Living Single In A Double World

As he sat on the floor with kids scurrying all around him he thought of the life that his brothers and sisters had, about their marriages, their children. All of his nieces and nephews were special to him, but they weren’t his children, his siblings marriages brought him happiness, but he remained single. And the questions they never stopped, "Have you found a girl yet?" "When are you going to marry?" "When are you going to settle down?" "When are we going to see grandchildren?"

He was a single man in a time that men weren’t supposed to be single. Society as a whole would have agreed with Germanine Greer who wrote "The most threatened group in human societies as in animal societies is the unmated male: the unmated male is more likely to wind up in prison or in an asylum or dead than his mated counterpart. He is less likely to be promoted at work and he is considered a poor credit risk." I’m sure that his mother, and his Auntie Vi if he had an Auntie Vi would have asked him constantly what he was going to do with his life.

In too many cases we forget the fact that Jesus Christ may have been the son of God, but he was also a Single Young Adult, and as such he experienced all of the feelings and asked all of the questions that Single Young Adults have asked since the beginning of time.

If you are sitting out there today as a single adult, you’re not alone, there are 5.7 million people over eighteen in Canada who have never been married, and that represents 25% of the population. And I want you to know that Jesus Christ walked where you walked, he experienced the same loneliness that you experience sometimes and he struggled with the same temptations that you struggle with.

Don’t believe me? Listen to what Paul wrote in Hebrews 2:14-18 We are people of flesh and blood. That is why Jesus became one of us. He died to destroy the devil, who had power over death. 15 But he also died to rescue all of us who live each day in fear of dying. 16 Jesus clearly did not come to help angels, but he did come to help Abraham’s descendants. 17 He had to be one of us, so that he could serve God as our merciful and faithful high priest and sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins. 18 And now that Jesus has suffered and was tempted, he can help anyone else who is tempted.

If Jesus hadn’t gone through what we go through how would he understand? How could he take our place? "Well" you say "He may have been tempted but he couldn’t have given into temptation because he was the son of God" Oh yeah, then it wouldn’t have been temptation.

What struggles do Single Adults face in 1998? Well let’s take a look at some of the things in Christ life and how he dealt with them.

1) Everybody had expectations of Jesus. I’m sure that there were days that Jesus Got up and thought, "God loves me and everyone has a plan for the rest of my life." Have you ever felt like that? felt that you were trying to satisfy everyone else’s desire for what they want you to be? There are all kinds of expectations from all kinds of people, maybe you can identify with some of these.

A) Jesus’ Family Had Expectations. I don’t know what Christ’s family expected of him. Perhaps where he was the oldest they expected him to become a carpenter like Joseph had been. It was probably expected that he would marry and have a family. Probably build house, have a lawn, a nice chariot. Take a couple of weeks vacation a year maybe go to the sea of Galilee.

What they didn’t expect was that he would go around the country side preaching and healing people and casting out demons. Everybody knew about his cousin John, you know the one who didn’t cut his hair or shave, ate honey and locust and wore a camel hair jacket, but the family only needed one eccentric. And they definitely thought that Jesus was eccentric listen to what the Bible says in Mark 3:21 When Jesus’ family heard what he was doing, they thought he was crazy and went to get him under control.

And so Jesus had a expectations from the most important people in his life, his mother, brothers and sisters to be concerned about. I wonder if he ever heard comments like, "What’s going to happen to the carpenter shop now that you tramping around the country side preaching" I wonder if Mary ever did the Mother thing and made comments like, "so what would be wrong with meeting a nice girl and settling down" or "Now that you’re not around the house I get so lonely"