Dateable, But Single | Josiah Jones

[Music] so [Music] well here we go the last week of dateable we are doing it here we go dallas welcome all of you that are online watching us live all of our porch live locations northwest arkansas north houston scottsdale indianapolis the greater lafayette of indiana we see you welcome we're glad that you're tuning in with us and of course i can't forget my friends right here in dallas texas welcome yeah got a great cheering section right here i can't wait it's going to be a great night well hey before we get going by the way my name is josiah i have the privilege of serving on staff here at the ports but before we get going i would love just to update you with another friend of ours on staff and that is jd rogers many of you know j.d yeah many of you know jd he's our creative director here at the porch and he also teaches a lot here and today he underwent a kidney transplant surgery i think we have a picture of him it'll be up on the screen this is jd and jd gave his kidney away to a man that was in need of another friend of ours named ryan and so uh as far as we know everything went well no complications jd and ryan are recovering amen yeah and so i just want to stop and i want to pause and i want to pray for those two as they're recovering in the hospital this evening father god thank you for jd and ryan thank you god for uh the incredible news that we received as a team and now here as a porch family that um the kidney transplant went out went without any hiccups without any complications god that you were right there in the midst of it all thank you for the incredible picture of the gospel that jd self-sacrificed one of his kidney gave that away for the betterment of ryan who needed it to live that's a picture of christ sacrificing his life for us on the cross god thank you for the incredible opportunity we have to gather in this space to lift up these two i pray that you would heal them in jesus name that they would recover fully in the hospital and their story would be told for years to come and many would come to know you in a personal way and you would receive much much glory it's in christ's name we pray amen well let me start out by taking you back to our childhood okay everyone loves to reminisce maybe of your childhood maybe good memories or bad memories one of the memories for me specifically uh that i would do in my childhood uh was play musical chairs anyone any musical man we got some musical chairs fans in the house yeah so this idea of musical chairs is uh you have a circle of chairs and the music's playing and you have one less chair than the contestants playing in in the actual game and they're walking around the the chairs right and the music's playing in the background and then all of a sudden the music stops and they got to find a seat as quick as possible and so i thought maybe we should just play musical chairs tonight would that be fun yeah so hey i got i got a few contestants don't y'all come on out here tonight come on out here contestants uh these are some of uh the contestants tonight y'all give it up for them also known as our porch leaders in the porch black shirt that we know to be a leadership shirt so we are thankful for y'all are y'all ready to play musical chairs yeah y'all ready okay you all ready all right let's have some fun hit the music gotta keep walking maybe a little dancing [Music] okay [Music] whoa whoa boy you like [Applause] well we like we like break an ankle up here oh come here come here come here come here are you i think he was just trying to be respectful wouldn't you say yeah y'all give it up for my man what's your name david david you're giving up for david right here he's just trying to be respectful the ladies so so what what's going on man you're left here all alone without a chair i didn't i knew i didn't like musical chairs as a kid yeah obviously obviously right how do you feel right now kind of alone you know some would say i'm single up here he says alone and single up here all right y'all give it up for the contestants that found the chair y'all can head off stage and take your chair back because you have a chair to take but you on the other hand you don't have a chair to take bro you're all alone so here's here's the deal david david here's here's why i start there tonight because how you feel in this moment playing musical chairs is how i felt for 29 years of my life that i feared one of my greatest fears that i was going to be all alone the music was going to stop and i was going to be single without a chair or in this case without a girlfriend a boyfriend or a future spouse to marry all right y'all give it up for my man david how he felt in that moment how he uh you know kind of got left out or like he really you know lovingly gave his chair to the to the woman right to the lady is is uh is a picture in some way of of my singleness for 29 years of my life that that i come into this place and i'm reminisce about my childhood and in those moments of your childhood you're like man i'm all alone i'm without a chair and and everyone's looking at me and everyone's sitting and everyone's comfortable and but then fast forward 20 years of my life my greatest fear is that i would be without a seat in my late 20s that i would be the token single person that life would go on and i'd miss my moment to find my chair you know and and i would be 45 and all alone with no one to date or marry and the worst part about that is like man you get left out right and you're watching everyone found their chair and and uh you're you're seeing them you know sit there and they're having a good time they're hanging out and and and the music you know we all know the music begins to play again and i and i was thinking about myself at 29 watching the people around me go on dates and have fun and dancing to the music and about to get married and and it left me in a position where did you did you miss out god like did you forget about me did i miss out on my moment see that was my story it might be some of your stories tonight everyone around me was getting married except for me every roommate i had ever had got married or was on the verge of getting married