Sunday 01 • 12 • 20

Attention to God's word. We're in 1 Corinthians chapter seven. The scripture is printed on the wall behind me as well as in your bulletin and as has been our practice, we're going to read this aloud together. So if you could find that with me. Three, two, one.

Now as a concession, not a command, I say this, I wish that all were as I myself am, but each one has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows, I say it is good for them to remain single as I am, but if they cannot exercise self control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. 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. I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. This is what I mean, brothers. The appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as if they had none, and let those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as it had no goods. — 1 Corinthians 7:6-9, 17, 25-30

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

The Need to Talk About Singleness

If you are just joining us this morning, we are in a six week sermon series on singleness, on being single in the church. We're calling it Single Like Jesus. And I know that nobody except for me is excited about this series. And yet, I think this is so, so needed because I think that no one talks about this stuff. Not really.

I mean, you look in our culture, in our broader culture, the one person who I find the one authority talking about this is Beyoncé Knowles. Right? Like, "All the single ladies, all the single ladies, all the single ladies, put your hands up." Right? I mean, it's a great song, but not very informative.

I also find that the broader church doesn't talk about being single very much. We don't know what to do with single people. The reality is that almost 49% of adults in the United States are unmarried. That's a huge number. And yet, how many of you have ever heard more than one sermon on singleness? That's what I thought.

The main message you get in the church is don't have sex outside of marriage. That's about it. And that's not enough. If 49% of our culture is unmarried and if in the Bible Belt we think we treat being single as weird and married as normal, then single people are a huge percentage of our mission field, and we are not equipped to think about that. So in order to rightly care for those who are our own as a church, who are single, and also to be on mission as a church, we have got to think about this. We've got to be informed on this.

The Gift of Singleness

So today we're going to tackle that Mount Everest of topics, the gift of singleness.

Now, let's start here. Maybe you were the kind of person growing up who always sort of dreamed of being married or having a family, maybe you even had names for your kids when you were young. Or maybe you were a person who really wanted independence for a while, but after a certain point you were like, I kind of am willing to give up some of my freedoms for the sake of companionship. You'd like to have someone to share your life with and settle down and have a family. You've expressed your desire to family and friends, and they assure you with this common refrain. This is common in churches: if you want to be married, it's obvious that you don't have what's called the gift of singleness. You're meant to be married. The right girl or guy hasn't come along yet. Just hang in there. He or she will.

Now, this is sort of confirming what you may have suspected—that since you want to be married, God hasn't given you this gift of singleness. If you had the gift, you wouldn't be struggling. Right? That's how the logic goes.

In context, this is what I mean by the gift of singleness: this is the gift that nobody wants. This is like if you show up at Hogwarts and the sorting hat puts you in Hufflepuff. I mean, who wants to be in Hufflepuff? Everyone wants to be in Gryffindor or Slytherin. Those are the fun houses. No one wants to be in Hufflepuff. It's the house nobody wants. This is the gift that nobody wants.

And what I mean by gift is in the Bible, in Romans chapter 12 and 1 Corinthians chapter 12, there are lists of what are called spiritual gifts. Gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to the church.

Things like mercy, preaching, helps, care, evangelism, leadership, and hospitality are listed as spiritual gifts. Being single is not listed in those passages, but then people look at this passage from 1 Corinthians 7 and say, "Oh, there's one more gift—the gift of singleness." If you've ever been in one of those churches that gives you the spiritual gifts inventory, it's like a personality quiz asking "What's your spiritual gift?" You answer the questions, and if you say "I like to be alone a lot," people say, "Oh, you must have the gift of singleness."

But here's the question: What is the gift of singleness? Can you have a spiritual gift that you don't want? Does that make any sense?

So here's my outline for this morning if you take notes: the gifts—not just the gift, but the gifts—the giver, and the goal. I would really encourage you to take home 1 Corinthians 7 and look at it this afternoon. Before we jump into it, I just want to say that if you study this from the outset, this is a confusing passage. Paul says things like, "I say this, not the Lord" and "the Lord says this, not I." You might think Paul is just offering good advice, but that's not what's happening here.

