradiction?
SPEAKER_00: Like literally, one verse after that says, Don't answer a fool according to his folly, and then the very next verse, make sure that he uh he answers a fool according to his folly.
SPEAKER_00: What's Proverbs doing?
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs is saying, here's how to exercise some wisdom in a situation.
SPEAKER_00: Here's some principles that you and so sometimes, so so so take the Proverbs example, somebody's kind of you know, kind of blowing off and uh and pontificating, and you kind of just think the best thing that I can do is just not answer that at all.
SPEAKER_00: Just gonna let that one go.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the key verse for your use of social media, right?
SPEAKER_00: Comment sections and things that do not answer a fool according to his folly.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, somebody's wrong on the internet, let them be wrong on the internet.
SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes, other times, you think, oh no, actually, what they're saying and the context in which they're saying it is uh it's actually quite damaging and disruptive to other people.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's important that I gently uh but firmly and clearly answer this.
SPEAKER_00: It's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is full of wisdom, and 1 Corinthians 7 is a wisdom chapter, it's not a this is what you must do.
SPEAKER_00: It's like here's some of the principles for working out life as a Christian in the various stages of life, rather than, oh, everybody should remain single, or everybody should be getting married.
SPEAKER_00: So I have no command from the Lord, but I've been proven as one trustworthy by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna give you my judgment, I'm gonna give you my counsel.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And in essence, he is he begins by saying, look, you're kind of free to do what you choose.
SPEAKER_00: If you're betrothed and you can stay engaged and uh and not fall into sexual sin, then then all the better, stay as you are.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but if you if you really want to get married, that's there's no sin in that either.
SPEAKER_00: You're free.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to our modern ears, this idea of being told that you're free doesn't sound like very much of a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, well, yeah, like of course I'm free.
SPEAKER_00: But to the Corinthian Christians of the first century, this was pretty groundbreaking stuff, especially for the women.
SPEAKER_00: Especially for the women.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in the ancient world, marriage was hugely important for women because it was the way that they gained a bit of social standing, economic security within the community.
SPEAKER_00: Not being married was a sign of social failure and deficiency.
SPEAKER_00: A woman who went on to be without a family, who didn't get married, was something of a uh of an oddity, a social outcast.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul comes into that situation and says, You want to remain single?
SPEAKER_00: There's no necessary sin in that.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite groundbreaking and dignifying, particularly, of single women.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul tackles it head on.
SPEAKER_00: He sees not only is singleness as a valid option, but as you got a sense perhaps from reading the passage, it might even be a preferable one.
SPEAKER_00: So you think of uh of something like verse 38 of 1 Corinthians 7.
SPEAKER_00: So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than seeing singleness as the uh as the circling the airport of life waiting to waiting to land into the bliss of marriage, Paul's actually saying, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: That might even be better right now that you're single.
SPEAKER_00: That might even be preferable for your life.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that unusual?
SPEAKER_00: Now, how can this be true?
SPEAKER_00: What makes Paul able to elevate singleness and single people to this extent?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's two things going on behind it.
SPEAKER_00: The first is that there's this Christian understanding, and we talked about it a lot in the first two sermons in the him and her uh series, is that every human individual is an image-bearer of God without deficiency.
SPEAKER_00: That it's not that you know when you get married, you so you suddenly are completed, that that's when you uh you you really realize your humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there is particular things to be lived into in marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That is not to contradict what I've said previously, but this idea of saying that that somehow your uh your image baredness is uh you know, is un it's unloaded or unfulfilled is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: That there is inherent value and dignity in each independent individual, regardless of social status or relationship status.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the church has made single people therefore feel lesser, or like they are deficient, the church must we must repent of that.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a right attitude.
SPEAKER_00: We do not see single people as lesser because we don't see that people need to be in a relationship in order to validate their existence.
SPEAKER_00: The second reason why Paul can say this is because of the fundamental relationship that every Christian enjoys.