they were engaged except for me i found myself at 29 almost 30 years old laying in bed one night and just kind of doing that ugly cry like okay god like what would you i'm so fed up with this singleness i don't want anything to do with it anymore god would you just take it away and this might be some of you tonight this this might be some of your story like right now your friends maybe your your roommates are dating and maybe they're engaged or maybe they're even married and you're asking god god what about me have i missed my moment you're starting to believe lies from the enemy like you're single because you're just not fit enough you're too fat or you're too skinny or you're single because you got them daddy wounds right and you can't trust anybody or you're single because you're full of anxiety and you're the anxious person who has a hard time being around other people and people don't even really like being around you you're single because you're not rich enough or cool enough or maybe you're believing the lie of man i'm single because all the good guys and all the good girls i mean they're already taken whispers from the enemy lies from the enemy and tonight my hope is that over the next few minutes that you would see three truths from god's word about our singleness that i would want you to see that your singleness is a gift that we're single for a reason and many of you will be relieved to know that you only be single for a season and my hope tonight is that you wouldn't believe that god is trying to hold out on you or god's trying to rip you off or god's trying to give you something that's second best but that you would see that you are a gift to the kingdom and your gift to the church right where you are in your singleness you're not any less than a person if you're single or dating or even married we're going to be in first corinthians seven tonight if you have your bibles you can open it up to first corinthians seven if i could sum up this book in one statement it'd be like the church gone wild i mean they're doing some crazy stuff y'all should read first corinthians at some point like one one dude is like sleeping with his mom like i mean it like it's crazy like they're full of prostitution sex drunkenness idols division like men are going out with prostitutes like people are going into the church and getting drunk at communion like they're even trying to find the party in the church like it's some crazy stuff going on there and paul this guy who's been radically changed by god who used to persecute christians this guy named paul has a heavy task that god has given him in writing to this church in corinth to the believers in corinth pertaining to these issues not only to the church in corinth but 2 000 years later right here at the porch dallas and all across the nation so tonight we're going to address the question it's the question that paul addressed back then in first corinthians 7 why are you single why are you single starting in verse six this is what paul says he says i say this as a concession not as a command so this is not something like this isn't like a command from god but this is just like something that maybe you would yield to because it's good wisdom okay what is he about to say that it's not a command but it's maybe just good advice he says in verse 7 but i wish everyone were single just as i am paul that's not what i wanted to hear okay like that's the last thing i wanted to hear bro he goes on and says and yet each person has a special gift from god of one kind or another in other words you're single that's a gift you're married that's a gift so i say to those who aren't married and to widows it is better to stay unmarried just as i am so again whether you're married or you're single god's got a gift he sees this as a gift at first point if you're taking notes tonight is singleness is a gift singleness is a gift and you're probably like rolling your eyes right now and saying like i don't want to hear that singleness is a gift josiah but here if i'm going to accurately teach the text i got to share this okay so stay with me those of you that are rolling and don't want to hear anymore right out of the gate paul hits us with this simple but profound truth that he has a gift and that gift is singleness now the the word in greek for gift is charisma it's where we get the english word charity it literally is translated grace from god and so he's like matt josiah have you not heard like i don't want you to talk to me about my singleness being grace from god it feels nothing like grace it feels like a curse bro like come on but as paul continues he's he's he's trying to point out that there's a gift here and he's going to elaborate on it in the in the rest of the verses why he would say that this is a gift but before we get there i know this is hard like let me just empathize with you for a second i know this is hard for you to hear because many of us if statistics are right barnard would say barnard research group would say 96 of singles long to be married at some point so there's only about four percent that just say hey i i don't want a significant other let me ask you have you ever received a gift that you didn't want in just a few short weeks i couldn't believe it like i think it's like i mean christmas is right around the corner i mean i know i don't want to skip thanksgiving right but christmas is right around the corner in just a few short weeks we're going to be celebrating christmas last week our porch staff last week last year our port staff got together we had a party with some of our team leads that served here at the porch and um we had a white elephant gift exchange ever done one of those yeah so we we go around and we draw numbers and i kind of had the tail end i was like nine or ten and man my time finally came where i was gonna find my gift and i was gonna unpack it and lo and behold i grabbed my gift and i unpack it and it's a it's a mouse y'all like like it's a mouse like i don't i don't do rodents much less a mouse a pet mouse and i'm i'm looking at the person that gave it i'm like you gave this like i'm starting to question your integrity i'm trying to question your uh you know just i'm