Honoring the Gift of Singleness
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Reasons to Remain Single
Reasons to Remain Single
The relationship that God has designed for most people is marriage. And marriage is good. Marriage is a good thing. in
2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
, right there, “Let every man have his own wife, let every woman have her own husband.” This is acceptable. This is God’s standard.
In
22 Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, And obtaineth favour of the Lord.
“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.” And it goes on to say that God looks on it with favor; marriage is a good thing.
In
6 Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.
, there is a command sent out to go and take wives and beget children and tell your children to take wives and beget more children. God has established as the majority standard of life relationships, that people be married.
In 1 Timothy 4 he even says heretics will come along in the last days who deny the Lord and they will forbid marriage. But that’s considered a heresy. Marriage is acceptable to God.
4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
“Marriage is honorable and the bed is undefiled.” So, God looks very favorably on marriage.
But, for every one—marriage is not the normal.
God has given some people the special gift of being single. They do not need to be married to fulfill God’s will. In fact, in fulfilling God’s will to the very fullest they are better if they stay single. And the reason I think this is such an important study is that the church tends to categorize single people as abnormal, and it isn’t so because God has so designed it for some.
7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
Verse 7 of this chapter, “I would that all men were as I,” he says, I wish everybody was single, “But every man has his proper gift, one after this manner,” that is after singleness like me, “and another after that,” that is like marriage, Some are gifted for marriage and some are gifted for singleness.
Singleness is a special gift of God. Single people do not need to be looked on as if they’re different, strange. abnormal, unfulfilled, unqualified for a certain service. Not at all. In fact, you know something, people?
Single people aren’t really single because they have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. And if you want to think about it that way, maybe they are the most complete of all because they don’t need another human being to complete them. They’re uniquely designed by God for function within the body of Christ.
Now in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is dealing with issues in Corinth regarding being married or being single.
The Jewish people in Corinth are saying you have to be married.
Some of the Greek philosophers are saying you can be more devoted to God; you can be more spiritual by being single. Paul says that isn’t even an issue, that doesn’t even matter.
Verse 20, he says: “Let everybody stay the way he was when he was called.”
Verse 24, “Let every man in whatever state he is called abide with God.”
Verse 27, “If you’re bound to a wife, don’t seek to be loosed. If you’re loosed from a wife, don’t seek a wife.”
In other words, stay married or stay single.
Either one is fine, they have no relationship to spirituality. God has given some the gift of singleness, others He desires to be married. That’s just different it isn’t good or bad. But that’s God’s design.
Now I think Paul knows that people who are single and have the gift are going to be under pressure. Because society accepts as the standard marriage and so single people tend to get pressured into getting married.
There tends to be that push. And I think it comes in the beginning from mom and dad who want to push their kids into marriage. And then it comes from peer pressure, everybody finds somebody. And you’re sort of left out. And this pressure begins to build. You get into the church and everything is family and you have all kinds of family activities and family orientation. And single people sort of stick out and people look on them as if they belong to a sort of different dimension. And the pressure continues. And I think that what Paul is saying here is very, very important for the church to recognize that God has gifted people for being single and it is no less significant than being married. It’s different. It’s His plan.
Now in order to encourage people with the gift, and that’s the basic premise you have to hang on to, that singleness is a gift and if you don’t have the gift, get married because it won’t do you any good to try to stay single and serve the Lord if all you are thinking about is marriage. It’s better to marry than to burn, he says over there in verse 9. So, it’s for people who have the gift. If you have the gift of singleness, Paul says, exercise it.
Now, from verse 25 to 40, he gives five reasons they ought to exercise it. Five reasons to stay single if you have the gift.
Now remember, people, it’s only if you have the gift. I don’t have the gift and most of you don’t have the gift, but if you do have the gift, here are the five reasons to encourage you to stay single.
25 Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.