SPEAKER_00: 76 times in the writing of Paul, uh he describes the relationship of the Christian to Jesus as one who is in Christ, in Christo, or in him.
SPEAKER_00: That is fundamental to understanding of what it means to be a Christian is that we are related to, connected with, inseparable from our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is that every believer, married or single, is in the most satisfying, permanent, accepting, loving relationship that they will ever enter into.
SPEAKER_00: That every believer, whether married or single, is enjoying the relationship to which marriage points.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is just a picture played out in the world of our relationship with Jesus, the one who unconditionally accepts us, who has served us wonderfully by taking our sin and making us his own.
SPEAKER_00: Every Christian, married or single, is already in the most enduringly satisfying relationship that they will ever experience, and it is one that will continue into eternity and get better as we go on from the shores of this life.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul elevates singleness and still contends that marriage is legitimate and good.
SPEAKER_00: Traditional cultures elevate marriage, the church tends to elevate marriage.
SPEAKER_00: But our world more and more has tended to denigrate marriage and elevate singleness.
SPEAKER_00: People have extended their uh their singleness longer and longer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, as societies have become more progressive, people are uh people are getting married later and later.
SPEAKER_00: What is needed here is a sense of biblical wisdom and and balance.
SPEAKER_00: That both singleness and marriage can be pursued for right or wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_00: You can marry selfishly and foolishly, you can remain single selfishly and foolishly.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, done as a desire to follow Jesus, both can be done in a way that honors God.
SPEAKER_00: Married people need to understand that their marriage, as important as it is for the flourishing and furthering of human society, is not actually ultimate.
SPEAKER_00: That our stable core identity is not given to us by our spouse, but by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So any sense that we would look down on those who are singles or or or or try and uh and or try and kind of cajole them into marriage would be to miss the point.
SPEAKER_00: Equally, while marriage uh might be something to be desired and is a positive good uh for people in society, by which I mean Christian marriage, it's not something to be idolized, as it will not last into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the point that Paul picks up in verses 29 to 31.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is what I mean, brothers, the appointed time has grown very short.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, let those who live as wives, uh sorry, live as wives, let those who live who have wives live as though they have none, and those who mourn as though they are not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and uh those who buy 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.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is not saying is, yeah, husbands, you know, if you're married, you go home now and you just ignore your wife for the rest of the day or whatever, and say, Well, I'm following, you know, 1 Corinthians 7 verses uh 30, uh 30 uh 29 to 31.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's saying that the resurrection of Jesus means that uh the old order is passing away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is coming back, and so we don't regard the things of this world as uh as ultimate or as eternal.
SPEAKER_00: Your relationship will not last forever, your business will not endure forever.
SPEAKER_00: The only institution, organization that will endure into eternity is the church because it's Christ's and he takes it on into the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: Everything else is is passing away.
SPEAKER_00: Those who mourn, they will not mourn forever.
SPEAKER_00: This is the perspective of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't just look at the here and now and let it well up in us, all of uh this discontentment.
SPEAKER_00: But we look to that future day and allow that to shape and to impact how we live now.
SPEAKER_00: So the first point is that you are free if you are single, free to do what you choose with the biblical wisdom that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I think that Paul would say that every stage of life has both blessings and burdens.
SPEAKER_00: Every stage of life has both blessings and burdens.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we have a tendency to do, uh, regardless of what stage of life that we're in, is we can become discontented and envious of.
SPEAKER_00: Of others.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I know that personally I am so given to looking at the grass on the other side and say that that's greener.
SPEAKER_00: If only I had that.
SPEAKER_00: You're in this room this morning.
SPEAKER_00: There are single people, there are engaged people.
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations again, Andre.
SPEAKER_00: There are people who are married who don't have kids yet.
SPEAKER_00: There are parents of young children.
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones who are falling asleep at the back.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are parents of older kids.
SPEAKER_00: And what can happen is that everyone looks at everybody else and goes, oh, I'd much rather be in that stage of life.