starting to well question whether i can trust you and you're a leader at the porch and the whole time i was just like man this is gross y'all man this is now i'm not taking this home man like i will pay you to take it back like i will give you money like i'm bargaining i'm like hey this is a pet mouth it's kind of cool i mean there's something i think you could do with it maybe you can feed it to your pet snake right because that's about all it's good for right amen yeah i don't know any people that like pet mouth my mouse like i can't even say it it's like get get that out of my language but but the reason why i share that with you is because that's a picture of some of you and what you do with your singleness you're like man it's gross like i don't want to talk about that's like the dirty word in the church that we talk about sometimes when there's dating series like i don't want nothing to do with that like i'm trying to give it away like i'm trying to lose it not use it like i will pay some people to take my singleness some of you conniving right now is like what can i do like get rid of my singleness right and i think this is just a picture of sometimes what we do with our singleness and the entire time god is saying hey singleness is a gift and you're called the steward to get this gift but now there's there's another group of people that came into the room tonight and let me talk to this group for a second there's people mainly men that came into this group this room tonight and you're like man i i don't know what you're talking about just i love my singleness like it's awesome and and you don't love it because you can serve god more you don't love it so that you can um you know make much of his name you love it because you can make some you know much of your name and and you're abusing your singleness at the expense of women amen like you're you're dragging their hearts to the mud you're going from one woman to a next and you're preying on the women that come here to the porch like you know some bible verses but you use those bible verses to manipulate women to get what you want you know what i'm saying oh now i'm meddling or you got a bible or you even got a bible and you carry that bible with you you got that cross necklace that you wear around your neck and you know what the bible would say about you is that you're a wolf in sheep's clothing i'm not done i'm not done [Music] and let me tell you something we see you and we train up our leaders to see you and we will find you and we will expose you and let me tell you something ladies let me hit you for a second let me let me hit you for a second listen ladies ladies ladies just because he calls himself a christian doesn't mean he's a christian just because he knows a few verses or carries the bible he got a cross tattoo of john 3 16 even i'm just trying to keep it real is that okay tonight doesn't mean that he's authentic man he's a wolf and and and so what do you do that you you you observe him over the over a period of time and because here's what i know the greatest test is time that you would observe someone you would watch them in circles of friends or people and you would see what they do because hey listen they might be able to front you for a season but they can't front forever and you ask you check the resources you you check you know you know the people around him you ask about the person the greatest test this time sorry i digressed some of you are asking josiah how do i know if i have the gift of singleness this is how you know if you have to get to sing with us did you walk in here single you got the gift of singleness congratulations i can always count on this guy every week to just keep it keep it light and keep it fun but but here's the deal like listen listen i know that sounds harsh but but but what do we do with any gift you have athleticism you have good looks you have you know success in corporate you steward that gift for the glory of god you take that gift and you tell that gift the passion the passion is that you are created in the image of god to bear his image that you would make much of his name and anything you do or anything he's entrusted you with and you're like man i don't want to be entrusted with singleness do you think i want to be entrusted with singleness at 29 years old no i didn't but i couldn't shake this passage i couldn't shake first corinthians 7 when paul is sitting here trying the best again through the spirit of god and saying hey your singleness is a gift now that's from god the whole hey i wish you were single as i that's not a command that's just paul just you know saying hey i i think it'd be good for you to be single and he's about to tell us why but what do you do when you've been given a gift you steward it for the glory of god for the good of others and when you do that you will find much much joy i hope you'll see that tonight just this past week i was talking to some new friends on staff that we just hired becca and alexia and uh yeah they're awesome awesome women of god but what what's so cool i was getting to know their story and they went on to say becca was from florida and she had family and she had friends there and she was about to take a job in in corporate making six figures and she came here to be a content coordinator a content uh you know person that that that really knows how to organize what you see on social media and plan things and just she's got incredible gifts but she was gonna make six figures doing something along those lines and god arrested her hard and said hey i i think i'm calling you to pick up your comfort and your convenience and you know what you would have in florida and i'm calling you to leave all of that to come to dallas a place she said she's never about my brother you've been to dallas before we got to get you out right but but uh but no she's like florida's the best cool i trust that but but but but she left and i was thinking to myself is she any less complete she happened to be single too alexia she went came from from seattle washington i looked it up 30 plus hours over 2000 miles to come on staff and be a graphic designer videographer content creator what you see [Music] you're