Real Life: playing Your Part – Singles
Being Single can be Good
Reduced Financial responsibilities
Reduced Time responsibilities
What to do when…
Single by Choice
Use increased Time available to
Grow in the Lord
Serve the Lord
What to do when…
Single by Circumstance
Pray for Purity
Wait for the Wedding
Serve the Savior
Slide 1
If you ever go into a bookstore, and you look for books on living life, you find all kinds of books on
being a husband or wife,
on how to raise your boys,
on Mothering in a godly way,
but you don’t find hardly any books on living life well as a Single.
I think that because in society we place a high value on the institution of marriage, and rightly so, but in doing so, we relegate single people to the back of the bus.
And even in the church, so often as we get older, when people will get to know a single person, often the conversation will turn to trying to find them a mate.
If you are married with kids, how often do we invite someone single over to dinner versus another family?
Now granted, often there are more families than singles, but that doesn’t mean that we exclude them from fellowship. But even if unintentionally, that is often what we seem to do.
And for the single person, it becomes hard to live that way for long without questions of
Have you met anyone yet?
When are you going to think about getting married?
To perhaps even questions about their sexuality.
My question today is
Is it ok to be a single Christian in the church or
Can a person choose to be single for at least a time after entering adulthood?
And
As a single Christian living in this world,
how is it that I should be playing my part in society and the church?
We are going to be looking at some verses in 1 Corinthians 7 (p. 809)
Slide
We will also be looking at a few other Scriptures that are not just for singles, but for living life well.
I want to start out reading 1 Corinthians 7:8
8 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.
Something I want all of us to see here is that
Being Single can be Good
Slide
Paul says in
1 Corinthians 7:8
It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.
Some of you who are single may be saying
What is good about being single?
I am sure there are few married people can tell you.
But single people know that sometimes it can be
Lonely
Boring
Seemingly unfulfilling
And to top that all off, hasn’t God designed marriage for everyone?
While I would agree that marriage is the norm for most people, but it is not necessarily for everyone.
Look at Jesus. He wasn’t married but in his physical life lived purposefully and fulfilled.
Well that is God, He can do that.
Well, what about Paul. He said that it was good to remain unmarried as he was.
The fact of the matter is that while marriage will be the norm, God has not created each of us the same.
Even though things can be generally true about people, they are not always true.
I could say something like women are more emotional than men and that would be true, but I am sure we could all come up with some exceptions.
I could say that men are stronger than women and again, it would be true, but there are exceptions.
The point is that even when something is generally true, it doesn’t mean that that is how it will be for every person.
Paul tells us in these verses that staying single will be beneficial for some people.
So we see that for some people it can be good to remain single and that is ok.
And we, as the church, need to be ok with that too.
Now if the person is looking for a mate, this is not wrong, but we should not try to play matchmaker with someone who is choosing a single life.
And we need to help them continue to be incorporated into the life of the church.
Invite a single person you know over for dinner.
Integrate them into your activities.
We need to work at helping singles feel part of the body in the church.
And we need to be able to accept and honor a persons decision to stay single if that is what they choose for that point in time in their life.
What are the good things
Slide
So what are the good things about being single?
Paul tells us in
1 Corinthians 7:28
those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
1 Corinthians 7:32
I would like you to be free from concern.
So is he saying that married people will face trouble and single people won’t?
Of if you are single you won’t have any concerns in life?
No
If you are a Christian, you can count on facing trouble, whether married or single.
Jesus told us in
John 16:33
33 In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
(from New International Version)
So what does Paul mean then?
He means that when you marry, you have new responsibilities and cares and you will not only face your own troubles,
but you will experience trouble when your wife or a child faces trouble as well.
When you get married, you become one with another person and while you experience joy in that relationship, you will also experience more troubles because of more responsibilities that come along with marriage.
I always like to get practical, so practically speaking, in what ways will you have reduced troubles by staying single?
First, you will have
Reduced Financial Responsibilities
Slide
You may have heard the saying 2 can live as cheap as one, and while there is some truth to that, in terms having only to pay one rent per month or one mortgage, beyond that, it does not hold true.
And if you add a child into the mix and that equation goes completely out the window.
Kids are down right expensive.
You Feed them
House them
Provide clothing that never seems to fit for more than a season
Pay for schooling, etc
When you get married, kids are often part of the mix and they will definitely add to your financial responsibilities.