SPEAKER_00: Single person can look at the uh at the engaged person and say, Oh, I'd love to be, I'd love to be planning a wedding.
SPEAKER_00: The engaged person is like, oh, engagement sucks.
SPEAKER_00: Like there's so much work to do.
SPEAKER_00: And you get none of the advantages of being married.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to be married.
SPEAKER_00: The parent with small children thinks, will I ever sleep again?
SPEAKER_00: Uh will I ever eat in a restaurant again?
SPEAKER_00: Will I ever come to a cinema when there isn't church in it again?
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait until the kids are sleeping through the night, not wedding the bed.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait until they're a bit older.
SPEAKER_00: And then you get to the parents of teenagers or grown-up children, and they're looking back to the young parents going, Oh, I wish they were small again.
SPEAKER_00: Why are they they're leaving the house?
SPEAKER_00: But remember, look at the pictures.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's looking at the greener grass.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there are advantages to the stages of life that we find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_00: But none of them are without their challenges either.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is uh is yes, it has its advantages, but it's one of the hardest things you'll do.
SPEAKER_00: Being married is like uh is like having a um a magnifying glass placed over uh your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Um because it magnifies all of the the good stuff in you, and it brings that to the fore, and that's great, but it also magnifies all of the stuff that you rather wasn't in there, all of the selfishnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And if you really want to turn up the magnification, have children.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's when the selfishness really comes out.
SPEAKER_00: When you're covered in name that bodily fluid at two o'clock in the morning, you just think I can't do this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Why did I pick this?
SPEAKER_00: All the single people are like, yeah, I'm really glad.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is great.
SPEAKER_00: Blessings and challenges.
SPEAKER_00: If you get married, you will have to make sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: You have to think about others, you'll have to endure pain and difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: This is what uh Paul is uh is talking about, wherein he says in verse 32, you know, I want you to be free from anxieties.
SPEAKER_00: Um, good luck, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord, uh, but the married man is worried about worldly things and how to please his wife.
SPEAKER_00: That is that the married person uh has has additional layers of complexity.
SPEAKER_00: That's not to say, not saying that that a single person's life is straightforward, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying that, but I'm saying that there are peculiar, particular complexities that come with being married.
SPEAKER_00: And to just look and go, well, I would rather be in that stage, and I'd rather see the grass as greener, is to think wrongly of the stage of life that God has put you in.
SPEAKER_00: So in the meantime, Paul would say to uh to the singles, uh do not just see the challenges, but enjoy the blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness really is a gift.
SPEAKER_00: That there is something good about it.
SPEAKER_00: And you say you said here you might say, Well, it's good, you know, it's all right for you.
SPEAKER_00: You're married and you can have sex and you've got children, and you know, well, how can you say you know singleness is a gift?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, the single guy, is and Jesus the single guy would.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just me.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You say that it is a gift, and when he says that it's a gift, it's not like a it's not like the kind of the crappy sweater that your grandmother gives you.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, oh, thanks.
SPEAKER_00: So you know, where's the rest where's the receipt?
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to take that back.
SPEAKER_00: So what are the freedoms then to being single?
SPEAKER_00: Well, like I say, this freedom from some uh particular anxieties.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't to say that it is easy to be single.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that I'm uh emphasizing that point suitably so that I don't uh get mobbed afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: But there are layers of complexity that a person is free from from not being married.
SPEAKER_00: When you're married, you and your spouse travels, you worry, are they okay?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I haven't heard from them today.
SPEAKER_00: There are extra levels of concern.
SPEAKER_00: Paul here is therefore not saying that one stage of life is good and the other is bad, or that singleness is easy and the marriage is hard.
SPEAKER_00: But he's making the point that when we're married, there are particular concerns and anxieties that a single person is freed from.