26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
27 Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
30 And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
31 And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
The Present Misery
The Present Misery
26 I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
And he says there in verse 26, ‘It’s good for the present distress.” It’s good to be single because of the present violence. There was a persecution coming right around the corner, Paul could see it, it was only a matter of time until it would be there and he realized that married people were going to suffer much more under persecution. Why? Because wives would suffer the death of their husband. Husbands would suffer the death of their wife. Children would suffer the death of their parents. And that family ties would make the pain and the anguish and the anxiety and the pressure all the greater in a persecuting situation. The bitter conflict and the terrible alternative of duty to God and affection to the family would tear people apart. So in a difficult society, in a persecuting environment, it is better to be single, he says, if you have the gift because you don’t have that tremendous pressure that the world of persecution lays on you.
The Problem of Mortality
The Problem of Mortality
27 Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
A second reason if you have the gift to remain single is the problems of Mortality or the flesh. Verse 28, the middle of the verse, “Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh and I would spare you.” Married people, that’s fine, it’s all right, you don’t sin if you get married, he says in 28, but you will have trouble.
And the word “flesh” means our humanness.
There will be human trouble.
There will be human Conflict.
There will be just the plain ole problems of our humanness. And marriage frequently, usually intensifies human weakness. And if you’re married, you just have trouble. You have to deal with issues in your home, with your wife, with your husband, with your children. It just adds a friction to living.
Marriage isn’t all that friction, it isn’t all bad. It’s wonderful and it’s blissful when it’s the way God designed it. But there will be times of difficulty.
The Pithiness of The Material
The Pithiness of The Material
The third reason he says to stay single if you have the gift is the passing of the world. After all, marriage is only a part of this fashion of this schema, of this world and it’s all passing away anyway
29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
30 And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
31 And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
He says, “It remains that they that have wives should be as though they had none, they that weep as though they weep not, and to rejoice as though they rejoice not; and they that buy as though they possess not; and they that have pleasure in the world, not abusing it, for the schema of the world is in the process of passing away.”
In other words, those things are all part of the world. The world’s pleasures, the world’s commodities, the world’s emotions and the world’s relationships. And if you can be free of those things then you’re just that much less attached.
Set your affections on things above. If you’re single, just think, you don’t have to get totally attached to the world, totally attached to the emotions that come in close relationships in marriage, to the necessities of buying things and indulging in worldly activity.
Now I’m not saying that it’s wrong to have pleasure and it’s wrong to buy things or it’s wrong to be emotional or it’s wrong to be married, no it’s just that that demands a certain kind of attachment. And it is an attachment to a passing world. There’s no marriage in heaven. That’s just a passing thing.
And so he simply says if you have the gift of singleness, it just means you don’t need to get so engulfed in the world as a married person does. And it doesn’t mean badly engulfed, it doesn’t mean in the world’s evil, it just means you have to, for example, buy life insurance and spend your money on that so if you die, somebody’s going to be able to take care of your children. You have to save your money for their education. You have to have this medical insurance or money laid away for all the family’s physical needs. You have to buy a bigger house, a bigger car, more of this and more of that because you have to support the larger group of people you have around you.
You have to be sensitive to psychological needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. There is a concentration there. There is an involvement there that marriage demands. That’s all he’s saying. If you have the gift of singleness and don’t need to get into that then you’re better to stay single.
Don’t Attach Totally to Marriage
Don’t Attach Totally to Marriage
Don’t attach yourselves totally to marriage. That’s just part of the passing world. Luis Palau was saying that you know one of the things that’s so difficult today in the world is that people have become so super attached to marriage that you can’t get them to do anything in serving the Lord. He says sometimes on the mission field we try to get a couple of missionaries to go maybe on a month special mission, an they don’t want to go because they don’t want to leave their wives, they say. And he says there has got to be a balance here. There’s got to be some kind of balance between love your wife and care for your family, on the one hand, and we’ve really pushed that to the limit, and on the other hand recognizing that marriage is to be treated lightly as an earthly thing. And, that what we do for eternal Values is what’s really consequential.
Don’t Attach Totally to Moods
Don’t Attach Totally to Moods
Listen, marriage is going to give way to heavenly family life with Ike God the Father, Christ the husband, and all believers the wife; right? Well, you say, what does he mean by weeping? “And they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice, as though they rejoice not. What he is saying is, don’t get attached to human emotion either. Don’t rise and fall with what’s going on in your world. Don’t be overburdened by what happens.