going to be seeing some incredible work on social media for the glory of god and i'm like man i look at these women i'm like goodness great like are they any less complete because they're single no if anything they're they might even be more complete they're doing things like maybe i could never have done as now a married man and uh and just pick up and leave they're they're not distracted by a husband or in desperate need of one if the lord entrusts them with that that's what they said the lord entrusted them with one and they would steward that gift but i was just so impressed like listening to their story and watching how they were hearing from god and pursuing him and they made the decision to come on staff and to leverage their gifts for the glory of god what are they doing man they're choosing to use their singleness as a gift not trying to lose it but to use it tonight let me ask you something do you see your singleness as a gift to use or a gift to lose do you see that god in all of his sovereignty has put you in dallas texas that the job you have and the apartment complex you live in the neighborhood that you're in the cubicle that you office at so that you would make much of him in these years that you might never get back called your singleness singleness is a gift point number two if you're taking notes singleness for a reason singleness for a reason he says this paul 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 an unmarried man or betrothed woman is anxious about the 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 verse 35 i say this for your own benefit not to put restraint on you i'm not trying to restrict you from getting married but i'm just trying to let you know ahead of time i'm trying to give you a greater vision of your singleness a greater vision of of a future that would affect your present reality like many of you did you hear me you're gonna probably get married we're gonna get there here in a second but you have this this this moment in your life you have this period of time that you can use or you're gonna be less distracted and so he goes on and says i say this for your benefit not to put restrictions on you but to promote what is appropriate and i love this last part and to secure undistracted devotion to the lord i want you to do whatever will help you serve the lord the best with as few distractions as possible see god is purposeful in all if he and all that he does don't miss this you're single for a reason you know what that reason is so you can focus on jesus with minimal distractions as possible like like here's where this oh this this married thing comes into play and you're like oh here's a married guy let me just tell you about his last 24 hours speaking of myself okay uh yesterday i woke up yesterday i woke up and uh it's my wife's birthday her name's kathy and you know we just had an incredible uh morning woke up early because i went off to write this message but here we are on the gram celebrating uh uh 37 years of life right and uh this is my family camille the oldest and then um isabella she's three camille's four and i have little caleb right there seven months and then our babysitter she came by to give a coffee so i was like jump into the picture let's go but but you know that was probably the the one shining spot light of the whole day i went off to write my message and shortly into my message i get a text from my sister saying hey mom's gotten in a car accident on highway 30 she got rear-ended and the guy doesn't have insurance so i'm like all right here we go uh what do we do for here let me help my mom's single parents divorce when i was young so makes things complicated go back to writing make sure mom's okay go back to writing then i get a text from my wife she's like oh josiah i don't know what to do kids are acting crazy they're hitting each other they're screaming you know you know one of them scratched we got blood pouring out i mean just like what's going on you're gonna have to give spankings when they come home i'm like all right go back to writing wrap up the writing no joke y'all i walk into my house my little girl three years old is literally crying all over the floor flailing her arms can't stop my wife's got the seven month old caleb and she's like hey just to remind you we're leading the bible study tonight for newly married who plans a bible study for newly married on their wife's birthday now i feel like i'm the best husband in the world right now i'm being i mean like i didn't even see that coming and she's like why would you do that i'm like i don't know i should have said something i should have raised my hand and then she's like hey we don't even have dinner made so i'm gonna go get dinner i'm gonna get taken i'm like all right go she gives me my seven-month-old caleb at that time he projectile vomits all over the floor and i'm just like man i'm i can't even be mad that's impressive i didn't know that much bodily fluid body fluid could come out of a seven month old about that time i get a call from one of our porch leaders and i'm like i'm just gonna facetime this so he can just see all the chaos you know what i'm saying like i gotta give spankings i gotta clean up vomit i got scratches i got you know i gotta break up fights so we facetime i'm like hey what's up kyle this is what's going on bro i'm like hey man what are you doing he's like oh bro man i'm hanging out my roommate we're getting some food we're about to watch the cowboys game i said great man have a nice night enjoy your singleness hung up the phone you kidding me bro listen man i don't i'm done but but lis le lis i don't say that for sympathy i really don't i say that because of what the text is what paul is trying to communicate through the spirit of god in this text i share this because paul what paul is saying is true like you don't have less problems in marriage you have more problems more stressors more anxieties more things to worry about and i think what he's trying to communicate is when you get married you just double your problems like there's single problems and i don't want to minimize that's what the the that's what's hard in this room i know there's hard things