So remaining single will give you reduced financial responsibilities versus if you were married.
Singles will also be spared additional troubles by having
Reduced Time Responsibilities
Slide
When you are married, you have responsibilities to be with your spouse and if you have kids you have time commitments to them.
These are all part of being a
godly husband and father or
wife and mother.
We have talked about many of these responsibilities over the course of this series.
Well, being single, frees you from some of the time commitments that married life brings about.
Being in a committed relationship means committing time to your family.
That is what being a family is about, spending time together.
You are going to have to spend time doing what the other person likes sometimes.
Guys, you may have to go to some sappy movie on occasion
Ladies, you might have to see an action movie now and again.
When you are married, you no longer have as much freedom with your time, because you have made commitment to a spouse.
Now being single Christian doesn’t mean that you have freedom to sin or do absolutely anything you can think of, but you are free from the level of concern that a married person would have.
Wow! We should all be single. It sounds great.
No responsibilities,
nobody else to worry about,
more cash and
more time
all for me.
Now the last thing God or Paul or myself ant to see is people going out to luch today and someone saying, honey, in light of Scott’s message today, I think God is calling me to the single life.
If you are married He is not.
All Paul is saying is if you are single, consider some of the advantages of remaining that way.
In what ever situation we find ourselves, we too often focus on the negative aspects of it.
Married people do it. Oh to be single and free from the responsibilities.
Singles do it. Oh to be married and find that completeness that God wants to give through a spouse.
We need to think about the advantages of the situation we are in. And if you are single, there are some advantages.
Practicalities of Singleness
But how should I live in light of these advantages?
I want to get into some of the practicalities of what a single person should be doing.
Now I realize that there are some who choose the single life and others who have it thrust upon them but they are not looking to remain that way.
We will talk about both of these.
First I want to talk about
What do you do when …
Single by Choice
Slide
Seeing some of the advantages of singleness, the reduced responsibilities of being married, there are some who will choose to be single.
Maybe you are thinking right now, That is a choice I want to make with seemingly no responsibility.
Singleness is not a license to be selfish.
No matter where you are in life,
single by choice or not,
married with kids, etc,
none of us are called to be self focused.
We are all called to be godly, to be holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
(from New International Version)
Being single doesn’t mean you have NO responsibilities.
Everyone has responsibilities toward God.
You just don’t have some of the relational responsibilities that a married person would have.
You still have responsibilities to be holy in what ever situation you find yourself in.
The Responsibilities of Being Single
So what are the responsibilities that a single person would have?
Well, one of the responsibilities is to
Refrain from sexual intimacy.
Maybe you are thinking
“Hey, wait a minute, I have needs and desires that God has put inside of me.”
God knows that and the outlet that he has given for those very real and normal needs and desires is marriage between a man and a woman.
But to choose to remain single means to choose to forgo and subdue those urges.
Paul says if you can’t control those passions, if those passions are consuming too much of your mind and energies to control, then it would be better to marry.
1 Corinthians 7:9
9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
So if you choose to remain single, you choose to sacrifice sexual intimacy.
Besides the responsibility of refraining from Sexual intimacy, there are other responsibilities that come along with choosing to be single while being a Christian.
And it is because of the reduced responsibilities toward others in terms of our time and finances that we have a greater responsibility to God with those things. So we should
Use your increased Time availability to…
…Grow in the Lord
Slide
2 Peter 3:18
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now this verse isn’t just for single people, but for everyone.
But singles can use the increased time they have available to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
You will have more time than a married person to be
studying the word on your own,
involved in a small group Bible study.
devoting yourself to prayer and meditation.
Through the increased time you have available, you can grow stronger in the Lord.
And the reason that you want to grow in the grace and wisdom and knowledge of the Lord is so you can better
Serve the Lord
Slide
1 Peter 4:10
10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms
By serving others we serve the Lord. This is why God has given us all that we have.
He gives us gifts to serve others.
He gives us time to serve.
We need to be wise stewards of our gifts and our time.
Those who have less time responsibilities in some areas should serve more in others.
Not having a wife and kids means you can decide to do things based on what happens to be going on in your life alone, not on yours, your spouses and your kids.
Now if you are single by choice and a Christian,
This should be your primary focus for you life
Paul says that there are some who should consider not marrying and he gives those reasons for it and concludes with this verse in
1 Corinthians 7:35
35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
If you are a Christian and choosing to remain single, you are choosing to live Singly focused upon the Lord.
