well Christmas for my family growing up always involved a lot of travel we would wake up Christmas morning at Mom's house and then we would drive to Beeville Texas to go see country grandma and then we would drive to San Antonio to go visit city grandma we called it the love triangle just driving around Texas and the best gifts were always at Mom's house as for santa came the president said country grandma's house were always weird there were things like a white sweater with a big deer on it stuff like that and then city grandma i got way better toys electronics stuff like that except for one year when it all got flipped and we showed up a country grandma's house and she gave me a slingshot and I don't mean like a little wooden one with a rubber band this thing was made of titanium had the drop-down forearm for maximum leverage surgical tubing for the sling it came with a package of steel balls pictures on the package of the small woodland creatures they expected you to kill with this device and as a little kid when I got this of like it's not even real I looked at my brother's like put the sweater on let's go and we ran outside this thing would break fence sport it was incredible right and so when we left they were like that was unbelievable country grandma's rolling out what's about to happen at City this Christmas gonna be next level so you can imagine our surprise when we got there and she handed each of us an envelope and opened it and it said on this little piece of paper you are now the proud owner of a hundred shares of such-and-such stock which I think all the adults could see we were a bit confused by this and so they start trying to explain it they're like see stock is like money but you can't spend it but maybe it'll be more money later and we're like we are we all hope so don't we like what what what is why are you wasting my time we left very disappointed fast forward a couple months later I'm out in the backyard playing with my friends my brother was grounded in his room a common experience for him but out of his bedroom window suddenly Penny's starts snapping by my ears and apparently he had gotten holds my slingshot and what I'm connected in a penny cut my arm like literally money is making me bleed right and he got in trouble again my mom confiscated the slingshot gave it to me I went to go break some fence boards to kind of air out my frustration and so I went to snap it back surgical tubing broke whip the other arm to blood there and saws back there going oh my god and this thing that was supposed to bring so much joy brought me nothing but sadness and pain sauce for like 20 years later and I get to fulfill a dream of mine of going to seminary to get to study the Word of God and I show up at seminary and I remember I walked in to the Student Center and the kind of guide that was walking me around led me in and there was this table filled with bread and I just said to him oh man that's so cool I didn't realize we like distributed bread in the community here and he was like community said no this for seminary students he's like this school is expensive these kids can't afford bread and as soon as he says that kids are like diving on the table shoving bread there backpack and ripping them open and into their face and I'm just like wow like watching them all just attack this white bread and I was like that's crazy and then I went to the financial aid office and everybody's stressed they're all like donating plasma like please Lord I'm like just mountains of debt and so I pulled out my little portfolio and after 20 good years this stock helped pay for my seminary education and he who was once less than blessed was now sing in the praise a country or city grandma right now why tell you that for this reason what we want is not always what's best for us and what's best for us we don't always desire or appreciate and some gifts are just more welcomed than others why did a seven-year-old not appreciate stock ignorance I didn't know what it was and it took someone loving and wise to give me a gift even though they knew I wouldn't appreciate it at the time so why am I saying all this because in the passage we just read Paul called singleness a gift did you see that he said in first Corinthians seven seven I wish all men were even as I myself am meaning unmarried however each man has his own gift from God one in this manner another in that he calls singleness a gift from God which I know for many of us that's not really a gift we want it's like oh you got me some would singleness thanks dad like that's not really what I was looking for right why would he do that if my desire is to be married well let me say this if we believe anything this book says about God were something here do some of us don't but but we're here studying this together so if we believe anything in here it says that God is the fountain of all love and of all wisdom and so what that means is the scripture says he works all things according to the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose who works all things according to counsel of his will and so what that means is when he gives us something he is loving and wise and good and doing so and that means when he gives us singleness even if we may not want it there may be something loving and wise to that and so for some of us I just want to challenge even your your picture of God today do you trust him but the season he's put you in as much as you can't appreciate it now just might be good and yet I think it's fair to ask the question why why would a loving God give some of us the gift of singleness when we want to be married why would he do that and verse 35 gave us the answer he says in verse 35 I say this for your own benefit he says this is for your good and then he says not to put a restraint on you literally not to throw a rope around your neck he says some of you are single and want to be married but I'm not saying this to hurt you God's not trying to trick you he's not like let's have the two of them show up at a train station in London and then one get