that y'all going through i'm not trying to minimize your problems you have incredibly difficult stressors in your life right now and we want to minister to those but what i want to communicate in the most loving careful way possible is notice how i didn't post any of those stressors on our on my gram oh here's throw up here's blood like i'm trying to communicate in the same way that paul is that paul is saying hey marriage doesn't fix your problems only adds to your problems god is trying to convince you of something that i know is really hard to believe because it was for me when i heard this in my mid-20s nearing the end of my 20s there are problems in singleness and there's problems in marriage it's a good thing but you're choosing to double them i'm not trying to talk you out of marriage but i am trying to expose it the text i'm trying to be faithful to what god's word has to say in first corinthians seven and he's saying hey you have a season of life that i'm placing you in where you're gonna have minimal distractions or you're gonna have less distractions you're gonna have less problems you're gonna have less stressors than you'll ever have before in your life and hearing all this some of you are like man i i get that you have more problems but i'd rather trade my problems for your problems josiah like at least you got a companion and all at least you get to have sex you know what i'm saying look at them kids but but here's the reality we just got real and they're all under five yeah uh but here's the reality you might say hey i'd rather have your problems i'd rather trade your problems for my problems but here's the reality you can't so why wouldn't you use this single the season of singleness that god's got you in for an incredible way of of saying god i want to make much of you i want to use the extra time i want to use the extra income i want to use the the the the gifts that you've given me and i want to leverage those for your glory why would you not try to do that during this time of singleness like you see before christ like i wasted so many years of my singleness like i wish i could stand up here and and authentically say man i leveraged it all man i went all in but the truth is i wasted all of my college years pretty much chasing the party chasing one relationship after another i was the pro the the the man praying not women i was that guy i was the porn addict i was thinking i was gonna find fulfillment and rest in my sport that i played and the fame that i got and the affirmation that i received and it came to a screeching halt one night my sin was ruling my life and finally caught up with me i chased all these things even pornography for a decade of my life for a cheap thrill and a fill that only led to greater levels of anxiety and depression alcohol was my escape and i'd become i began to be so unsatisfied and unfulfilled with those things and i always tell people hey you won't really see your need for christ until you see how wicked your sin is in light of a holy god a perfect god like some of you come into this place and you just justify your sin and you're like oh i'm good man like i got god here on tuesdays but then every other day man i'm just doing what i want to do but i'll give them a little bit on tuesday night and you're miserable man deep down inside you're miserable because you can't have the world in christ at the same time they're they're too competing they're oppositions you can have jesus of the world but you can't have both and i realized for the first time my eyes were open to the fact that jesus got what i deserved on the cross and i got what he deserved death thankfully the lord captured my heart at the end of college and i began to give my life away and that's really when i began to find life i almost left the game that i loved for so many years baseball and god said no no you take that game and you tell that game your passion your passion is me see god loves passions he's not against your passions he's not against your desires but you need to start telling your passions its purpose your purpose is christ your purpose is to make him known in any and everything you do so can i can i charge you for a second like in this season that god's got you like you're single for a reason because he says hey you you can go you can move halfway across the country if god's calling you to take a job you can go on a mission trip and go to share the gospel with people that have never heard the name of jesus like tomorrow morning when you get into that office like you should try to lose your job for sharing the gospel of jesus christ with people that don't know him like you should get plugged in i mean plugged into the local church like you should submit yourself under the authority of the elders and say hey i'm going all in i'm changing my playground and my playmates enough of this i'm tired of going and hanging out on the same playgrounds like i am going to find men that love jesus i'm going to go find women like i'm telling you these women i'm going to find them and they're going to be women that go all in and they're not just going to have one foot in the world and one foot in the church god's got that for you tonight you know that god's speaking to you tonight and he's saying hey don't waste these years that i'm going to give you that you bring glory to my kingdom that you would live for another kingdom that you wouldn't treat god as something that you just add onto your life but you would treat him as the biggest thing in your life man could i tell you about a guy named named kyle i'm close to him he serves here at the porch he went to smu played football chasing every thing underneath the sun god radically changed his heart god flipped it upside down he was chasing corporate wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 30 and god just said hey no no you're gonna i i know that's a passion there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself but hey you can't even be a christian right now because you're allowing that to consume you and he begins to he began to change kyle's heart and now he's leading a team here at the porch every single week right down here it's called the sidewalk team