Sunday 01 • 19 • 20

As has been our custom, we're going to read God's word aloud together. It's printed there in your bulletin and be up on the wall behind me. We're reading from Mark chapter 10 and then Mark chapter three and first Timothy five. The way it's laid out in your bulletin makes it look like the Mark section is all one big section. I just want to highlight as we read this that there's a break—these are actually two different events in the life of Jesus. So let's read God's word aloud together. You ready? Three, two, one.

Peter began to say to him, "See, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sister, mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life." — Mark 10:28-30

And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they said to him and called him, and a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you." And he answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking about those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my mother and sister and mother." — Mark 3

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. — 1 Timothy 5

So if you're just joining us this morning, we are in a sermon series on the single life, on being single called "Single Like Jesus." It's a six week study on six myths of singleness. Here's where we've been so far. First week, we talked about how the myth—single is weird, married is normal. Second week, we talked about the myth that being single requires some special calling or superpower in the Bible. And then third, today, we're going to talk about this one: being single means no family.

And I'm going to start with listening to an expert on the single life—Jack Black's character in the movie Nacho Libre, my favorite. Nacho describes his life as a single, celibate monk. He's addressing the orphans and talking about how great his life is. Here's what he says:

"Me? No. Come on. Don't be crazy. I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies and the clothes, the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good, real good. I get to wake up every morning 5AM and make some soup. It's the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed all by myself all my life. It's fantastic."

Do you hear the sarcasm in those words? The sarcasm is what many people hear when we think about the single life as it's viewed in our culture. Being single means no spouse, no kids, no life together, being all alone. And so much of how we talk about the single life in our culture reflects this.

For example, in England, they describe when a person makes the transition from being single to being married as being "sorted." Like, as if a person is awaiting processing or is loose threads hanging off a garment and certainly needs to be tied up. In our culture, we have a similar phrase, and you know what it is. You've heard people talk about "settling down." Moving from the single life to the married life is settling down—as if before that, you were unsettled and maybe a little crazy. Like, you need to just calm it down.

But do you hear the assumptions behind both those statements? The assumptions are that once people can get married and have kids, they're sort of good to go. They've future-proofed their life from concerns and worries. Well, nothing could be more different from what Paul described as we looked at the passage last week in 1 Corinthians 7, where he says to be married and to have children is to take on even more worldly cares and worries. Your life becomes more complex as a result, not more simple, not future-proofed.

So this morning, we are going to look at what Jesus says about this myth—that being single means no family—because Jesus speaks in very pointed terms and very countercultural terms for us about the nature of family.

Here's where we're going to go this morning if you take notes: how Jesus promises family, how Jesus reconstitutes family, and then how Jesus provides family. And I hope that this is helpful and encouraging to you whether you are single this morning or whether you're married. This is God's word for all of us.

How Jesus Promises Family

Now, in the first passage we read there from Mark chapter 10, Jesus makes interesting promises here about family. Have you heard of the prosperity gospel? Do you know what the prosperity gospel is? The prosperity gospel is not really a gospel.

It's a distortion of the Christian gospel, but it has this central idea that if you do the right things, God will reward you in some way. For example, if you are a good Christian and go to church regularly, God will bring wealth into your life. If you give your life to Jesus, your life is going to go the way you want it to. Now, of course, those things are not true. That's why I'm saying this is not a gospel at all.

And of course, the Bible does say in several places that God does reward certain behavior, but it's not an equation. God's rewards and benefits in this life and in the life to come don't always look the way that we expect. So God is not an equation that we plug in. He's not a vending machine. You put something in and you get out.

The Marriage Prosperity Gospel

Now here's where this applies to this particular sermon series. In the South, in particular in the church, we have what one writer calls the marriage prosperity gospel. That is, if you're a good old Christian, if you follow the rules, if you are a virgin in your twenties or thirties or forties, God is going to send you the one—your custom-made sexy spouse who is going to be perfectly tailored to your needs, personality, and desires.

