If Singleness is a gift, Can I exchange it?

Introduction

Text 1 Cor 7:6-9, 18-34

Singleness is often times a lonely and difficult time of life. People don’t understand all the struggles that singles go through and when they try to help they often say things like:

Things people often say to singles that can be hurtful:

“God won’t bring you your spouse until you’re content in your singleness.” (Let’s think about this . . . when do we ever earn God’s gifts?)

“Oh, don’t worry, Honey, God has someone special out there for you!” (Does He? How do you know this? Scripture tells us that everyone will not get married and that singleness is good. A lot of unintentional hurt is caused by assuming that everyone will marry one day.)

“Marriage is how God makes us holy” and “I didn’t really know how much God loved me until I had kids.” (This makes singles feel like they’re not only missing out on a family but on sanctification! A better way to say this would be, “Marriage is one of the means God uses to help make us holy.”)Another single requested,

“Don’t remind us that marriage isn’t all happily ever after with the perfect prince/princess of our dreams. Single adults are intelligent people. We’re no longer the teenagers in the youth group. We’re not expecting Disney or Hollywood. Our dreams of marriage are normal and healthy, and being belittled because we still hope for marriage (the same way our now-married friends once did) is insulting.”

And as often and as strongly as we might want to be married, sometimes things just don’t seem to be going that direction. I have believed that God wanted me to be married probably my entire life, but there was a brief time period in which I was beginning to give up. This was after my first fiance had broken off our engagement. My missions professor was so eager to find me a wife that he pulled out a list of every girl on campus and made me give him a reason for why I wasn’t dating them. Even when I first met Katy, I told her dad it would be a long time before I was able to consider getting married. Thankfully God changed my mind pretty quickly. But God’s will is not always for everyone to be married and that can be a good thing.

One beautiful example of this is from the life of Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India in the early 1900s. As a young woman, Amy had a desire to be married, but felt that God had called her to a lifetime of singleness so she could give herself completely to mission work. She began to struggle greatly with the fear of loneliness. Finally, she decided to get alone with God and gain His perspective on what she was going through. Years later she wrote about that experience as an encouragement to several young women she was discipling:

“I went away alone to a cave in a mountain called Arima, in Japan. I felt many feelings of fear about the future. That was why I went there. I wanted to be alone with God. The devil kept on whispering, ‘It’s alright now, but what about afterwards? You are going to be very lonely.’ And he painted pictures of loneliness. I can see them still. Then I turned to my God in a kind of desperation and said, ‘Lord, what can I do?’ … And He said, ‘None of them that trust in Me shall be desolate’ (Psalm 34:22). That word has been with me ever since … It has been fulfilled to me. It will be fulfilled to you. Only live for Him who redeemed you and trust Him to take care of you, and He will.”

As one of her biographies states, Amy could not have known when she went away to that cave that the word “lonely” would never be used to describe her life! In the years to come, hundreds of Indian children would call her “Amma” (meaning mother) and many precious Indian women would count her as a dear sister. God indeed blessed her with a family. Although it was not the kind of family she had originally envisioned, it was beautifully fulfilling to her because she was in the center of His will.

When thinking about singleness, the most obvious bible passage to go to is 1 Cor 7. Paul was most likely married at some point in his life. There is reason to believe that he was a member of the Sanhedrin which required marriage. Jewish tradition looked down on men who were not married by the age of 20. It is possible that Paul’s wife had died before this time and so he was a widower. Others including some early church fathers believe that Paul’s wife left him when he became a Christian. But by this time, Paul is living a single lifestyle. Who better to talk about this issue than someone who was single? I am married and I can forget what it was like being single. This entire chapter deals with singleness and marriage in some way.

When we use the word single, there are really three groups of people who are included in this word:

those who have never been married- Paul uses the word Virgins for unmarried women

those who are widows or widowers

those who are divorced- in these verses the divorced are often the main focus behind Paul’s use of the word “unmarried”

No matter how old we are or what stage of life we are in, any of us can find ourselves in the position of being unmarried. When we are in this position, it will be extremely important to think about our situation the way that God thinks about our situation. So tonight I am going to give you four thoughts about singleness that will help us flourish in the life God has given us.

I. Singleness is good vs 1

Most of us think of singleness as a necessary evil that must be endured. It can be a hard time. There are difficulties, but we must not lose sight of what God says about singleness. Vs 1 says it is good for a man not to touch a woman. When I was growing up this verse was often used to teach that boys and girls should never touch each other. That is not the meaning or the intention of Paul when he wrote these words. The word for touch refers more to a clinging or sexual kind of touch. Intimacy is spoken of here.

According to Gordon Fee, the phrase is used 9 times outside biblical literature and always refers to sexual intercourse. This phraseology is also used twice in the bible to refer to the same thing:

Gen 20:6 “And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.”

Proverbs 6:29 “So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; Whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.”

Paul is not saying that avoiding making contact with a woman is a good thing. He is not saying don’t hold hands. He is not saying don’t shake hands. He is not even saying don’t give each other a brief hug. You can set your standards where God leads you to set them, but this verse does not teach them. Paul is saying that it is a good thing not to have a married relationship with a woman. Singleness is good.

Later in the message we will look at some reasons why singleness can be a good thing. But this is what I want to challenge in our thinking.

Singleness is not a second class lifestyle. Singleness can be a blessing.

