Sunday after Sunday in many churches, especially during series on the home, singles walk away wondering, “Is there anything for me?” Since most adults in the church are married, it is easy for singles to be left out and feel left out.
This is unfortunate because singles make up a large section of society. In fact some 37% of adults over 18 are single – they have either never married or are single-again because of a divorce or death. In fact, all of us spend a significant part of our life single – typically the first 25 years or so before we marry and some of us will spend the last 10-15 years single after our spouse dies. Because singleness is such a large part of life, God does have something to say about it. In fact, He says that whether the season of singleness lasts for a few years or for your entire life, you need to make the most of it.
Who knows? You may end up like Jake and Jessie. Jake was 92, and Jessie was 89 when they found each other and decided to get married. They were so excited.
One day they were strolling along discussing their wedding plans, and on the way, they passed a drug store. Jake said, “Let’s go in here,” and Jessie followed. He walked to the rear of the store and asked, “Are you the owner?”
He said, “Yes, I am.”
Jake said, “Well, we’re about to get married. You sell heart medication?”
The pharmacist said, “Of course we do.”
“How about medicine for circulation?”
“All kinds.”
“Medicine for rheumatism, scoliosis?”
“Definitely.”
“How about Viagra?”
“Of course.”
“Medicine for memory problems, arthritis, jaundice?”
“Yes, a large variety.”
“What about vitamins, sleeping pills, Geritol, antidotes for Parkinson’s disease – any of that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You sell wheel chairs, walkers, and those scooter chairs?”
“Yes, all speeds and sizes,” said the druggist.
“That does it. We’d like to register for our wedding gifts here.”
Singles, if you want to get married, there’s still hope!
Singles, whether young or old, are often known for taking advantage of their singleness. They go on adventurous trips, do what they want when they want, eat what they want when they want, and generally live a care free life. And you know what God says about that? Live on! But as you do, He wants you to take advantage of two tremendous opportunities that will make your life truly care free.
Our text for today is 1 Corinthians 7:32-35. In much of his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul is responding to a letter the Corinthians had previously sent to him. In chapter 7, Paul is responding to some concerns the Corinthians had regarding marriage and related matters, such as singleness. There is a lot going on in this chapter, but I want us to focus on vv. 32-35 this morning. These verses have a powerful word to singles.
I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs--how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world--how he can please his wife--and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband. 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 (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).
“I want you to be free from concern.” Singles, God says that He wants you to live a care free life! “Whoo hoo! Party on!” Right? Well, not exactly. God wants you to have a care free life but He knows that it comes by taking advantage of two opportunities that are especially available to you. What are these opportunities?
Opportunity #1: Get to know God like no one else.
Paul says singles can get to know God like no one else because they do not have some of the responsibilities that married people have. Married men are concerned about the affairs of the world. A married man is concerned about how he can please his wife, how he can better provide for his family. Likewise, married women are concerned about the affairs of the world. A married woman is concerned about how she can please her husband, how she can better care for her children. These concerns are good, but they vie for the attention of the married person. A married person has a hard time being totally focused on the Lord because his or her interests are divided (v. 34).
But singles are care free! They aren’t worried about pleasing their spouse. They’re not worried about raising or providing for their children. Singles can have a single interest – to know God (See vs. 32b & v. 34b).
Singles have the unique opportunity to grow in the Lord like no one else can. They can get to know God on the deepest of levels.
If you are a single, I challenge you to discover the following things about God.
First, discover God’s ability to satisfy.
Sometimes singles live such “exciting” lives because they are trying to satisfy a feeling of loneliness. Singles often deal with loneliness. The feeling only gets greater when you are around your married friends and you soon feel like an awkward third wheel. Mother Teresa said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted.” Singles can find themselves in this category.
But I challenge you, singles, to put your focus on God. Get to know Him so that he can satisfy you. Isaiah 55:2-3 has a strong admonition to you:
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
Why spend all your energy on things that do not satisfy? Nothing can satisfy you like the Lord.
One of my favorite contemporary worship choruses is found on Michael W. Smith’s first worship CD. The song “Draw Me Close” says to God, “You are my desire. Nothing else will do. . . . You’re all I want, you’re all I’ve ever needed.” Singles, I challenge you to discover God’s ability to satisfy.
But I also challenge you to discover God’s grace.
As a single, you face a lot of temptations – the chief of which may be sexual temptation if you are dating. Don’t kid yourself that these temptations end once you’re married. They don’t, but you need to take time during the season of singleness to learn how to deal with them. God has three powerful words for us in regard to temptation. First, Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to ask to be delivered from temptation. Then, in 1 Corinthians 10:13 Paul reminds us that, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” But then in Titus 2:12 Paul writes, “[God’s grace] teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.” So in the NT God teaches that: (1) we can pray to be free from temptation, (2) we do not have to give into temptation because God always provides a way out, and (3) God’s grace can teach us to say “no” to temptation.