SPEAKER_00: And that can be enjoyed and used for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: We then also, the single person has the freedom to care for others, to devote themselves more fully to the service of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he means in verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: The unmarried person is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: One of the um, there's this great series of uh of books that uh is short children's stories, but I find them very informative as well.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because that's kind of my that's my reading level currently, um, of uh of women who do great things for God.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's just looking at the back page, there's those uh there's Cory Timboom, uh there's uh one on her uh Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Gladys Allwood, uh Betty Green, Fanny Crosby, uh, and all these women who have done wonderful things for the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we picked up one recently uh about a lady called Helen Roosevere.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I had the great fortune of knowing Helen a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Helen was a uh a medical missionary to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and she became a follower of the Lord Jesus at a at a young age.
SPEAKER_00: And if you were to read her uh autobiography, she's a three-part autobiography.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is called Give Me This Mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this was called, and the second one's called Um He Gave Us a Valley.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the third one's called Digging Ditches.
SPEAKER_00: But in Give Me This Mountain, uh she talks about her time uh studying medicine at Oxford and uh how she uh was um was beginning a relationship with a uh with a young man, and she made the conscious decision that actually she wasn't going to get married because she felt called of God to go to Africa to be a medical missionary.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that's what she did.
SPEAKER_00: She turned aside and she she opted to be single for all of her life.
SPEAKER_00: And she went off and built hospitals, trained nurses and doctors, and did just amazing, amazing things for the Lord Jesus in Congo.
SPEAKER_00: Despite great suffering, she was imprisoned for six months, beaten and abused by the uh during the civil war there in Congo, before being freed.
SPEAKER_00: And yet meeting her in the in the end of her life, and seeing Christ just shine through her, hear her testimony.
SPEAKER_00: To be sitting with her at a uh at a funeral of a of a mutual friend, and sitting, uh this is in Northern Ireland where you know you at the at the wake in the church hall and things like that, and um and talking about Clive, the the dear elderly man who had passed, and Helen saying, I'm so jealous of him.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so jealous.
SPEAKER_00: She was about 85 at this point.
SPEAKER_00: So why are you jealous, Helen?
SPEAKER_00: Because Clive gets to see the Lord Jesus, and I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: See what she's doing?
SPEAKER_00: She she knew that all of these things were were momentary.
SPEAKER_00: None of it was easy in her life, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, she got the 85, it was long obedience in the same direction.
SPEAKER_00: Yet by the end, she was looking actually at the greener grass of Canaan's fair and pleasant land and saying, actually, that's where I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: Then all of the desires and longings of my heart will be satisfied by the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To be single is to be free to to care for others and to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's not to say that, you know, we just that the single well, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Single people, you're our volunteers and you can serve all of the uh all of the married.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, we all serve our community and others.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a particular freedom that single people enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: Single people additionally are more free to invest in friendships, caring for the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course being single might not necessarily create that godly freedom in you.
SPEAKER_00: It might take you to a place of resentment, to a place of bitterness or of selfishness, where you only pursue your own interests.
SPEAKER_00: The answer for that person is not that you should get married, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a great you want to think about getting married.
SPEAKER_00: The best way to uh to think about your life is like this.
SPEAKER_00: As now, so then.
SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
SPEAKER_00: As now, so then if you're selfish now, self-absorbed, and you don't really like bending to the will of others, marriage isn't going to kind of automatically transform you.
SPEAKER_00: The isle isn't magic, right?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't transfigure you as you walk up the other way.
SPEAKER_00: As now, so then.
SPEAKER_00: So the answer to the selfish person is not to get married, goodness me.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen selfish people enter into marriages and strain them.
SPEAKER_00: No, the answer is actually to take responsibility spiritually for oneself, to recognize those uh those issues in the context of community and with friendship, and to learn to grow in Christ's likeness, the greatest single person who ever lived, and to become more like him before any obligations of marriage come along.
SPEAKER_00: Let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: So you're free, every stage of life has both blessings and burdens.
SPEAKER_00: Third, singleness doesn't mean no intimacy or no family.
SPEAKER_00: Helen, just by the by lived, I think her last twenty years uh with another doctor, um, a lady called Pat.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they were the best of friends and great companions.