You know there are some people, for example, who—somebody in their family dies and they crack up. They fall apart. They’re worthless. That’s ridiculous for a Christian. Why? Because that’s just a temporal thing. You’re going to spend all eternity with them anyway. How ridiculous it is for so often when a wife loses a husband she just folds up her tent and steals away into the night. That’s the end of her. Or a man who loses his wife and it’s all over with. He can’t adjust himself. Why? Because he has not treated marriage lightly, and he can’t control the weeping that comes, Don’t get overdone with human emotion. Listen, when we get to heaven God’s going to wipe away all tears. What about rejoicing? Well, what he means there is don’t get too happy with the system either. Don’t get overjoyed with what makes the world happy. Do not be a victim of the world’s emotion. That’s what he’s saying. Don’t get overtied to the world’s relationship, and don’t get overtied to the world’s emotion. You’re another worldly creature.
Don’t Get Overly attached to Merchandise
Don’t Get Overly attached to Merchandise
Buying, at the end of verse 30. They that buyeth though they possess not. Don’t get over-occupied with the world’s commodities. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, 1 John 2:15 says, and he’s simply saying, look, you’re in the world, and you’re going to be a part of it, but tie loosely to its relationships, loosely to its emotions, and loosely to its commodities. Listen to me people, that third one is a tough one; isn’t it?
I’m telling you, some of us have got almost everything in this world that we have financially, and almost all our mental preoccupation tied in to the world’s commodities.
We’re more worried about our bank account than we are about our spiritual life.
We’re more worried about how we decorate our houses, and how fancy our cars are than we are about spiritual realities and eternal truths, and we are not attached lightly to the world. We are attached heavily to the system. And, so when the system begins to crack and we begin to lose things, we can’t handle it. Set your affection on things above. Marriage is a passing thing. Even emotion is a passing thing. Human commodities are a passing thing.
The Preoccupation of Marriage
The Preoccupation of Marriage
32 But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
33 But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
34 There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
35 And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
36 But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.
37 Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
38 So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.
If persons stay single, he doesn’t get engulfed in the preoccupation of the married.
32 But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
You say, “Well, what is the preoccupation of the married? What are they preoccupied with?” The answer is each other. Look at verse 32, “But I would have you without care.” Now what he means there is free from anxiety. “I would have you free from anxiety, he that is unmarried cares for the things that belong to the Lord how he may please the Lord.
33 But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
But he that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he may please … what?… his wife and is divided.”
In your Bible at the end of verse 33, if it isn’t there write “and is divided.”
Now what is he saying here? Well, he says I’d like you to be free from anxiety. I’d like you to be—in a sense—carefree.
Lightfoot said, “A man who is a hero in himself becomes a coward when he thinks of his widowed wife and his orphaned children.”
A married man must concentrate on things concerning hiswife. A single unmarried, verse 32 says, cares for the things that belong to the Lord how he may please the Lord. Now this is potential, people. It doesn’t mean that every single person is totally devoted to Jesus. It’s just that he has the potential for that total devotion. There is an undistractedness that comes in the life of an unmarried person. He has only really one set of cares and that is his relation to the Lord.
The married person has a divided set of cares, the Lord and his family. It isn’t that they are bad, they’re both good. They’re both wonderful. They’re both designed by God. But they are two things. There is the inability for single-mindedness in marriage. A married man is a divided person.
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20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
, where Jesus was calling people to follow Him. And He says to this one guy, “Come and follow Me.” And the guy says, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.” wonder how many times that has happened around the world in the history of the church that there have been ministries and opportunities open but somebody married a wife and couldn’t go.
You say, “Well, was it wrong for them to marry?” No, it wasn’t wrong but maybe it would have been better if they had the gift of singleness to have stayed single and then they wouldn’t have had that problem.
A single person, male or female, has that total potential of concentration and devotion to the Lord in service to Him.
A married person must care for his family because God says so. At the same time, must be involved in pursuing the things of the Lord.
The Permanence of Marriage
The Permanence of Marriage
Boy, when you get married, you are married. And that is it. And there’s no turning back.