they share the gospel with people they pray with people right after service can i tell you about a woman named melissa who had an abortion that's part of her story and she's leading a team out in the town center the lobby every week here at the porch like your past doesn't have to define you because jesus says hey i can define you now melissa is an incredible example of a girl that went all in with everything underneath the sun only to find greater levels of anxiety and depression and listen like some of you tonight like you're going to get creative like you're going to go out of here and you're going to be like yeah man i'm going to go all in like i'm going to i'm going to sign up for a community group i'm going to be a member of a church i'm going to equip disciple i'm going to leverage these years i'm going all in i'm going to figure out how to share the message of christ in the most tactful way possible and i am going in all in and you're going to get creative in how you can bring god's name to your office others of you man you're going to leave this room tonight tomorrow's going to come and you're going to waste your singleness by focusing all the attention on you you're going to impulse buy clothes or another trinket that you really can't afford you're gonna go out and binge eat because that's your life you feel like your life is out of control and that's the only thing that you can control you're gonna binge watch netflix so you're gonna binge watch bravo and real housewives nothing against that right but it's consuming you and you're living in some fantasy world you're going to do these things thinking that they're going to give you life and they're just leading to emptiness like you men like you're going to pull up a two-dimensional image tonight on your phone because it's your only escape you think i thought that that was a lie i believed it's your only escape of of leaving the pain of loneliness and it might feel good in the moment but you're not it's not doing anything for you it's leading to emptiness and you know it you lay in bed at night saying is this all that there is is this it and god's trying to give you a perspective tonight unless you see a different perspective unless you see that hey there's more to this life than what you're doing now listen you are going to die a miserable person why do you think l.a hollywood is the most miserable place on the earth come on you know that it's fake bro see your singleness as a gift see your singleness for a reason and third and final point tonight is this see your singleness for a season like if you didn't know most of you will be relieved to know that your singleness has an expiration date so you can exhale now demographers is that how you say that demography yeah project that 80 of americans will be married at some point in their lives and i know what you're thinking i'm going to be the 20 get that negative feedback out of here right just get it out of here brides.com said according to 2018 statistic the average age at which women get married is almost 28. there's hope for some the average age is 29 in my case it was 31. if most of us see um singleness for a season which i hope you do hope that gives hope then what should you do in this season can i challenge you with two things and then we'll close the same thing that i was challenged with is that you would see this season where you would choose two things there's a lot of other things you can choose but you would choose contentment and you would choose purity here's why i say that let me talk about content first philippians 4 11-13 same guy paul says this and he says i found the secret to contentment look what he says not that i was ever in need i've learned how to be content with whatever i have whether i whether i know how to live on almost nothing or with everything i've learned the secret of living in every situation whether it's on a full stomach or empty with plenty or little listen this i know this is a coffee cup verse it's a tattoo verse but here don't miss it for i can do everything through christ who gives me strength you can replace that word strength with satisfaction i can do everything through christ who satisfies me who gives me contentment paul's saying hey i've learned the secret to contentment and it's by me learning how to build contentment in christ and you know some of us man we take this verse and we we tack it on to what selfish gain and you know in the context of this passage he's talking about contentment he's not talking about your bench press he's not talking about you you know making a million dollars by the time you're 30 he's not talking about you getting a spouse or getting a girlfriend or going on a date or not being single the next valentine's day that comes along he's talking about can he's like i've learned the secret of facing little or abounding in having everything you know what the secret is putting my faith in jesus putting my my my trust in him why is being content so important in your singleness because here's what i know where there's a lack of contentment there's a lack of conviction and where there's a lack of conviction there's always a willingness to settle for less than god's best some of you tonight listen some of you tonight you're settling for less than god's best you're dating that person that you know you shouldn't date you're you're going on these dates with guys that man they chris profiles they're saying that they're christian but you know they're far from it like you're settling the conviction is a belief when there's a lack of contentment in our life there's a lack of belief there's a lack of trust in god and where there's a lack of trust in god you're always going to be willing to settle for less than his best and i don't want that for you porch i don't want that for you tonight i want you to experience all that god would have for you the lies jesus isn't enough and and that's such a lie so the question begs tonight is how do we build contentment listen we build contentment by actually living out our faith like i just implored you in the last truth like some of us man we're not living out our faith you wake up and you don't spend time with god you don't talk