Let me test this and see if you've heard these things. If you don't date unbelievers, if true love waits, if you've kissed dating goodbye, then God will give you the desires of your heart. Have you heard anyone say these phrases or said them to someone else? "God has a soul mate out there just waiting for you. Just got to go find them." Or "When you are content in your singleness, then God will bring you a spouse. When you least expect it, he or she will walk through the door. God is just getting them ready for you." You hear those phrases?

There's a promise behind those phrases that is not at all biblical. Let me just say this very, very clearly: the church has over-spiritualized this in ways that do damage to single people and to married people in terms of our expectations and our disappointment. Nowhere in the Bible does God promise you a soul mate. It's just not in here. Nowhere in the Bible is there "the one" out there, the perfectly tailored sexy spouse that God has designed for you. Nowhere does it say that married or single, you won't struggle with sexual sin.

I think there's a lot of heartbreak in the Christian community because we bought into false promises. And we're the kind of people—we're smart church. We're like, we don't believe in the prosperity gospel. But do we? Have we bought into this?

See, the whole focus of the marriage prosperity gospel is self. It's back on me. It's back on like, God is going to do something. I'm going to obey Him to get what I want out of Him, like the divine vending machine. And then He's going to send me a magical spouse who's also going to be all about me. Who's also going to worship the ground I walk on and meet my desires and perfectly cater to my abilities.

See, gone are all the things in the Bible about how marriage requires sacrifice and death to self and lots of hard—good, but hard. See, instead, Jesus says some very different things in this passage about family.

Jesus's Teaching on Discipleship and Family

Look what he says here. Now, here's the context. Jesus has just had a conversation with a young man that is often called the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and he wants to get on the Jesus train. "I'll do anything to follow you." And Jesus says, "Here's what I want you to go do. Go sell all your possessions, give them to the poor, come follow me." And it says the man went away sad. And that's where this passage in Mark 10 picks up.

Because in watching the man walk away, Peter immediately responds, "See Jesus, we have left everything to follow you." Now, it's very easy when you read the Bible to read into it tone of voice. So let's just be fair—we don't know how Peter said those words. Maybe he said them in despair. Like, "Jesus, can you look, I don't know if you remember. We've loved a lot of stuff. Like, this has been hard." Or maybe he said it in a boastful way. Like, "That guy just failed Discipleship 101, but I got an A in the class. Like, we've left everything, Jesus. Look at us."

Either way, listen to what Jesus says. He assumes that to follow him means to leave some things behind. That there will be dreams that you have, there will be plans that you have that may lay on the cutting floor. When Jesus talks about this, he talks about picking up a cross, about discipleship. And discipleship is wonderful, but it always comes with two crosses: His, where he died on the cross for your sins, but also yours—which means I lay down my right to rule my life and I submit myself to him.

And second, I want you to notice this. Jesus defines some of those losses, some of those costly things to leave behind in relational terms, in family terms.

Consider certain patterns of family and kin. We know this. If you have any understanding of what's happening in global Christianity, we know there are areas of the world, particularly in the Middle East, where to become a Christian means you will be absolutely abandoned by your entire family. But closer to home, that is also costly. Being a disciple of Jesus for you in this room may mean saying, you know what? In order to please and love Him, I am not going to cut corners like the world would tell me to in order to get a spouse. I'm not going to date an unbeliever. I'm not going to cohabitate. I'm not going to fudge the record to make it all work because what I really need is a spouse. And that may be really painful for some of you. You've made sacrifices because that's what it means to be a disciple of Him, to let go of unhelpful and unhealthy relationships.

But I want you to notice this. Notice that Jesus promises family. This is bizarre, right? He doesn't say, "Hey, grin and bear it. Heaven's coming." He doesn't say, "Hey, just muscle through the hard parts of this life, and in the new heavens and new earth, it's all gonna work out for you." No. He says in this life—in this life—houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and lands with persecutions and the age to come, eternal life. I mean, isn't that bizarre that Jesus says this?