What Paul is doing is applying what's called the rule of first mentions. When Paul says "the Lord says, not I," he's referring to Jesus' teachings in his earthly ministry. There is no place in the Gospels where Jesus teaches directly about singleness. Paul is the first one to teach on the single life in a full way in this chapter. That's when he says, "I, not the Lord, say." But this is clearly not just his hunch or advice. Even in 2 Peter, you can see that the early church considered Paul's words as scripture, on par with the same level of authority as Jesus' words in the Gospels. So this is teaching of scripture, even though it's confusing. That's why we're working through it.

The Context of First Corinthians

This letter, 1 Corinthians, is correspondence between Paul and a church in what we would think of as the Las Vegas of the ancient Near East. There was even a phrase about Corinth, similar to what we have about Las Vegas—something like "what happens in Corinth stays in Corinth." It was anything goes in terms of sexual behavior and lifestyle. So here's this young church trying to figure out what faithfulness to Jesus looks like in the Las Vegas of the ancient world. Paul then gives them instruction on the single woman and the married woman.

The Gift of Singleness

Here in verse 7, this is where we get the gift of singleness from:

I wish that all people were even as I myself am. However, each has his own gift from God, one in this manner, another in that. — 1 Corinthians 7:7

This is the only place in scripture that mentions being single as a gift, and it raises all kinds of questions. People ask: "Paul, what if I'm single and I don't have the gift of singleness? Where does that leave me? Does God want me to be unhappy forever?"

I want to remind you of something that may actually flow against the way a lot of people think of Paul. Paul is the apostle of joy. A lot of people think of Paul as some masochistic killjoy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He wrote the single most joyful book in the context of prison circumstances—the book of Philippians. I highly recommend it. That's on the subject of joy. This is not a man who's waiting in the winter of unrequited sexual celibacy for some springtime of marriage to happen to him. This is a man who had lots of friends. Read the letters of the New Testament and see all the people he greets. He had a friend in every city. He's an apostle filled with what I would describe as ebullient joy that comes out of his letters. This is not a man who, even in the midst of his sufferings, was saying, "I'm just stuck by God." This is a man who found deep, deep joy. So he means it when he says it's a gift.

In verse 8, he even calls the single life beautiful. That's who's writing this.

But what is the gift? Many Christians, I think, have taken the idea of the gift of singleness to describe some special capacity that God gives you to be able to endure a life without marriage. Let's call it a superpower. And like a superpower, superpowers are special because they're abnormal. So the gift of singleness—abnormal. And that's sort of part of the appeal of superheroes, right? Superheroes are set apart from the rest of us for a special test.

So the logic goes this way: if I'm single, I should have the gift, the superpower of singleness that enables me to be happy and content in that space. And so what happens? What's the result of that? Think about the implications of that. If being single requires a special superpower to survive in, it must be really terrible. That's the implication of that. But think with me—you can tell something is kind of off there in that interpretation.

I mean, you don't hear the same logic applied to marriage. Like, I'm married, but I don't think I have the gift of marriedness. Some people are like, "Yeah, I sort of wonder if that is me." But think: if there is a gift of singleness which enables only those with the special powers to endure in that space, there's no reason that there shouldn't be a gift of marriage that allows only those with the gift of marriedness to be able to thrive in that space. And we find nothing like that in the Bible.

Instead, look—the term gift here does refer to being single, but not in terms of a special superpower. He's not talking about spiritual empowerment for ministry or status of life. Rather, he's talking about the circumstance. Whatever your relationship status is on your social media of choice, that is the gift. That's what he's saying. The circumstance is the gift.