on and just miss each other like that's not God he's not trying to hurt you this isn't something where he's being cruel and you guys and why is he doing it and the text says to promote what is appropriate and to secure an undistracted devotion to the Lord now I don't want you to miss that God has ordained every human being to live in a single season of singleness on this planet every single one of us will come under the worst world that way and we'll spend decades that way some longer than others but God's ordained this season for everybody and there is purpose to it and this text just told us what it is and told us two things number one it said it's to promote what is appropriate what does that mean well we say something's appropriate what makes a thing appropriate it's when it fits the context it's a well-played well-executed response to a given moment we would call something inappropriate when it doesn't match the context like wearing a swimsuit to a wedding is there anything wrong with swimsuits no swimsuit to a wedding inappropriate why it doesn't match the moment there are things I can say to my wife in complimenting her that would be good and life-giving and rich and right to say as her husband but if one of you guys said the same things to her we got a fight inappropriate doesn't match the context so he's saying God has ordained that we all live in a season of singleness why because he wants us to have a worldview and a lifestyle that fits the moment we're in in history that God wants to champion a way of thinking and a way of living in all of us and so he will give all of us a season a single to cement that given the context we live in which raises the a million-dollar question what's the context we live in and he said it a few verses earlier in verse 29 which we didn't read he says this is what I mean brothers the appointed time has grown very short from now on let those who have have wives live as though they had none and those who mourn as though they were not mourning and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing and those who buy as though they had no Goods and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings for the present form of this world is passing away now there's a lot going on in there that I won't unpack but he's not saying ditch your spouse or quit your job what he's saying is these things are very important to us romance career these things they matter but not they're not the ultimate storyline of life he says these things matter but they're not the center of the target of what your life's meant to be about and so don't fixate on them because they're not the essential narrative of this story that we're living in and you go okay what does he mean there well if you took the Bible and you just said let's pull out all that it says about singleness and dating and marriage the Bible speaks to that because it speaks to all of life and cares about all these things about us and so you have the longest chapter in Genesis in Genesis 24 but how to find a wife and and then maybe you get some proverbs and Song of Solomon and Ephesians 5 and if we took all these different passages about marriage and relationships it would probably take about I mean let's be generous with it maybe that much your Bible which for some of us that is the main story so you go oh then what is all this nonsense about what this is about is the main storyline of your life that these things matter but they're not the main story there you go then what is the main story well he says it earlier in current first Corinthians 1 he says that some of you were fornicators idolaters thieves revilers swindlers and people like that won't inherit the kingdom of God and he says in such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God what he's saying is everyone in this room and everyone in the world has had horrible things perpetrated against us the world is not what it should be there's much wrong being done in the world and Chris just pointed out a small fraction of the horrible things happening around the planet and then all of us if we look in we've done horrible things none of us are what we should be every person in here no matter how much you've attended a church is a broken person that have done things that aren't just things you're not proud of the wrong none of us are what we should be and yet God in His mercy doesn't sweep it under the rug like it's no big deal we want justice we cry out for it and so God did something about it he sent Jesus Christ to us God moved towards us in our sin not to condemn and shame but to rescue and by out to live the perfect life we could not to die the death we deserve to beat death rise from the grave so that if we put our faith in Jesus we become something new transform in our lives once alienated from God and distance which many of us feel that alienation everyday even though we don't know how to put words to it he says I want to adopt you into the family of God take you out of the chaos of life and put you into the kingdom of Jesus who loves you and as a future for you that's the main storyline that God is building a kingdom for his glory yeah that's not a few people might be excited about that yeah that's the main storyline of life and he says and all this is happening in a timetable that's grown very short then if you look at the eschatological timetable in the Bible the last thing left and the calendar is when God stops the watch and this world isn't over and those who know him get to be with him and those who don't don't and he says that's where we are in the whole calendar and here's the reality the amount of time on the clock should affect how we play the game so I remember the first time I played Madden video game right I was at a buddy's house was his console his game and he was showing me how to play it football on this thing and I was getting smoked I mean he was just crushing me right it's terrible it's not fun and yet suddenly I started making some progress and what I figured out was if I could get the ball and just get it to my fullback he