to god you don't get in his word you don't allow this to wash over you don't allow this to renew your mind how do you expect to build contentment in your life when this isn't true how do you build contentment you read man you study the bible you get with men and women that love jesus you follow someone who's following christ find the most godliest man a godliest woman say hey will you mentor me will you disciple me can i learn from you that's what i did when i was 20 2 years old after i came to know jesus you confess sin you pursue healing from addiction some of us tonight then we have to go to regen like it's a recovery ministry i'm thinking about going through it next year when i can free up some time when i'm not a man of divided heart i wish i could do it now monday nights every monday night there's about a thousand people that show up here and we all got issues we all got baggage we all got things that we need to work through and the healthiest thing that you could do right now in your singleness is to get healthy is to learn what it looks like to confess in to pursue christ to flee sexual immorality drunkenness drugs that anything that would take your eyes off of jesus philip zimbardo i love this chair of the western psychological foundation he wrote a book called the demise of guys so you listen up man we reported that the average guy by the time they're 21 has spent 10 000 hours playing video games 10 000 hours it takes half that time to earn a bachelor's degree listen it's not about video games i don't care if you don't play video i don't go play video games but if it's consume in your life then i wonder if you're missing a bigger purpose the world is on fire men you understand like it's burning all around us crippling levels of poverty injustice is taking place addiction all over this country and you're sitting behind a screen twiddling your thumbs thinking that you're gonna find purpose and satisfaction and beating some silly game sex slavery god is looking for men to step up and to run to the fire and say i got hope his name is jesus where are the men stand up let's go the time is now right now in our singleness could it be that we're discontent because the things of christ are not really true in your life could it be that the reason why you go to bed you you you you you're miserable you're because you're the weakened warrior the porn you're the tender hookups or the workaholic you're uncommitted relationship you're playing house with your girlfriend you're half-heartedly doing this church thing could it be that you're not it's because you're not all in tonight's the night jesus wants to build contentment because he knows if you don't ever learn to be content in him then if you were to get married your spouse is going to let you down man spouses make miserable saviors like i wish i could say i meet every one of my wife's expectations i wish you could say that right but it's not true man and so what do you do what do others do when spouses don't meet their expectations they run to some drug they run to some strip club they run to some illegitimate relationship why do you think the divorce rate is on all-time high because men and women haven't learned to be content in their creator amen lastly choose purity why pursue purity why pursue purity because here's why i say this you have a sexual desire now you know that the lord doesn't want you to express it right now in in a way that wouldn't would go against a committed relationship where he says hey don't go outside of a committed relationship with your spouse and so you have this desire and you're basically saying hey i don't care what god says so that when i have this desire i'm gonna i'm gonna act on this sexual desire at will let me tell you something you're gonna have sexual desires for other men and women after you get married i wish i could say that wasn't true but on this side of marriage it's it's true and so what is god trying to do he wants you to pursue purity now so that you can have patience and self-control later in your marriage so that when you do have a sexual desire for someone else who's not your wife that you have what have you done you've built patience and self-control so that you can say no to those desires after you get married and so that you can be a one-woman man and a one-man woman amen and so god is not trying to rip you off he's not trying to hold out on you pursue purity because it's worth it he's trying to give you a a and he wants to give you more trust in your relationships so many relationships so many people are i meet with they don't have trust they gotta track their spouse they don't even let their spouse hang out with the boys or the girls don't even can't even go out with the girls because they're thinking what are you doing because they're not giving them any reason to believe that any that anything's different god is a god of purpose he loves you he's created you i'm so thankful for my season of singleness and the contentment and the purity that god grew and i can stand up here tonight saying that man i've been faithful to my wife in the midst of temptation in the midst of not being content in season of seasons of our marriage because god did something in that season of singleness tonight is the night where you begin to build that right guys i know um like i told you earlier man it was a long singing season of singleness for me and i did i did things that man i wasn't proud of my life wasn't content in jesus alone and i didn't pursue purity i did the things that i felt were right like porn filled my lonely nights sexual relationships after one another left me empty like partying i mean all those things right and i kept saying to myself who would want this who would want this this person full of baggage who would want me full of sin and self and and and that's when the gospel came alive in my life and and i began to realize that jesus wants this jesus wants me that's the whole purpose of the gospel that he became sin he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of christ so that we might be granted forgiveness and be in a right standing with him because of what he's done for us on the cross he wants you so if you're thinking