See, if you looked over from 1 Corinthians 7 over a couple pages to 1 Corinthians 12 where he talks about the gifts, he lays out: he says, "These are gifts—spiritual gifts: health, compassion, hospitality." All these things are given to individuals in the church for the building up of the church. All these things—every Christian is given and should be exercising for the building up of the church. You see how the gift of singleness doesn't fit in that. There's no such thing as singling except for in baseball, okay? Like, two of you got that, right? Singleness is not some spirit-empowered function.

Instead, married people are to use their spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. Single people are to use their spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. Your single status, your married status is not a spiritual gift. But the circumstance of being single and the circumstance of being married are both mentioned here as a gift. And so what does that say? The gift is not the status, and it is not the ability to do so. And that's good news for all of us because it means that the grass is not greener somewhere else. There is actually goodness of God revealed in his gifts for both married people and for single people. Whatever God has given me, it is a good gift.

Now, I want to give this caveat to those who are widowed or divorced. If you're widowed, if you've lost a spouse, I'm not saying it is a gift from God to lose your spouse. That is a hardship. There's a gift in being single again. And if you're divorced, I'm not saying the break up of your marriage—that was a present from God. I'm saying they're still good to be found even in the status of being single again.

The Advantages of Singleness

So what are the advantages of this single life? Paul tells us how it could be looked on as a gift. Look at verses 28 and following. He said:

If you do marry, you've not sinned. If a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who are married will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. — 1 Corinthians 7:28

I mean, isn't that crazy? Paul is saying, "Hey, marriage is gonna be a lot of trouble, and singles, I would spare you that." And a lot of married people under their breath just said, amen. That is actually really true.

Do you know that in the Eastern Orthodox branch of the church, when a couple gets married, at the wedding ceremony they give the groom and the bride a crown and they put on their crowns as they say their vows? And the crowns are not what we think of as crowns. They're not gold or silver. They are martyrs' crowns with deep symbolism that to be married is to say, "I am dying to myself to serve you every day." That's what marriage is. Because being married means that. And that's a far cry. I mean, isn't that a far cry from what I talked about last week where in the church we sort of assume marriage good, being single bad? No, no. Both good, both hard.

And we didn't print this—I should have printed this. Verse 32 and following, Paul goes on. He says:

I want you to be free from anxieties. 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. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 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. — 1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Again, here Paul lays out the things about being married. There are a whole host of things that you take on when you say those vows. It's for better or for worse. It's for sicker and for poorer. It's in sickness and in health. I know your sin struggles and I'm attaching myself to another sinner with particular sin struggles. I'm owning those things. So think there's a lot of anxiety that you take on in being a parent. Now add being married and you take that in parenting and you just put a little exponential number behind that. So got two kids, might as well just put a little two, like multiply it. And then three or six, right? I mean it's just exponential anxieties in addition to pleasing the Lord.

He says, one of the benefits of the life of being single is undivided focus on pleasing the Lord. There is you have opportunity to be able to be more focused in different ways. Now, some people in the church think, "Woah, our singles, they have lots more time." That is not true. They've got to do all the stuff that every other adult has to do. Sometimes people think, "Oh, singles, they have a lot more money than the rest of them." That's not true either. That's not necessarily true. But if you're single, you do have this advantage—undivided in heart and in mind. You're freed up to serve the Lord.

So the question for us this morning is not, do you have the gift of singleness? If you're married, you have the gift of marriage for now. If you're single, you have the gift of singleness for today. The question is, what are you doing with your gifts? What are you doing with the gifts that God has given you?

Misunderstanding Gifts as Power

Now, let me ask you this. What happens when we misunderstand gifts as spiritual power versus the circumstance? I'll tell you, a lot of bad things happen as a result.

One, it implies that being single is easy. That somehow God will—if we confuse, we think the gift of singleness is a superpower, then we assume that God should bring my desires in line with my status. But let me ask you married people, does God always bring your desires in line with your status? Or is it hard to be faithful? It's hard, right? That's a false reality.