would just smashed and I'd make about five yards to play and so smashed in and I made five yards smashed in first down yes smashed in five yards smashed in first down come on and I was like dude I'm finally doing this and so I'm making some progress and then suddenly the game stops now look at her I'm like what's wrong with the game man and he looked back at me he's like you were an idiot those excuse me I don't think so he was like dude it stopped because the game's over he said it was the fourth quarter with like a minute left you should have been throwing Hail Marys into the end zone instead you done these dumb little five-yard run plays up the middle what's the matter with you and I was like one thing careful with the name-calling okay and number two is I didn't know the amount of time on the clock and he said that's what makes you an idiot because the amount of time on the clock should affect how you play the game and the reality is the time is short the world's on fire there's a lot of pain out there and we have a solution we have a God who wants to change the lives of hurting people all around us and so we should care much more about the status of their soul before God than their relationship status with us and the truth is that God has ordained a season of singleness for every single one of us why because he says in Colossians all things are made by him and for him we are made for God augusten said we are restless until we find rest in thee that our souls are meant to rest in him that's where we're meant to live and the reality as many of us feel that struggle but we don't realize hey this is where we need to live our lives secure in him and so God and His mercy gives us the season where we can draw close to him you see it in the woman at the well when Jesus came to her she had had five husbands and was now living with a guy and Jesus came to her and he didn't shame her on out what her poor dating choices but what did he do he came to her and spoke about her deep thirst he said if you knew who was talking to you I would give you living water it would well up inside your soul what he was telling her as you've misdiagnosed your need he said you're going from man to man to man looking for deep satisfaction that only I can give you need to come to me first we have to get a relationship with God right before we'll ever get a relationship with a guy or a girl right and there's a lot of pain in the world when we look for a guy or a girl to do what only God can do there's a lot of pain in our country right now because we're looking for princes and princesses to do what only our King can do in our hearts and so God in His mercy in his kindness ordains a season of singleness so we can get that main relationship right because dating although it's great and not wrong at all it can be distracting many of you when we were worshiping you were singing along as I read the scriptures you read along and contemplated them when I prayed you also prayed and as I've been speaking you've been listening and assessing what I've said others of you are sitting by somebody cute that has some potential and while we were singing you were like oh my gosh there are arms distress or arms touching what does it mean and you were like Chef of arms up to worship does that show me that I'm spiritual or is it too much is it too much maybe just worn up maybe here then here here and here like I'm into it but that's you know it's not like what do I do and when it's time to read your oh my gosh do I share my Bible do I hold it out what if my arm shakes I don't know and while we're praying you're kind of checking his shoes to see if they're cool or sensible and you're kind of getting a smell of her perfume and on and on it's been going and you've been distracted that's why the Puritans used to separate the crown might they put the women over here and the men over there because if you've ever tried to listen to the Word of God preached sitting next to someone who smells fantastic it's hard it's a hard thing and it can be distracting so God in His mercy for many of us gives us a season of singleness to focus on the main thing I got to get a relationship with God right before I'll ever get a relationship with a guy or a girl right when Adam and Eve were before God there was peace and harmony vulnerability but safety you remove God from that equation and what do you see instantly in the Bible violence exploitative sex women used you see the relationships break down in ugly ways we have to get this relationship right first so God in love and in wisdom gives us a season of singleness not to fill it with distractions and not just to pursue career ambition but to pursue devotion an undistracted devotion to him and yet some of us here that near like I can be devoted in married I'll come to church with him why do I have to be single well he says in verse 32 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 Paul's advocating singleness in this text and he says I'm doing it because it provides a freedom from the anxieties and stresses of marriage that marriage is great and yet some of you read this you're like distracted by pleasing my wife Ben that's a distraction I want to be involved in but let me tell you something man there's gonna be all kinds of responsibilities that come with marriage you may be surprised you didn't want like you're gonna show up in that relationship and right now you just go to work and you come home and you crash on the couch and just let cable wash over you that's over man days are gone emember for me when I got married my wife's not a high maintenance person but as we got engaged I spent hours far more than I ever thought I would and linens and things and that Bath and Beyond and just holding up plates one which one do you like better this one this one this one this one this one or this one and I'm like okay I can't care I can't searching for I can't find it and you're gonna have to spend hours in small talk with in-laws like yeah I do love lawn care is this loam and you're gonna have to talk about that and and you