SPEAKER_00: They were intimately connected.
SPEAKER_00: You in our world, we have uh we have reduced the definition of intimacy down to meaning that it is something that is sexual, and that's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to experience intimacy in the broader, all-encompassing uh definition of being known and loved in the context of a friendship.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of the reason why uh why to modern ears we find it really hard to read about friendships in the Bible without thinking, well, they must have been sexual.
SPEAKER_00: We can't read about David and Jonathan and uh and uh and David saying of Jonathan that his love for him was the was better than the love of any woman.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you know, they must have been, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's us taking our uh our kind of our sexualized 21st century mindset and reading it back into the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis uh laments in uh in his book The Four Loves, that we uh that we forget about Agape, that sell that self-sacrificial serving love, and and kind of think, well, it must be kind of covered in a veneer of eros, that erotic love.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, no, no, no, like it's possible to be selfless and serving others and not and then not have a sexual component.
SPEAKER_00: We must be a community of people that uh that recaptures that old definition of what it means to be intimately connected with one another, really knowing one another, really loving one another.
SPEAKER_00: Because friendship is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but it is necessary.
SPEAKER_00: It is a necessary way of developing an intimate connection with another human, and that's true if you're married.
SPEAKER_00: Your marriage cannot sustain all of the emotional needs that you have.
SPEAKER_00: You should have friends.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the case of, well, if you're single, I guess you guys you guys can kind of hang out together and go and get some coffee and like have mad egg after church or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're married, we've just got one another.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Friendship is a gift for all people to enjoy, rather married or single.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 1824, it says that a man of many companions may come to ruin, but a friend sticks closer than a brother.
SPEAKER_00: Companions come and go.
SPEAKER_00: Companions are people of shared interest, shared stage of life, some personality connection.
SPEAKER_00: And you can think sometimes that companions are friends, and it can be painful to realize, oh, hold on.
SPEAKER_00: These aren't friends, they're companions.
SPEAKER_00: They get revealed to simply be companions when something happens, they move on, or they reject you.
SPEAKER_00: A friend is somebody that you can speak the truth to.
SPEAKER_00: A friend is someone who can tell you the truth, and because you know that there's a love relationship there, that you can accept it from one another.
SPEAKER_00: A friend is someone that you can be truly you with, and not have to hide parts of you.
SPEAKER_00: If you have to hide what you think or what you believe, or part of who you are, then maybe you've got companions and not friends.
SPEAKER_00: Or where you have friends hold them close because they are closer than sisters, closer than brothers.
SPEAKER_00: And this is for both married and single people.
SPEAKER_00: It is it is possible to experience intimacy as a single person.
SPEAKER_00: And it is necessary that all of us, whether married or single, experience this sort of intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: Nor are single people excluded from the joys of family.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I used to used to hate when I was at uh at college was that only the single women would be asked to babysit.
SPEAKER_00: As a single guy, my late 20s.
SPEAKER_00: And only the married couples would come to the single women and say, Would you come around on a Friday night and have dinner with us?
SPEAKER_00: But then we're we're gonna go head out to the movies.
SPEAKER_00: Would you sit in the house while they while the kids are in bed?
SPEAKER_00: I love playing with children.
SPEAKER_00: I love being silly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a very silly person.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to ingratiate yourself to my children now, the best thing that you can do is be silly because they share my DNA and they're silly too.
SPEAKER_00: I loved as a single person feeling like I was part of a family.
SPEAKER_00: I loved knowing my way round somebody else's kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: I loved cooking for other people.
SPEAKER_00: I love having friends, children come and have me read them their bedtime story.
SPEAKER_00: I loved experiencing that family.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus promises even more, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Because he completely reframes family.
SPEAKER_00: You remember this?
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's this there's this interaction at the end of Mark chapter three where uh where Jesus' biological family, his mother and his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: Mary had more children, just FYI.