Second, it idealizes marriage and can lead to undue pressure to get married. It pushes some people into marriage as if because we view marriage as some kind of loneliness lottery for the lucky. And we're going to tackle that more in weeks to come, but that is not good. People should get married because they're ready to put on the crown. They're saying, "I am willing to pick up and put on the crown, dying to myself. I'm ready to do that."

Third, it encourages bitterness rather than contentment.

Fourth, it unwittingly permits disobedience. You know, if certain singles don't think they have the gift of singleness and they are stuck in circumstances where they are like, "There's not anybody great who is a Christian for me to date in this circumstance," it a lot of times forces this kind of idea of like, "Well, I guess I better cut some corners. I better look for an unbeliever to date."

God says don't be unequally yoked with an unbeliever.

Or, "I'm going to try out this relationship. We'll cohabitate for a while." Or even homosexuality. These are outside of God's best for his people, his rule for his people.

And finally, the other thing when we mess these up is it messes with our theology. It messes with our view of God. If God hasn't given me the gift of singleness and I'm stuck single, it makes for a pretty unpleasant view of God.

From Gifts to the Giver

So I want to think about this. I want to go from the gifts to the giver of the gifts because how you think about your gifts tells me a lot about how you think about the giver of the gifts. And I want to say this: I'm going to apply this very specifically to marriage and singleness, but this has a lot to do with how we think about God's rule and providence in our lives all the time because we all get in sort of mind games with God.

So let's play Family Feud, shall we? I'm going to give you a couple of lines that are common words given to single people with some theology and we're going to see what the survey says. Okay? So here's the first one. You ready?

"As soon as you're satisfied with God alone, He'll bring someone special into your life."

Survey says... Right? Right? Exactly. As though God's blessings in this life are ever earned by our contentment. See that one? Tricky.

Let's try this one.

"You're too picky."

Survey says... Right? Like, as though God is frustrated by our fickle whims and he needs broader parameters to work with. Like, just give me some better boundaries, right?

Okay. What about this one?

"Before you marry someone wonderful, the Lord has to make you someone wonderful."

Oh, yeah. You like that, right? Like, survey says... Right? Like as though God grants marriage to the perfectly sanctified. As we look around, we're like, no, that ain't the case, right?

There's a lot of immature people in marriage and a lot of us said amen. Here's more warped theology about self. It's a mistake to think that if God has given you the gift of singleness, He would either make you never desire a spouse or He would suddenly remove those desires from you. That is not how that works. We live in the real world where we all struggle to bring our desires into line with what God says.

It also leads us to warped theology about God. So it is common for people to cynically laugh about God giving us an unwanted gift, but I just want to think about what we're laughing about. The God of the universe is not like your great aunt—you know the great aunt who sends you presents in your thirties as if you're still 10? You're like, "I love this puzzle. Thank you." The God of the universe is not like that. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he is above all things good, down to the very bottom.

It's easy for us to laugh and roll our eyes and say, "Yeah, God is good and he gives gifts," but the reality is God is good and he gives gifts. The gift is the circumstance, not the superpower. It's actually good news, because it means in this life, whatever you are today—and I've told you some of you who are married today will not be married in the future—whatever you are today is a good gift from the Lord. It is a good gift. There is room for all of us. Not any of us is missing out. We can all taste something of the goodness of God.

I want to quote from a woman, Paige Benton Brown. She wrote an article years ago called "Singled Out for Good by God." She says it better than I can:

Can God be any less good to me on the average Tuesday morning than he was on that Friday when he hung on the cross? The answer is a resounding no. God will not be less good to me tomorrow either because God cannot be less good to me. I long to be married. My younger sister got married two months ago. She now has an adoring husband and a beautiful home and a whirlpool bathtub and all new Corningware. Is God being any less good to me than he is to her? The answer is a resounding no. God will not be less good to me because God cannot be less good to me. It's a cosmic impossibility for God to shortchange any of his children. I'm not single because I'm too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband. I'm not single because I'm too spiritually mature to possibly need a husband. I'm single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single. The Psalm has confirmed that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me. I am one of the haves, not the have nots.