have to spend so much money on like a refrigerator and things like that if a covers and throw pillows it's like how many do we need like who is this for who's making us do this and it's gonna be confusing and you're gonna come home from work and think oh I get to just collapse and watch TV nah son she's gonna sit down and say how was your day and a sweeping fine isn't gonna cut it she's gonna want details details details and then she's gonna want to share details and you're gonna have to listen with your face and go there emotionally back that would bother me too I don't know how I would feel about that and you're gonna have to keep processing like that till you die I mean look at the married men around here have you ever wondered that why they look so tired testosterone levels dropping hairs falling out that's what the research says that's it that's your future and ladies this ain't for you verse 34 says the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord how to be holy in body and spirit but the married women is anxious about worldly things how to please her husband there's gonna be all kinds of things that please your husband you're not gonna want to do there's gonna be things that his mama did for him that he just expects you to do and you're like no I'm not cleaning up after you I don't have to cook for you we do those things together and then some of you are gonna marry some guy that his level of cleanliness is not just poor it's unsafe you know I mean you're like this isn't right for a human to live like this it's not right and then what are you gonna do and then you're gonna run into something stressful at work and say I need to process this that relationship was crazy what person said was nuts I need to talk about someone this I don't know maybe my soul mate who pledged to love me forever would want to contemplate this with me and so you begin to share your heart and they just kind of look at you with their mouths open you like I don't think he understands me and let me bet you know he probably doesn't have you ever met a guy they get confused so fast and it's gonna keep happening to you and then you bring kids in the mix I had a single girl on our staff once a couple years ago asked me have you seen this show no he's in this show no have you seen this show no and she's like how have you not seen these shows and I said I have three kids under the age of seven I said I have 30 minutes of discretionary time every day with which to do what I choose I remember she responded I have like six hours I said oh I know I said I've been there and now I'm here I'm so tired it's always oh he's tired now am i a victim no I love my marriage I'm happily married and I love my kids and I'm happy to have them I chose this life right but I love to be in single and some people hear that like it's a contrast like you hate this thing no no no that's something I think the enemy does a lot is we tend to sort of amplify the benefits of some other stage and downplay its limitations and we amplify the limitations of our stage and downplay its benefits and don't do that you'll miss out on a lot of life that way the enemy does that and I don't want you to miss out on the opportunities you have now because you're pining away for the opportunities of then do you see it you have options here and I love the way Jim Elliot said it letting out our longings slay our appetite for a living and he was saying this to someone who is yearning to be married he says it's not wrong to long for that but don't let that longing slay your appetite for living you have an opportunity right now to live and you have some unique opportunities in front of you specifically as a single person namely you have freedom and time particularly as a single adult whether single on the front end of adulthood or widowed as he talks about in the text as well that you have more freedom than any other person kids don't have that kind of freedom older and older you don't either and you have time discretionary time that's not available to other people and these are things not to use to just fill with distraction or just to chase your own ambitions they are dedicated by God to pursue an undistracted devotion to him that's why they're there that you might pursue him and so I'm not anti marriage I just want you to make sure you would leverage the season you're in I love what Jim Eliot said wherever you are be all there live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God live it to the help and how do we do that well he says it in verse 32 the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord how to please the Lord 134 the unmarried woman is anxious about the things Lord how to be holy in body and spirit so let me stop there if you're single does that define your singleness an anxiety about how to please the Lord an anxiety about how to be holy does that define your single experience I would imagine for many of us in here we would say no but Paul is saying that's the point of it and so if you're missing out on that and your singleness then yes your singleness will become very frustrating it's like playing basketball without a ball it's confusing and then just stupid you're just like what is this and he says this season is to secure a devotion and if you're missing that then this will be a frustrating season and that doesn't mean you can't long for marriage but I do will say this the people I know that were the most satisfied in their singleness understood this I remember for me when I was in my 20s living in Houston I was a youth pastor single guy I decided to start taking night classes and I took one on the Gospels I just wanted to know Jesus better and as I sat there most of the people in the class were not in vocational ministry and I remember I sat by this one guy and I watched over and over again people asked him so what do you do and his reply was so interesting he would say well I sell steel for a living he said but if you're asking what I'm passionate about it's the young man that I'm entering through young life and I love that and then