that tonight feel like who would want this who'd want this baggage there's hope the good news of jesus christ god sent jesus to do the impossible it's the greatest love story that has ever been written that he died on a criminal's cross for you and me that we wouldn't be punished for our sins but that jesus would be punished in our place in closing i uh i celebrated my first valentine's day with my wife kathy back in 2013. she lived in addison we actually came to the porch we actually sat right back there um behind the sound booth hollow at my my section back there and uh i had this like creative idea you know this idea that um was uh romantic but had like a spiritual twist to it right and we were doing like the long distance thing i lived like two hours away and i'm like hey whatever for you baby i'm all in and uh and she was like ah let's just celebrate valentine's day and the weekend i'm like no no i don't i'm i'm i'm not doing that yeah i've i've fallen for that trick before right and so uh and so i showed up at her apartment at addison with one rose and i had it behind my back and she opened the door and uh and i said here baby kathy i'm giving you this rose because that's what they do at the bat on the bachelor i didn't say that i said i'm giving you this rose baby not because i'm cheap because you're worth a dozen roses but i'm giving you this rose as a symbol that every time you look at this rose that god is calling you and i to be the one before we ever know if we're the one for each other and so i want you to have this rose and i want you to look at it every day because the most tragic thing that we could do as we continue to pursue each other in this relationship is we get consumed with marriage or we get consumed with engagement or we get consumed with these things that really don't matter at the end of the day apart from becoming the one i mean they do but if you're not becoming the one it doesn't really matter and what i mean what i mean by becoming the one is becoming god's man the things that we talked about tonight becoming god's woman i've tried the other way babe i don't want to go back i don't want to fall into sexual immorality i don't want to do the things that the world does it's a trap man it always over promises but it under delivers so i'm giving you this one rose as a symbol of every time you look at this i want you to remember that god is calling us to be fixated on becoming the one that he wants us to be to become his man to become his woman because here's what i know if we if we take our crosshairs off of becoming the one then nothing else matters marriage doesn't matter engagement doesn't matter having kids doesn't matter living life together doesn't matter and here's what i know if we don't get married then we leave each other better than when we found each other which wow that would be a crazy phenomenon if we actually dated that way right but that's how god's meant to date that's how god's woman date and and and we're gonna know quickly if if if we focus on becoming the one if we're called to get married or not or we're going to know quickly because the spirit of god is going to tell us that hey this isn't right we need to break up and so tonight could i charge you with the same we've we've elevated marriage sometimes so much in the church that's made you singles feel like outcasted like you don't matter that's not the end goal the end goal is to love the lord your god with all your heart all your mind all your soul the end goal is to seek first the kingdom of god in his righteousness and he says these things will be given to you now i'm not promising you he's not promising you a spouse but he is promising you a life of fulfillment a life of purpose a life of satisfaction a life of contentment and so i share that story with you tonight not to brag not to say look at me because god knows i've gotten it wrong before but i share that story with you because it's a redemption story and you can that same redemption is offered to you i share that story because the most tragic thing that you could do tonight is walk out of these doors and focus on the wrong thing but i promise you that if you focus on becoming the one that if you understand that god is calling you to be the one if you focus on being god's man that you'll never be mad you'll never be mad at god you'll never be dissatisfied sure there might be some lonely moments but god is going to be there for you you will never be alone he'll never he says he'll never leave you nor forsake you that's the highest call that you could ever have and tonight i'm asking for you to take that call and make it real to your life the way you do this in singleness is to see your singleness as a gift understand the reason why you're single and for most of us in the room tonight see your singleness as it's just for a season let me pray that you would god in heaven you uh you got to do the work that i can't do lord this work that i can't do is change hearts every time i go at this every time i get up here and speak or charge a group of people there's something there's something that supernaturally has to happen for you to change lives and so i'm begging you by the spirit of god to supernaturally give my friends a vision of a preferred future that affects their present reality tonight that when they stand up and they worship that something changes something shifts in their heart and god you would be made much of in their singleness that you would get much glory whether they're single for the rest of their life or they're single only for a season that god you would allow my friends to experience an unbelievable purpose and vision for their life that would trump anything else that this world could offer for your glory in christ's name amen

Channel: The Porch

Views: 45,801

Keywords: the, porch, dallas, watermark, community, church, christian, christianity, ministry, movement, fort, worth, faith, sermon, dating, truth, bible, advice, biblical, counsel, jonathan pokluda, the porch, watermark community church, young adults, fort worth, david marvin, todd wagner, the bible

Id: uRKR1tSkmYU

Length: 59min 37sec (3577 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021