SPEAKER_00: Um, his mother and his brothers, thought that he was cracked.
SPEAKER_00: Thought that he had finally lost it and needed to go to the to the loony bin.
SPEAKER_00: And so they come to the house where Jesus is, and they can't quite get in because of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: But the word spreads that uh that they're there.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, rather than getting up and going, Oh, Mom's calling me, uh, I better go out, go uh says, Well, who are my mother and my brothers?
SPEAKER_00: Those who do the will of God are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.
SPEAKER_00: That is, those who share in the beliefs and values that I have, we're family together.
SPEAKER_00: You experience that in little ways as you're able to kind of go in and out of one another's homes and realize, and particularly actually, if you're if your family aren't believers, you're actually some of the ways that I I'm most fully known actually by by some of the people that I'm not biologically related to.
SPEAKER_00: Or you have the experience of uh of traveling uh through across the world.
SPEAKER_00: You travel to across the world and you encounter somebody who's also a believer in Jesus, the amount of hospitality that they'll extend to you, the welcome and the gladness of bringing you into their home and feeling you giving you a place to say, I've experienced that as I've gone to uh gone to America.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we are a family, a global family.
SPEAKER_00: Not joined by DNA, but by the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And all of us can enjoy that.
SPEAKER_00: And we should work towards that.
SPEAKER_00: Couples, don't just hang out with couples.
SPEAKER_00: Families of small children, don't just hang out with other families of small children.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not saying that if you do, that you're sinning and then that's bad.
SPEAKER_00: But we should have an eye to be hanging out as a diverse family with all of the different stages that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Because to be single does not mean that you cannot experience and enjoy intimacy, nor does it mean that you are not part of the only family that will endure into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: I know that we don't do it perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: I know that we can do it better.
SPEAKER_00: But I'd love us to live into it.
SPEAKER_00: Finally.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: But there is grace.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: I I said uh earlier that the the irony is not lost to me this morning that we're talking about singleness in the same morning that we're uh rendering thanks to God for an engagement.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's good and right to do, and I don't want to rain on Andrew and Amber's parade.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: We, whether we're um single or married, are delighted for them that they have fallen in love and that the Lord has brought them together.
SPEAKER_00: And that they are now preparing for married life together.
SPEAKER_00: That is good and should be celebrated.
SPEAKER_00: But it could be bittersweet for some of you, can't it?
SPEAKER_00: Often the difficulty of singleness is found in lots of little moments.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one thing, really.
SPEAKER_00: It's like being the last of your childhood friend group to be married, as I was.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Northern Ireland, for goodness sake.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody got married, it's you know, the week they graduated university, 21 years old.
SPEAKER_00: It's like they go from gown to wedding dress, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um except for me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't go to wedding dress.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: I was I was way later than all of my friends before I got married.
SPEAKER_00: And both Philip and I'll tell you that both of us were beginning to think, oh, this might not happen for us.
SPEAKER_00: Singleness might be something that we are to enjoy longer.
SPEAKER_00: You can dread as a single person May to September, because that's wedding season.
SPEAKER_00: And so you gotta go and be happy for people who are getting married as a single person all the time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, congratulations.
SPEAKER_00: Where's the champagne?
SPEAKER_00: Or having to pay extra?
SPEAKER_00: I think this is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Single person supplements in rooms in hotels, just because I'm single I'm being taxed by it.
SPEAKER_00: And why do I have to do that?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I have to pay more if there's fewer people in the room?
SPEAKER_00: It seems strange to me.
SPEAKER_00: Or ticking single again on another form, to say nothing of the ill-informed people who ask about your relationship status and put their foot in it after you've experienced a breakup.
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps worst of all, one of the hardest things is the friends who disappear, literally vanish like Frodo when he puts on the ring, once they get married.
SPEAKER_00: Be experienced that?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody gets married and you never see them again.
SPEAKER_00: How's best man for a guy that after he got married, I think I've seen him once?
SPEAKER_00: Now that might be a reflection on me.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe on my best man speech.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think it was.