he would start talking about me and we've been doing this and we're studying this book of the Bible together and I'm helping him with this and I just love that that this guy was single living in the city he could have been anywhere else that night but he looked at his knights and said they're free there's no one home I gotta take care of so what am I gonna do I'm gonna learn more about Jesus no one changed history like Jesus so even if you don't believe it I'm you're like history was shaped by this man maybe I should leverage some of this time to learn what he was like and this guy did that and he said in with the rest this time I'm gonna help these high school kids because I know what it's like to be them I know what they're struggling with and I'm not just gonna walk away and go glad that's over I'm gonna help the next generation along and I saw it deeply satisfied driven God but not just driven by his career driven by a devotion it was inspiring I remember for me coming out of college in my 20s I moved to the suburbs of Houston not a lot of single people in the suburbs of Houston a single guy I think I was like one so I used to spend Friday nights walking around Walmart by myself just kind of staring to things I didn't need it's very sad as sad as it sounds and it was not easy but I was you know ministering to these middle school and high school age kids and watching this little ministry grow from one kid like 13 kids and then 20 kids and kind of watching this thing grow and I remember one day we we would meet in this middle school we'd come in and set up every week and I was coming in this back hallway the middle school kind of studying preparing for the lesson I was gonna teach the kids and this little middle school guy walked by he said walk by and I was like hey man how's it going and he said fine and I looked up and I recognized him he's one of my guys that I knew his parents had just gotten divorced and I said what do you what were you up to this weekend what's going on he said I was helping my dad move into his new place downtown I said how was that he said it's fine this is fun and I put my stuff down and I don't normally talk like this to kids but I looked at him and I said you know a man I know you're gonna be fine I know God loves you and he's got purpose for your life and I believe that I said that this situation sucks and it's okay to say it sucks and as soon as I said that this young man burst out crying and then just fell into my arms and as I held him it just occurred to me I'm like we're also seeking a couple like his parents and I knew we're not a safe place to process this anymore and and his kids his buddies have no emotional maturity to even know what to say in this moment he's got nowhere to go and everything in his heart is breaking but he's just being given this thin veneer of statements of everything's fine when he knows it's not and I remember holding this kid and just thinking about all it cost me to be single in the suburbs but I remember holding him in thanking God that however long this season lasts for me I get to leverage it to make a difference right now and I thanked God for that moment and that's what I want for you to say you know what I got freedom and I got time I don't want to pine away and wait til this season's over I want to throw that pedal down and go for it and make a difference with the freedom and this time that I've been given by God I want to maximize it and that's what you get to do with singleness this seasons going to end either by marriage or death and when I hit the end of this chapter I want to say I did it well I remember I'm medicated when I was in Venezuela young man was showing me around spoke perfect English I said where did you learn English did you go to school he said no I didn't go to school do you have a teacher no said how did you learn that he said listen to the radio said I just sat by the radio every night until I learned English fluently I was like yeah there's a guy who knows had that maximises time that's amazing learn to speak Mandarin a billion people on the planet do Spanish is number two English is 3 learn a foreign language right to fill your life up with something of value the average American spends 10,000 hours playing video games by the time they turn age 21 it takes less than half of that to earn a bachelor's degree let me say I don't care if you play video games I really don't and if you do and enjoy them that's awesome but count the hours if it's a major part of your life I would just ask you don't spend the season saving fantasy worlds while the real world is on fire because it is Chris has talked about it and the average young person in America spends seven and a half to eight hours looking at a screen every day and I would just beg you don't spend all this time watching other people's lives and not live your own because there's a world out there in need this whole city's hemorrhaging and pain and you've been given a unique season and moment and opportunity to leverage what God's given you for a devotion to him and these people you can make a difference in the world with you singleness so I remember when I first got married early in my marriage is when a tsunami hit overseas and I remember I called a buddy of mine I was like did you see this in the news he said yeah man I just booked my ticket I'm on my way because I knew him he was a single guy and it was easy for him to flex and change work and he was wherever the fabric of society is breaking in the world's hurting he would go there and use his skills he taught himself to alleviate human suffering and I was like I knew it man I knew it and I couldn't go because I was broke because I just got married I that was the first time I felt it wow that's a limitation I didn't used to have and he's going to make a difference anyway I can't he's leveraging his singleness and that's amazing so how do you do it let me just land it with this singleness is for a devotion to the Lord that word devotion in greek is accommodation two words good and beside get really good and