If I could put it this way, this is the true prosperity gospel. Jesus says, in following me and letting go of some of your earthly dreams and plans, come and follow me. I will give you in this life family. Now, there's a Psalm—Psalm 68—which says, "God places the lonely in families." And lots of us, we hear that and we're like, "Aw." You think about a family adopting a child and you're like, "That's really sweet. As if Jesus is cross stitching this for somebody else." But who is he talking about? He's talking about me there. God placing the lonely in families. He's talking about every person in this room because to know him is to be part of his family. To know him is to be invited into his family.

How Jesus Reconstitutes Family

Now, I want to show you this. How does Jesus reconstitute family? At this, we're going to look at Mark 3. We know in this passage that Jesus' family comes to take him away. Now I want to remind you, we just got through Christmas. Jesus' mom and dad, Mary and Joseph, but they had kids together after Mary had Jesus by the Holy Spirit. He had half brothers. We know he had at least one half sister. And in this scene, Jesus is teaching in a house. He hears that his mom and his brothers are outside, and they're coming to take him away. They're coming with the white coats and the little van and the rubber room. That's what they're coming to do with him.

And Jesus looks around at the people and says, "Jesus, your family is outside." He's like, "No, this is my family. Whoever does the will of God, these are my father, my sister, my mother, my brothers. This is my family." Jesus is reconfiguring how we think about family.

Now, I grew up in the eighties and nineties. Some of y'all won't remember this, but during that time, Focus on the Family was a big deal. Focus on the Family, James Dobson, all over the airwaves, lots of books, lots of seminars on how to parent, how to have a godly marriage, all kinds of things. And I'm sure Doctor James Dobson helped a lot of people. But here was the problem with Focus on the Family. It equated family values with the Christian gospel as if those were exactly the same thing, as if Jesus died in order to give you an awesome family. And those two were way too tied together. That was actually a misuse of theology. I'm sure Dobson helped people, but in doing so, it missed something about Jesus' family values.

He says His family is not blood family. It's the blood of Jesus' family. His family is not defined by your family patterns or your kin, but by His blood and His people, along spiritual lines, not biological lines. Those who do the will of His Father, not by birth but by rebirth. And this is good news for all of us. This is good news for all of us because it tells us a couple of things. It tells us there are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God. It's not married people and single people. Those haves and have nots. None of that. And there is no second blessing of marriage as some kind of reward.

See, I want to say this and be careful with this. Our nuclear families are good and important. They're good and important. Jesus isn't telling us to reject, downplay, or ignore them—your nuclear family or your extended family. But let's just be honest. It's not our problem. Our problem is not rejecting our families.

Our problem in Raleigh, North Carolina, in one of the top 10 places to raise a family is not loving our families too little, but loving our families maybe too much. What happens a lot is what is our strength becomes our weakness. I mean, a lot of you are here and you benefit from the Wake County School System. You benefit from all the goods and services of being in a great place to raise a family. But what is our strength can become our weakness.

One of the most powerful idols in Raleigh is family. You want to know the one get-out-of-jail-free card, trump card that you can use that nobody can speak against? Family time. "Oh, I'm sorry. We're having family time. I guess you can't come." That trumps everything. Who can say, "Oh, you shouldn't have so much family time?"

See, the reality is I think we have dreams that our family should be sequestered like jurors. Yet the assumption seems to be the nuclear family is the basic unit in which you do life. And if you don't have one, by golly, you better go out and get one.

Think about how unhesitatingly people spend and sacrifice for their children. It's a good thing to take your kids to soccer and give them dance lessons. Let them play musical instruments. Good things. My kids benefit from those too. But people are flat crazy in this city. Drive all over creation every Saturday, all over the state for a different game. Spend unbelievable amounts of money that they may not even have on sports or music or dance. It's a little much.