SPEAKER_00: That can all be quite hard, can't it?
SPEAKER_00: You can have great deep friendships with people, be godparents to children, be intimately connected with others, and still as a single person have moments where you'd just like to be married, where you just feel alone.
SPEAKER_00: There's a book by uh a guy called Ed Shaw called The Plausibility Problem.
SPEAKER_00: It would relate uh best to the uh to the sermon on sexuality that I that I spoke on last week.
SPEAKER_00: And he is a as a single guy, uh talks about kitchen floor moments.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I he says, I have a really fulfilling life.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm godfather to 16 children, I have loads of friends that uh I go in and out of their homes, and it's rich and fulfilling and satisfying, and I and I love it.
SPEAKER_00: But there's still there's still some moments where I find myself sitting on the kitchen floor weeping because I'm just lonely.
SPEAKER_00: Being single can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: Let me finish by offering some biblical comfort.
SPEAKER_00: First, let me remind you of the nearness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 139, O Lord, you search me and you know me.
SPEAKER_00: You know when I sit down and when I rise up.
SPEAKER_00: You discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down, you are acquainted with all of my ways.
SPEAKER_00: Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it completely.
SPEAKER_00: You hem me in behind and before.
SPEAKER_00: You lay your hand upon me.
SPEAKER_00: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.
SPEAKER_00: It is high.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot attain it.
SPEAKER_00: The single person is never abandoned by the God who searches and knows us all, who is near to each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: He knows us better than we know ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: He sees our weeping, he counts our tears, he knows our longings.
SPEAKER_00: You are seen, known, loved.
SPEAKER_00: No, also, not just the nearness of our God, but the enduring faithfulness of him.
SPEAKER_00: He's better than any friend.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Psalm 23, just one verse.
SPEAKER_00: It's the verse that doesn't, you know, go on nice calendars of lambs.
SPEAKER_00: It's the verse that says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.
SPEAKER_00: And why did I pick that verse for a talk on singleness?
SPEAKER_00: There will come a point in all of our lives where we will walk, where no friend and where no spouse can walk with us.
SPEAKER_00: No one can walk death's dark valley except the Good Shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: He is eternally faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He will be with you to the end.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be with you at the end.
SPEAKER_00: So know the nearness of God, know his faithfulness, and then know the compassionate satisfaction of our God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew the deepest longings of the woman at the well in John 4.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that she wasn't just thirsty for water, but that she wanted intimacy and acceptance and love.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, rather than chiding her, Jesus rather than saying, Well, you should really marry that man that you're living with.
SPEAKER_00: Now he says, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Come and drink from me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you living water.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna satisfy the deepest thirsts of your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Come and drink from me.
SPEAKER_00: And find yourself unendingly satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Look, friends, brothers and sisters, we must conclude.
SPEAKER_00: None of this is easy.
SPEAKER_00: None of this means that there are no difficult moments, no shed tears.
SPEAKER_00: Life is not simple and there are no simplistic answers.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, there are truths that can anchor us into the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: This series over these last eight weeks has thrown up many questions and many controversies.
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen just how counter-cultural the church can be in terms of its ethics and thinking about some of these issues.
SPEAKER_00: My hope for us is that actually we can continue to grow together.
SPEAKER_00: This is probably not one and done or eight weeks and done.
SPEAKER_00: We need to continue talking about these things, exploring them.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a start.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way of beginning to address some of these issues that are so intensely personal for us, and then to work out well, what does it mean for each one of us and collectively as a community to follow Jesus together, to live under his lordship, to see his word as good, to celebrate the blessings of life, and to walk with one another in the burdens, shouldering them together, that we might flourish as human beings, each one of us made in his image, displaying his goodness, enjoying Christ, and modeling what it looks like to be a community of light that loves him and follows him even when it's hard, modeling what it means to follow him even when it's hard, and putting that on display to a city in need of hope.
SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, please visit our website found in the link below.