Serve Him by serving others.
But what if you are single and are not really choosing that for yourself
What do you do when …
Single by Circumstance
Slide
Maybe you want to get married and you
just have not yet met that right person.
just not ready for the responsibilities of marriage yet.
What do you do then?
Well, first remember that God is sovereign, meaning that He is in control of things.
It is not some mistake that you are where you are.
That being said, I want to give you some advice that will help you live well in the meantime and be able to be used greatly by the Lord
The first is
Pray for Purity
Slide
Like I said earlier,
God has reserved sexual intimacy for marriage between a man and a woman.
Physical intimacy outside of our marriage is either
adultery for someone who is already married or
fornication for someone who is not married
and they are both sins.
It is within the bonds of marriage that sexual intimacy is to be experienced.
Hebrews 13:4
4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
So while you desire and are looking forward to marriage, you need to be praying for your purity.
And what you are praying for is really the strength to remain pure.
We live in a difficult culture
Television shows,
Billboards,
Movies
Commercials
all seem to include sexual overtones that get our minds focused on sex.
That is why we need strength and help from the Lord to be pure and holy.
Because Jesus recognized his disciples weaknesses, he told them in the final hours of his life, while he was praying to
Matthew 26:41
41 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."
(from New International Version)
We need to be praying because our flesh is weak especially in areas that we are constantly bombarded with temptations.
But if God commands it, He will enable you to do it.
Single through no fault or choice of my own, I am unable to express my sexuality in the beauty and intimacy of Christian marriage, as God intended...To seek to do this outside of marriage is, by the clear teaching of Scripture, to sin against God and my own nature. I have no alternative but to live a life of voluntary celibacy...chaste not only in body, but in mind and spirit...I want to go on record as having proved that for those who are committed to do God’s will, His commands are His enablings.
Margaret Clarkson in Homemade, Dec. 1989
So be praying for purity.
Another piece of advice for you when you are single by circumstance
Wait for the Wedding
Slide
That is everyone’s favorite word. Wait.
Nobody likes to wait. But when you rush things that have life long effects, that is when problems arise that you would not have to deal with otherwise.
Don’t be so eager to be married that you throw out some of the guidelines God has given us concerning marriage.
Don’t Marry a Non Christian
For instance, if you are a Christian, God says don’t marry a non-Christian.
2 Corinthians 6:14
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be bound together with unbelievers;
NASU
Single people, this is not something God has said to us to limit our joy, but to increase our enjoyment of life.
When, as a Christian, you marry someone who is not a Christian, it typically ends up the Christian is drawn away from the Lord and drawn away from walking with Him.
You won’t lose your salvation, but you will end up losing your joy in the Lord.
You won’t be able to have that abundant life that Christ came to give
What about Dating?
So what does this mean for your dating relationships?
Well, it means that you should not date anyone who is a non-Christian. Why is that?
Because you shouldn’t date anyone that you know up front you couldn’t marry.
Emotions are not something to be played with. You may enter into a relationship with someone who is not a Christian with no intention of getting serious, but then your emotions get involved and it starts to get more complicated.
The best thing to do is not even enter into a relationship with someone who is a non-Christian.
And furthermore, you are going to want to think twice about entering into a relationship with someone who says they are a Christian but does not live as one.
Jesus said you will know His disciples by their fruit.
It is not that someone will be perfect, but they will be striving.
Be looking for that a spouse that is committed to striving to follow the Lord and pursuing that in their life. That is where you will be finding a mate that will be bringing joy and not hardship into your future.
Finally, for the Christian who is single by circumstance, you too need to
Serve the Savior
Slide
Just as the Single who chooses by choice to remain that way, God has gifted you and given you time right now. You do not need to be spending all of your time finding Mr. or Mrs. Right.
As you are praying and waiting, you need to be serving.
God is faithful to provide for us.
Let God work and trust Him in His work in your life.
It is hard sometimes, but realize that God’s timing is not always our timing.
God does not just want us sitting home praying and waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Right to call
He wants us to wait on Him actively, by serving Him and His church.
Get involved in serving here.
Singles, there are many things you can do. Take on mentoring some of the younger kids.
Look for how you might be able to impact someone’s life.
Come out to Impact! on Wednesday’s and get to know some of the kids and help out with that ministry.
But God has given you gifts to be honed and used. Use them by serving Him and His church. Let’s pray.