Because what does it show us? We practically worship the nuclear family in our city. I mean, we all seem to want the Christmas card photos. You know the ones, right—denim and khaki on the beach. And we believe that this is not only God's ideal, but He promises us in some way. This is what He's aiming for.

And then here comes Jesus. He's got to come in and bust it up, talking about his family values, which are very different from the focus-on-the-family values. He comes in and says, "Not your daddy's blood, but Jesus' is what defines, really defines who you are and who your family is." And that is such good news, even if that rubs some of you the wrong way.

If you're a Christian, you do have a family. You have a family. You are not alone. It doesn't mean you forget your biological family, you kick them to the curb. Doesn't mean you neglect them. But if you don't have the happy spouse, 2.5 kids, and a dog in a minivan, you are not out. You are not missing out. You have a family.

A Word of Pastoral Care

But here's the question for us: Are we in danger of worshiping our families? I want to say one more thing as your pastor too. I don't want to over-spiritualize this. I know that for some single people, this series has been really painful. I want to acknowledge that, because for some of us, this is great for us to talk about. For some of us, we're talking about the death of your dreams. And I just want to be careful about that. I don't want to be glib about that in any way.

The reality of being a woman who hits menopause who's always dreamed of having children is something to grieve, not gloss over. Just want to be careful that we are really sensitive to that as a community. The dream of biological children is a loss to be grieved, not glossed over.

Jesus's Family Values

But look, Jesus's family values look like this. There is a primacy of place put in the Bible on the family of God or the household of God.

— Galatians 6, Ephesians 2

They're early Christians. We read them in Acts 2, sharing all things together, having this fellowship. The word there is koinonia—maybe you've heard that in church circles. That comes from the word for household. Household in the first century was not just people related by blood. Households were much bigger. They included a lot of people who weren't even biological kin. And he's saying the picture in the New Testament is of a larger family sharing all things in common.

I want you to treat older men in your church context not as like weird distant uncles—somebody you barely know—but like your dad. I want you to treat younger women as if they're sisters. Not some like third cousin twice removed, but somebody who's like your sister. Close. Intimate. — 1 Timothy 5

Paul uses this kind of family language all over the New Testament to describe the relationship between Christians in family terms. So at the beginning of the letters to Titus, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy—the pastoral epistles—they all start off with, "To you, Titus," "To you, Timothy, my child in the Lord."

He says in First Corinthians four:

Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord — 1 Corinthians 4

He writes in Philemon:

I appeal to you for my child, Anesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment — Philemon

He didn't adopt him. He has that kind of closeness with Onesimus. In Galatians four:

My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you — Galatians 4

First Corinthians four:

For though you have countless guides in Christ, you don't have many fathers. I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel — 1 Corinthians 4

Now by contrast, the nuclear self-sufficient family doesn't exist in the New Testament. The nuclear self-sufficient family is not something we read of in the New Testament. Rather, your spiritual family—okay, your spiritual family—those of you who have biological families, your spiritual family needs your biological family. And guess what? Your biological family needs your spiritual family.

Single or married, kids or not, we desperately need one another. This means if you do have a biological family, the boundaries of your family with the spiritual family should be porous and flexible, not castle walls, not inviolable, not fixed.

Think about parenting children. The fact is that no two parents can be everything that children need them to be. And you know what? That is not even a controversial statement. But it sounds really countercultural to say that right now. No two parents can be everything that those kids need them to be. Every adult has enormous blind spots, enormous. And your children, they need the body of Christ. They need lots of examples of what it means to live as a faithful Christian. People all around you, they need to see over and over spiritual aunts and uncles in all kinds of different jobs and life stations, all kinds of different circumstances living out what faithfulness to the gospel looks like.