Verse 39, let’s jump down to 39, we’ll get back to the others. “Now the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband lives.” Boy, t hat’s a long time. Now, this is a lifetime arrangement.
39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
40 But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.
You’d be better off if you have the gift to stay single because once you’re married, that is it. And you’ll never be able to exercise the potential again. So think a long time before you do. Marriage is permanent. Once you’re stuck, you’re stuck.
Now, I’m not saying that everybody who’s married is stuck. But there are some people who are married and stuck and you know that. And it isn’t that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s permanent, Some marriages are bad. You know, you can get a woman who clings so much that you can’t do anything. You know, I know some men who would serve the Lord if their wife ever let go of them long enough.
In
9 It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, Than with a brawling woman in a wide house.
it says, “It is better to dwell in a corner than with a brawling woman in a big house.” Believe me, there … you know, there are people who are looking for such corners. You know, it’s better to be all alone in a corner than married to the wrong one, right?
Listen to verse
19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, Than with a contentious and an angry woman.
, “It is better to live in the desert than with a contentious and angry woman.” And that’s why a lot of times you’ll hear a man say, “I gotta get out … I gotta go … I must be alone.” It’s better to be in the desert than with a contentious and angry woman.
What am I saying by that? I’m saying that very often marriage can become a bondage … a negative bondage.
It is truly a positive bondage, a loving bondage a fulfilling and meaningful and happy bondage but it is permanent. And when Jesus was speaking in Matthew 19 to the disciples and He was telling them about how marriage was permanent and He said, “If anybody marries … if anybody sets his wife apart without adultery, he causes her to commit adultery.’ Boy, and He was emphasizing this, that marriage is solid bond and it’s unbroken for any other reason than adultery. What the disciples responded was this, “Hey, we think it would be better if its so permanent to stay single.” And He said, “Well, that’s right but not all of you can handle it.”
So, they came to the same conclusion that the permanence of marriage is a good reason to stay single if you have the gift. Because once you’re married, the responsibilities, the encumbrances, that which you must give to your marriage is set and you must give it.
And then he says in 39,
39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
“If the husband does die, you’re still at liberty to be married to whomever you want only … what?… in the Lord.… only in the Lord.”
Romans 7 says the same thing, the only thing that severs a marriage is death. Now Jesus, of course, said that … that divorce and Paul added the unbelieving departs, but apart from sin, apart from that, in the marriage of Christians there is no way out, it’s permanent. So once you’ve made the choice, he says, that’s the choice. And when we marry people, they say until death do us part. And that’s what God intended. After that you can be married but you can only marry a Christian.
And there’s a basic principle there, folks, only in the Lord. I believe
Christians are only permitted to marry Christians.
I read somewhere this week, somebody said, “Well, that is the best, but certainly God would allow in many cases for us to marry unbelievers to evangelize them.” I don’t believe that. I don’t believe marriage is a good ground for evangelism. When you will marry an unbeliever, in effect you’re saying to that unbeliever, “Christianity is important to me but not very important. Right? Because if it was really important you’d marry a Christian if Christian fellowship meant that much.
Well, this is an interesting chapter, isn’t it? What is it saying to us? marriage is good. And for most of us, it’s the only way to live. And I love it. And I wouldn’t trade it. And I … I know you wouldn’t either and it’s fulfilled the way God designed it. But, listen to me, marriage is good, fulfill it, enjoy it, sustain it for life but so is singleness good.
Fulfill it, enjoy it, use it for God’s glory. That’s the message of 1 Corinthians our Christianity will exist and grow and mature and prosper whether you’re married or single. That isn’t the issue. So he settles once and for all the Corinthians’ hang up about how marriage effected spirituality. It has no effect.
Whether you are SINGLE, Serve the Lord.
Whether you are MARRIED, Serve the Lord.
What you are, married or single, has no bearing on you spirituality. God wants some married for special reasons and some single. And I think, beloved, in the church we need to beware of this, we need to recognize it and we need to be accepting and loving with those that are single and if we’re single, with those that are married and understand the full complement of the body of Christ. Let’s pray.