being close beside the lord that's what this singleness is for and what i love about that is it carries kind of an active and a passive sense like think like a waiter a waiter a good waiter is attentive what does that mean it means they're attentive to your words they're listening to what you want and they're attentive to your desires they're gonna get you what you need and I think devotion carries those twin ideas if I'm good at being beside the Lord I'm good at sitting beside him to hear his word and I'm good at serving the way she desires me to serve I'm attentive to his word and I'm attentive to his work that's what it means to be devoted I'm close to him so I can get a sense of purpose from this proximity and then I'm gonna go live out that purpose in my life so be attentive to his word use this time to get into this many of us believe this is the Word of God but we've spent very little time reading it I know that's what convicted me in my 20s I realized I say I believe this I've said for years I believe these are the words of God and I haven't read most of them there was a couple books of the Bible I had read a bunch usually the ones that made it onto t-shirts and coffee mugs and I think there's a lot in here I never read and so I was like I'm gonna read the whole Bible and I remember I sat down and my experience may not be yours it was very hard for the Bible to compete with cable at my house I was always like oh okay oh man and it was like all night watching TV and I was like I don't have the personal discipline to turn this thing off so I had to get rid of it got rid of cable got rid of my TV and I was sit down and I wrote out books to the Bible and I wrote him out cuz it made me go slow and I would just go slow and get it into me and what I was doing is building pathways in my brain you know your thoughts travel down a pathway for many of us those pathways are being burned by whatever's in our social media or whatever music we're listening to and I'm like I want my thought processes to flow along with the Word of God that I want wisdom that are sure to make me wise and the way I deal with people I want his thoughts about my identity to find what I see when I look in the mirror I want his word to shape my words I want to be shaped by him I'm not saying you all have to get rid of your TV but I'm saying if we believe this the Word of God or even if you don't Jesus changed history more than anybody else spend this time getting to know him what he was like be changed by him get into his word get great at this prioritize coming here and going to summer nights prioritize getting near the people of God studying the Word of God and then be attempted to his work get involved in what he's doing around the world see where the fabric of society's breaking and lean in that's is so great about love DC and what we're trying to do say I don't want us to just be here in DC and just eat here sleep here and do our jobs for our careers here and watch human beings around us suffer if we live here as the people of Jesus the city should feel that we exist and they feel we exist when we lean in and make a difference I remember when I was in Dallas I watched a some friends of mine in the single community that would all kind of go out and we're always kind of dissatisfied with their singleness and then there was one other buddy of theirs that he was never out with them on this particular night I'm like what's he doing there man that's where he goes he serves the homeless in the city and when you meet him there was just a fire in his eyes this dude was leveraging what he had to do something that matched his integrity felt good about that and you've got that freedom and time leverage it I remember when I ran a college ministry I led breakaway and a young girl came up to me sophomore and she said hey I just heard about this place in Africa I can't remember exactly where she was like and there's these kids there they're orphans and that there's some people who want to take care of but they don't have a house they need a house and so it's gonna cost $40,000 to build a house and so can you get on stage and make an announcement and have everyone raised $40,000 and give it to me and I told her no and I said no because you're not the first person to ask me to do that this week we would average about 10 a week of young people coming up to us with really inspirational causes and saying will you take him and I just had to tell him no like I can't take all of them I'd be like Nascar up here we're in a bunch of patches of different organizations I said I can't do it I said so we pick like one like we did would love DC we'd pick a few to leverage in and so I gave her the speech a lot of people but maybe God put that burden on your heart cuz you're supposed to do something about it and I know what you're feeling that feels really overwhelming to you because you look around and you don't have the influence and resources to pull it off and say you see that I have influence and resource and you're trying to hand that burden to me but it's not mine to carry God's given me this to carry so I think he's giving it to you so you can pray feel that hopelessness lean into him and see if he'll use you to make a difference and she didn't like that speech cuz they never do and she left and then a year later she came back junior and college and she said hey you tell me to give you an update of what's going on I said yeah what's going on she's like the house again built it what do you mean you built it she's like the house for the kids built it they're living in their children loves being changed in the house look what you built it who built it she's like her roommates how did you do that she's like we raised the money you raised $40,000 in less than a year she said yeah I was like how did you do it she said bracelets what she said bracelets so little bracelets soldier to people $40,000 though the house changed children's lives forever and generations and I'm like that is a great way to leverage your sophomore year like so many other people when