Psalm 84:11 “For the Lord God is a sun and shield: The Lord will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

Sometimes we look at singleness like it is a bad gift. Something to be returned. You ever get those underwear from your grandma and just wish you could take it back? Or how many of us have received a gift and the receipt was in the box so we could take it back to Coles. Sometimes we don’t see the value of what we truly have.

In my father in laws garage is an antique VW convertable bug that he has been working on restoring for years. If any average person walked into that garage they would assume it was a piece of junk, but that care has value. Singleness is something good in our lives, we just need to be trained to see it that way.

Don’t we know the verse, James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

Maybe you went to college to get an MRS degree and instead you got a bachelors and then a masters and then a PHD because the guy just never came along. You feel disappointed that God hasn’t given you what you want right now. All your friends are engaged or getting married and you feel left behind. You might be holding on for what you think is best and missing out on the best thing God has given you right now.

II. Singleness is a place of temptation vs 2, 6-9

Singleness is a good to be enjoyed, but it can also be a temptation. Not that temptation just goes away because you are married now, but it does become a little easier. In vs 2 Paul tells us that it is better to get married than to commit fornication and sin against God. Lost people in our world today don’t care that much about getting married because they don’t care that fornication is a sin. Paul knows that singleness will bring stuggles with purity so he says that we should get married if we can’t resist the temptation.

I am going to skip over vs 3-5 tonight because they deal primarily with the married. In vs 6-8, Paul concludes that it is good and he would wish it that all people were able to be content, single and pure just like he is, but he knows that is not the case for most people. God has designed most people to be married.

The danger of singlness is burning with uncontrollable desire.

1 Cor 7:9 “But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”

III. Singleness is a gift vs 7

According to vs 7, singleness is a gift from God. The word for gift in this passage is the same one that is used for a spiritual gift like pastoring, teaching, mercy, helps, administrations ect. This type of gift is something that God gives you to serve Him with. Your singleness and your marriage are not primarily about you. They are gifts from God to be used to serve and glorify Him.

Just like the other gifts, singleness is a spiritual gift. That means that it comes from God, but also, that you need the Holy Spirit to enable you to live out the gift that God has called you to. Desires don’t just magically go away. The loneliness can’t be filled with other things, but God can give you the ability to live in the gift that He has given you.

Matt 19:9-12 “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Not every one can handle being single. Jesus says except they to whom it is given. An enlightening thought that I came accross this week is that at some point we all had the gift of singleness and may have it again. You were not born married. There are different stages to life and we need to receive God’s gift and enjoy it while we have it.

If you are depending on your own strength to stay single, you probably aren’t doing with it what God wants you to do.

How can singleness be used for service?

You have more time to do things for God that married people do not.

Oftentimes you have more resources to use to serve God because you are only supporting yourself. Now granted living in todays economy isn’t easy.

You don’t have as many distractions to pull you away from devotion to God.

Spirituality is not determined by marital status. Married people aren’t more spiritual than single people. I think this needs to be said as well because I know growing up I thought this way. Singleness is not more spiritual than marriage. Both are gifts of God and have their own purposes. Being single and having more time to minister does not make you more spiritual than the married couple who can’t be as involved in church functions.

IV. Reason’s to remain single

Paul gives the following reason’s for why we should consider staying single.

A. The present distress vs 26- the churches at this time were facing persecution and life is easier to handle when you don’t have a family to worry about. Imagine being a husband and you are about to be fed to the lions in the morning; you probably are going to be worried about who is going to take care of your wife and kids tomorrow. Today’s society isn’t much better. The world our kids are born in to is intent on destroying their faith.

B. Trouble in the flesh vs 28- marriage involves extra burdens physically. Working longer hours to pay the bills ect.

C. The end of time is coming vs 29-31 We must not slip into the mindset of saying Where is the promise of His coming? The end of time is coming and this is a consideration. Being single may just enable you to get the gospel out to more people before it is too late.

D. Distraction vs 32-35

E. Father’s permission and no desire to be married vs 36-38

F. Marriage is intended to be until death vs 39

Conclusion:

Application to Singles: Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.

Paul’s main message is repeated four times in this chapter: Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called. It is stated in vs 8, 20, 24, and 40. Abiding mean to live in like a house. I don’t know about you, but I am most comfortable in my own house. I am not going to go to your house and help myself to the fridge no matter how much you tell me to. I am not going to move the furniture around. I am not going to go change into something comfortable at your house.

Paul is telling us to be at home, find your comfort, stability in the calling which you have. If you are single, abide in that. Don’t be in a rush to get married. If you are married, Don’t seek to get unmarried. No poison in her orange juice right?

Application for Families: adopting the singles into your family

Psalm 68:6 “God setteth the solitary in families: He bringeth out those which are bound with chains: But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”

Let’s put feet to this- Nancy Demos Wogemouth

Identify the singles in your church and life. Not just those you’d like to hang out with but those God has placed in close proximity to you. Think broadly: singles who have never been married, widows, divorcees, single moms, and those who for all practical purposes are single because their spouse is absent.

Pray for them. Make this a priority, and try to pray for at least one single daily. (You might consider downloading an app like PrayerMate to help you remember.)

Engage them. Pick at least one single on your list, and come up with a plan to reach out to them. This is just a practical way to help you love your neighbor.

Sing Take my love and let it be Francis Havergal