Oh, but God’s grace is even greater. He knows that even though we can pray to be set free from temptation, we don’t pray that. He knows that even though he provides a way out, we don’t always take it. And he knows that even though we’ve been taught to say “no,” too often we say “yes.” But God’s grace is so great that no matter where you are in life, no matter what you’ve done, God says, “If you will confess your sins, I am faithful and I am just and I will forgive you of your sins and I will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” Maybe you’ve been a little too care free in your singleness and your life has become dirtied by sin – maybe you’ve had premarital sex, maybe you’ve become addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography. Or maybe God just isn’t anywhere near the center of your life. And while the world says, “Just do it and don’t worry about God,” you’re thinking, “This isn’t getting me anywhere. I’m not happy. I’m lonely. I want more out of life. I want something better. I’m supposed to be care free, but I’m worried. I’m scared. I feel so used. I feel like my life is a big pile of garbage.” Friend, if you’ll look up, God is right there with you. He has His hand out ready to pick you up. He has some clippers ready to cut the chains that bind you. He has a shower prepared where you can get cleaned up. He has new clothes for you. He wants to make you new. Will you let him?
Single, I challenge you to discover God’s grace – for it certainly is amazing.
So God says, “I want you to have a care free life by really getting to know me like no one else can.” But there’s another opportunity I think is linked to that. It’s not specifically clear in our passage today, but I think the implication is there. Knowing God will help you grasp the next great opportunity your have as a single. . .
Opportunity #2: Get to know yourself like God knows you.
Paul says the single man or woman is concerned only to learn how HE or SHE can please the Lord. They find out what God knows about them – what God wants to do with them.
It amazes me how much God knows us. It’s hard to grasp how the God who created everything can know every single one of us better than we know ourselves, better than our best friends know us, better than our parents know us. Psalm 139 gives me holy chills every time I read it. Here David’s words to the Lord:
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD (Psalm 139:1-4).
If you think God doesn’t care, spend some time with that psalm.
As a single, grasp the opportunity to discover who God says you are. As you do so, you might have to deal with your past. You might have to clean out some closets, pray through some memories, and sledge some stuff out of your life. But God will help you.
You might also have to get a handle on your present. You might need to limit time with certain friends who drag you down. You might need to make being in God’s house more of a priority. You might need to slow down on some secular care free living so you can discover the true care free life.
But one thing that will certainly come as you get to know yourself like God knows you – you will start to look forward to your future. Jeremiah 29:11 is an often quoted and sometimes overused verse. But it’s so often quoted and overused because it’s so good – “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” That’s good stuff. God has great plans in store for you. You have a future.
Of course, you might not think so. You might feel like the old spinster who watched a woman cry over the ashes of her fourth husband. She turned to a friend and whispered, “She has husbands to burn and I can’t even find one.”
You might be so wrapped up in the one goal of finding a mate that you can’t see the great plans God has for you. You’ve got to deal with the past, get a grip on the present, and dream about the future because God has good stuff in mind for you.
But you know something, Jeremiah continues – did you know that? We often stop with vs. 11. But it only gets better. Verse 12 says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you” (Hey. We’re back to knowing God like no one else!) “You will seek me and find me when you seek with all your heart.” How are we to seek? With all our heart.
You can only discover and get in on God’s great plans for you by seeking him with all your heart. You’ve got to know God like no one else, know yourself like God knows you, and then give yourself completely over to God.
I read this interesting quote this week:
“Without God there are some things you cannot do.
Without you there are some things God will not do.”
What did Jesus say in John 15:4-5? “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Without God there are some things you cannot do. Like have a truly care free, abundant life!
But also – without you there are some things God will not do. A great example is found In Ezekiel 22:30-31 when God says, “I looked for a man among [the people of the land] who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.”
Beside that verse in my Bible I have written the question, “Would I be this man if God were looking today?”
What if God wants to do something incredible with you, but you are too lazy or too stubborn or too self-centered or too disinterested to help God accomplish it?
I challenge you, singles, to grasp this awesome opportunity to get to know God and to know yourself. You will truly discover that God has something great for you. It is a truly care free life.
I found a forum for Christian singles on the internet this week. One testimony was particular pertinent. May your heart be the same as Kevin’s.
Kevin writes:
I’m praying God will lead me where he wants me to go, and will help me learn to trust in Him more than in other people. I admit, as recently as last year I was so angry and frustrated in my single state that I annoyed even myself. I was so consumed by being with a girlfriend, that I even let minor statements from friends and family about my singleness really bother me.
Then I remembered something a good friend wrote to me in an e-mail: “God wants 100% of you.” The words made so much sense that now I’m enjoying this period of life despite the fact that I’m 32 and have never been married. I’m really letting the fact that God wants all of me sin in, and I’m enjoying it.
Without my previous single-minded devotion to getting a girlfriend, I’m now freed to pursue other goals. . . . I’m having fun and becoming a balanced Christian single – Christian first, single second.
In Louisiana we call this lagniappe – a little something extra.
I know some of you singles do want to get married. Let me encourage you that church and Christian events are great places to meet godly folks. So let me share with you some never fail pick-up lines for church singles:
The simple - “Hi! You alone?”
The spiritual - “My prayers are answered!”
The biblical – “Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.” If that doesn’t
work try . . .
“Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn.
Or maybe we should leave those in the Song of Solomon.
The plotter – “Want to come over to my place for a little devotional time?”
The focused – “No really . . . I’m attracted to you in a spiritual way.”
The adorable – “Hi, angel.”
The innocent – “Read any good Bible passages lately?”
The easiest – “So . . . you worship here often?”