you ask them what you do your sophomore year to PE and I was like you were like I don't know kind of took some classes and change the lives of families forever in Jesus name like good job great use of your singleness to leverage that to change people's stories forever that's unbelievable and I'm just begging God is not callous about some of you really are single and lovin it some if some of you were single you long to be married and and I'm not telling you that God D values that long and he loves it longest chapter in Genesis is about finding a spouse you know that God says whoever finds a wife it's not a great thing like it's good to be married but there's a gift to singleness and I just don't want you to miss it it's a freedom at a time for a season but it has a purpose and that purpose is not just waiting for marriage if it was then Jesus the Apostle Paul were failures and I don't think anyone's willing to say that that's singleness is to be leveraged for an undistracted devotion to the Lord the last question is this and I got an answer as soon as I say that some might ask well then a singleness more spiritual I know some of you probably were not asking that question at all when you showed up here this morning but you're reading this text here that Paul seems to say it is and you read verses like verse 8 to the unmarried into the widow I say it's good for them to remain even as I but verse 9 says but if you don't have self-control let them marry for it's better to marry than burn with passion I know some of you read that right well I'm on fire bring the spouse and that was easy for you others of you are like I don't know I really want to be devoted to the Lord so if he wants me to be single my rest of my life I guess like I don't want to be and how do i process that what do you do with that well jesus spoke to it in Matthew chapter 19 in Matthew 19 verse 12 he's there he says there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb now I don't have time to go into what a eunuch is you can ask the welcome to church team on the way out this is the kind of questions we ask just kidding it's someone through an unfortunate set of circumstances not having kids which often in this day meant you're not getting married either there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb there were eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men that's a very unfortunate category and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven he who's able to accept it let him accept it he's not saying they did something to themselves surgically he's saying they chose a life of singleness and not being parents in order to leverage the freedoms of singleness for the sake of merit at the kingdom Jesus did this for went marriage to leverage his life for us Paul did this so is it more spiritual to do that some of your wondering that well verse 11 one verse before says but he said to them not all men can accept the statement but only to those to whom it has been given what he's saying there is God's gonna give you grace for the moment if he puts you in a position he's gonna give you the power to live in that position for many of us in this room he's given you a season of singleness it has great purpose he will give you the power to sustain you in that season and that season will end in marriage actually probably statistically for most people in the room some of you he will position you with the power and the resources your drive to be married will decrease and you won't want it and you'll be like Paul that says I like the freedom of singleness I'm gonna leverage it for God's kingdom that happens it's a smaller group statistically some of you will be that way but it's one better than the other Paul says this will be given to some God will give that to you others you don't have to try to force it he's gonna take care of you and you can trust him with that it's fascinating when you look at the New Testament the leaders of the church were Peter and Paul Peter was married had kids Paul was single and what I love about that reality about the early church it's the same reality about our church God's church is built when single people and married people work hand in hand for His purposes that married couples grab Hannah and Hannah chase after the glory of God and single people chase after the glory of God and we all run together and make a difference that's why we're talking about this all together is because we're a family he's built a family and he built it and ultimately it's all about him that Jesus chose singleness he chose to come to this earth for us and I love the way he showed up when he was asked who are you he said I'm the bridegroom there's a book in the Old Testament where a prophets wife's unfaithful she doesn't want to be with him she runs off and goes crazy in the city sleeps around and begins to sell her body for money and when she hits the lowest point and it's broke and abused and used he goes and finds her pays full price to bring her home and he says I will draw you out into the desert and speak tenderly to you and give you back your vineyards and you're not gonna call me master like they did you're gonna call me husband so I'm gonna love you and when Jesus was asked who are you he said I was a group here my people have gone astray we have chafed satisfaction and a lot of broken places and it's not worked great for us but he doesn't come to shame he doesn't come to condemn he came with kindness he came to give us living water that would overflow he came to be the perfect human being we are not died the death we deserved rise from the dead that whoever puts their faith in him would not perish but have life and have life abundantly like a well inside that he wants us to get our relationship with God right and then his time a relationship with a guy or a girl is gonna be right but the beautiful thing about this today is wherever you are you can trust it married single he's good it's good and we can trust him he is worthy of your trust you were made to be devoted to him and he gave all for you