How Jesus Provides Family

So here's the question: How does this look? So we've talked about how Jesus promises family, how Jesus reconstitutes family. Now let's talk about how Jesus provides family, and this is where you come in. I'm going to give a lot, a lot, a lot of application this morning. And I'm going to first address married people and then I'm going to address single people.

To married people: How can you have a porous family boundary to be able to be a part of the spiritual family in all the ways that God gives you opportunity to do so? Here's a couple things. We'll talk about words and actions.

Words: Would you stop referring to the stage of life that your single friends are in as a season? You don't know that that's a season. That may be a lifelong circumstance for them. You're trying to be helpful. You remember your season, but don't promise that to others.

Second, don't offer to fix somebody up unless they ask you to do so. Now, you may have done that once in high school and it worked, but let me just say, you don't know anything about matchmaking, okay? None of us do. Don't do so unless somebody asks you.

Third, stop passing on false promises that aren't true. When someone shares with you about what their life is like as a single person, don't say things like, "Hey, when you're ready, God's gonna send someone special your way." You don't know that.

In fact, how can you respond when someone shares with you some of the challenges or the loneliness that they're facing? You could say things like this: "Thank you for trusting me. That sounds really hard. You know, I gotta admit, I don't know what that's like, and I sure appreciate you letting me pray for you. Thanks for letting me hold your story. Thanks for letting me enter in."

Don't avoid talking about what being single is like. It's sort of avoiding somebody's reality. In fact, one of the good questions you could ask is, "Hey, can you tell me how are you doing with being single right now?" Man, that's a loving question. Just like someone asking you who are married, "How are you doing with being married right now?" Both of you will have a lot to say because there's a lot to say about the unique hardships and opportunities of both those things. You both have something to talk about.

Finally, on words, don't gossip about why someone is single. Just to be honest, you have no idea. You don't know that person's background or story. You don't know everything there is to know. And they may not even know. So it's just really unhelpful and it's really unkind.

Actions: Here's some things to do. Invite single people into everyday lives—grocery shopping, going to get a Christmas tree, exercising at the gym, watching This Is Us. I know half of you are watching it anyway, so just bring somebody with you.

Open your eyes to the challenges of doing adult things alone. Single people have to do all the same things married adults have to do but by themselves—mowing, fixing the roof, paying bills, cleaning house, fixing cars—but they do it by themselves.

Use some imagination. Ask the question: Are there ways I could help you?

When a single person has their car breakdown, they don't have the automatic spouse who's just duty bound to take them to get the car fixed. They need help. Share your family time with someone else who's single, especially holiday family time.

Here's another one: Be enough at ease in your marriage to have an argument in front of a single person. You know what that communicates to a single person? This is kind of real for us. This is what it's really like. We're not putting on a show for you when you come over.

Have a night of the week and friends who don't need an invitation. You know what? Tuesdays, please, every Tuesday, you don't even have to tell us. Just stop by.

Share a house key with a single person. Give them a chance to use it as a second home. Everybody has just a bad day where they're like, I don't really want to be alone right now, but I also don't really want to talk. And you have this understanding. You're welcome to come over and just sit on our couch. No expectations.

Invite single people into the lives of your children. Your children need all the models for adulthood they can find and what it means to be a disciple.

Find ways to celebrate milestones in the lives of your single friends. Your single friends don't have a crew of people who remember their birthday every year and always celebrate it or the anniversary. Create milestones.

How about this one? Touch single people. And I mean that in the most non creepy way, right? I know some of you are going there. But let's just be honest, in the wake of the Me Too movement, everybody's just a little too careful. And studies show over and over again that every person just needs to be touched—affection, care. You know, one of my beefs with our churches is we're just sometimes not so warm. And I'll be honest, it's hard for me. I'm not the huggiest person, but can we do a little bit more of this? A little more side hugs? A little bit more warmth. You know, touching is one of the ways we communicate. We're together. We're family.

Things Not to Do

Here's a couple don'ts. Don't assume single friends want to babysit your kids. I mean, they might, but probably what they really want is time with you, without kids. So sure, help them out. But don't assume it.