This is why Paul can say in this passage: his one word, his one command is, "Remain as you are. Be content in the Lord." Hey, if you want to be married, get married. You're not doing anything wrong. But the best thing is to find contentment in the Lord. To seek that in Him above all things. If you want to get married, sure, but that's not his better. This is his better. Right now.

I like how she—Paige Benton Brown—holds together her theology even with her unmet desire. She says this in closing:

Singleness is not an inherently inferior state of affairs. If it were, for the majority of Christians, heaven would be inferior to this world. I want to be married. I pray to that end. I may meet someone and walk down the aisle in the next couple of years because God is so good to me. I may never have a date again and die an old maid at 93 because God is so good to me. Either way, my God is so good to me. The gifts and the giver.

The Main Point

It's so easy to read this passage and get caught up in all the questions—where am I and how do I fit in—that we actually miss the main point. The main point Paul is driving us toward, and one of the main things we want you to know as a church, is that it is a delight for a Christian to know Jesus and to make your life about pleasing the Lord.

Here's what Paul's saying: "Hey, here's the main thing I want you to do. I want you to make it your ambition to so love Him and so know Him that you want in everything you do to please Him."

Marriage and being single are both like art. They are both like art this way. Marriage is like an impressionist painting. If you've ever been to an art museum and seen an impressionist painting, it's not one of those where if you get real close to it you can tell what it's about. It's blotches of color. And yet if you stand back from the painting three or four feet—let's take like Monet's Water Lilies or his Garden in Giverny, right?

You go, you look at one of these paintings, step back from it, and it's this incredible picture of this garden, these water lilies with all kinds of vibrant colors and light in them. Marriage is like that. If you've ever been to a wedding, we talk about this a lot at weddings.

Ephesians 5 in particular tells us this, that marriage is like art that shows off the relationship between God and his people, that Jesus is the great lover, and that you and I, we are made to be collectively His bride.

That's much of the purpose of marriage, is to hold up for us this impressionist painting. Again, you get too close to it, it doesn't all wind up. But from far away, this is what it's meant to show us. Art. This is what God's purpose is.

But here's what we miss a lot of times, because we don't have ceremonies for single people. The single life is also art. It's not a painting, it's more like a drama. Think of some of the best playwrights ever, or some of your favorite theater performances ever. I mean, Shakespeare right here. Some of you are like, No. Lin Manuel Miranda. I give you that. Okay. But in each of those cases there are actors who get up on stage and play a part to communicate something. And again, you can study the script and get down to the nitty gritty details and you can miss this. But if you step back and you watch the performance, the performance itself tells you something. It communicates a story.

And here's the story God is telling through singleness: that every person is made to enjoy and please Him. Undivided, undiluted desire to live for and please Him. You know, this is one of the many reasons that if you're single, we need you in our church. This is why we don't segregate into the married groups and the single group. Because we need these pictures. We all need the art. We all need those pictures for us. The impressionist paintings that say what we collectively—this is the kind of lover God is for us, and we also need those dramas that say, You are made to please Him. Is that your goal?

Brothers and sisters, this is where I want to lead all of us this morning. Do you love Him? I mean, do you love Jesus? Do you know Him? If you know Him and love Him, do you want to please Him? This is the great picture that's being held up for us. This is one of the great things we receive from the Lord. Doesn't mean it's not hard. Doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean it doesn't cost. All life with Jesus costs, but life with him is like nothing else.

Let's pray together. Father, these are hard words and for many heavy words this morning. Lord, I saw lots of tears last week. I know this is painful for many people, and yet Lord, I thank you of how much you love your church, that you give gifts, that you're good, that you never abandon us, that you're not a great aunt. Lord, teach us what it means to love you and to please you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.