And finally, this is really important: just because I'm preaching this series, don't assume the Bradfords could do all this. Some of you are like, wow, the Bradfords, he must really get it. No. You know what? We need to do this together. Every one of us.

For Single People

For singles, initiate with married people. It's easy to assume, especially in a church like this with lots of babies and lots of families, that families should all be initiating with you. And let's be honest, I know it's easier for them to set an extra plate at the table than for you to have a huge family over and cook a bunch of food. But initiate. Offer to bring dinner over. Offer to make dinner. Offer to help a family. Can I help you run some errands? Can I take one of your kids with me when we run some errands?

Join the church. The church—this is a secret at CTK, but I'll let you in on it. The church is not a married person club. There are a lot of single people and I'm calling you out right now. You're hanging around our church for years and you've never joined. And we need you. We need you to stop calling it their church or your church and start calling it my church and our church. When you join, you change the pronouns. Our church is weaker without your gifts.

Serve in our children's ministry. This is not the sole property of parents in our congregation. You know, some of the parents in this congregation show up looking really tired. No offense y'all, but like, y'all show up looking really tight. We could use married people, single people, people with kids without serving. It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. Our children need you.

And finally, don't give up. Some of you are like, man, I've done all of that and I'm still really frustrated at CTK. I'm really frustrated here. Here's the thing: don't throw the towel in on us, okay? On us married people. You know, give us a chance. Keep giving us more chances. Keep taking risks in manner.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let me share this. You know, a staple of the Toy Story movie saga is the foot—the name on the foot motif. Remember the name on the foot motif? In Toy Story one, this is how Buzz Lightyear knows he belongs to Andy. He says this to Rex the dinosaur and Slinky Dog: "Say there, lizard and stretchy dog. Let me show you something. It looks as though I've been accepted into your culture. Your chief Andy inscribed his name on me." Right? And he looks down and says, "Andy," on the bottom of his foot.

Now this kind of motif continues in the movies.

It's sort of part of all of them, like where Andy puts his seal of ownership on these toys. So in Toy Story two, if you remember Woody is supposed to go off to cowboy camp with Andy, and he can't find his hat last minute and he's panicking. He talks to Bo Peep, and Bo Peep says, "Look under your foot."

"Don't be silly, Woody protests. My hat is not under my foot."

"Would you just look?" Bo Peep says.

"You see, no hat, just the word Andy," Woody says.

"Uh-huh. The boy who wrote that would take you to camp with or without your hat," Bo Peep says.

Woody's identity is not defined by what he has, but by whose he is, who he belongs to. And this motif keeps going through Toy Story three. Toy Story four introduces Forky, the plastic fork. And on the bottom of Forky's feet, it says Bonnie. Bonnie's fork, spork.

One of the things that shifts in the course of the movies is that Toy Story one, two, and three are all about the toys' relationship to the child. Who owns them? The fact that they're loved by this child. In Toy Story four, I'm not going to spoil the movie, but I will give you this heads up. It shifts the focus from the toys' relationship to the child to the toys' relationship to one another.

The Question Before Us

And this is the same question before us. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he has placed a seal of ownership on your life that can never be worn off or removed or erased. You can't send it away. You can't wish it away. It is there forever. Nothing you can do can change that.

But here's the question before us. Will we as a community who know his love, who know his ownership of us, who know how he's put his name on us—will we exercise that? Will we make the shift? Will we have that same kind of ownership of one another?

Only you can answer that question. I can't answer that question for you. Will you own these people around you as your family? You want a chance to future proof your life? It's by holding on to him and to one another.

Prayer

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you promised family. Even though we leave behind other things, even other family patterns to come follow you, you promise us this kind of community. Lord, I pray for those for whom these words have been very painful this morning, that you would comfort them. I pray, Father, that you would give all of us an opportunity to live out these promises together. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.