Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
1 Corinthians 7:25-40
25 Now concerning1 the betrothed,2 I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present3 distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman4 marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. 29 This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 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, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
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. 33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried 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. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
36 If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed,5 if his6 passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. 37 But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. 38 So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. 40 Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.
[1] 7:25
[2] 7:25
[3] 7:26
[4] 7:28
[5] 7:36
[6] 7:36
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 7. The text is also there in your worship guide, if you'd prefer to read from that. First Corinthians 7, we'll begin reading in verse 25. Now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is.
Joel Brooks:Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife, But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that.
Joel Brooks:This is what I mean brothers. The appointed time has grown very short. From now on let those who 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.
Joel Brooks:And those who buy as though they had no goods. And those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.
Joel Brooks:But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord. How to be holy and body and spirit, but the married woman is anxious about worldly things. How to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit.
Joel Brooks:Not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the lord. If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed, if his passions are strong and it has to be, let him do as he wishes. Let him marry. It is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity, but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.
Joel Brooks:So then who he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment, she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God.
Joel Brooks:This is the word of the lord. Amen. If you would pray with me. Our father, we thank you for your word and the way it just cuts straight to our hearts through your spirit. And we ask that that would happen in this place, that our hearts would be changed.
Joel Brooks:We want to look more like you, Jesus. And so, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Okay.
Joel Brooks:Before we jump into this text, I want to let you know 2 presumptions that I am making, of you as listeners. I I am bringing in 2 assumptions here that you believe these things and if you don't believe these things, then really nothing I say is going to make any sense to you. It's not gonna be the least bit compelling to you, and so I wanna begin by, by saying my 2 presumptions. And by the way, this is a terrible way to start a sermon. You should never start a sermon just doing this, but I'm going to.
Joel Brooks:1st, I am assuming that every person in here believes that God is the happiest being in the universe. That God is the happiest being in all of the universe. That no one can come close to touching the happiness that God has in being God. As a matter of fact, He is so happy and so joyful that the psalmist says he literally oozes happiness and joy from his presence. That's that's my interpretation of Psalm 1611.
Joel Brooks:He oozes joy and he oozes pleasure. And if you don't believe that God is the happiest being in the universe, then you're never going to be compelled to try to become like him. You will never be compelled to value the things that he values. To have a heart like his. That's the first assumption.
Joel Brooks:2nd is this, that when we got to the end of 1st Corinthians chapter 6 a couple of weeks ago, and we read those words, you were bought with a price, therefore therefore, glorify God with your body. That God was not buying you to be his slave. That he wasn't buying you to be a slave and to live a life of drudgery, but what he was doing was he bought you from slavery to now become a child of God. And that you were a slave to sin. You were a slave to every evil desire you had, but God bought you out of that.
Joel Brooks:Out of great love through his son Jesus, he bought you out of that at a tremendous cost. The cost of Jesus's life. But now, you were free free to glorify him with your body. And the way that we glorify God with our body is God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And so the more joy that we have in God the more glorified he is.
Joel Brooks:So my assumptions are this, that God is the most happiest being in the universe and because he wants to be glorified, he wants you to join in that joy and that happiness. That everything that he says and everything that he instructs, though at times it might feel like death, it is an invitation into the joy of God. Those are my two assumptions. Alright. So let's talk about sex.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Now that we've, we've got those out of the way, I could not tell you how awkward it was a couple weeks ago to preach that sermon with my girls right there in the front row. But but we did. Alright. So a couple of weeks ago, we began looking at the the radical new way that Christians viewed sex.
Joel Brooks:Paul gave us a far greater picture, a more beautiful picture of what sex was, what sex represented. And it was far greater than anything the world ever had. At any time, Paul lifts up that that great view of sex. It's more than just a enjoyable activity. He told us that sex, it was an expression of a greater union, where 2 people come together and they unite as one.
Joel Brooks:It's a symbol of of 2 different persons, 2 complementary natures, who completely give themselves to one another. Body and soul. 2 becoming 1 flesh. And this is why sex is to be enjoyed only within marriage. It is a symbol of our marriage to Christ, if you will.
Joel Brooks:It's a symbol of Christ's love for us. And no one had had any view like this at Sexton at the time. Such an exalted view. And then we come to chapter 7, which is equally extraordinary. Because after painting this this grand view of marriage and of sex, Paul then goes on to say, and it's fine if none of you ever experience it.
Joel Brooks:You don't have to have it. As great as a gift as it is. Look at verse 26 again. It says, I think that in view of this present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife?
Joel Brooks:Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not yet she has not sinned.
Joel Brooks:Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. Let me summarize Paul's words here and also what he says later in the chapter. He says, if you're single, great. That's a fantastic option. Are you married or want to be married?
Joel Brooks:Great. That's another fantastic option. You could glorify God whether you're single or whether you are married. Don't feel any pressure to be either. Now, realize we have a lot of singles that are here in this room.
Joel Brooks:As a matter of fact, our church is over 50% single, which which is an anomaly among churches, especially in the south, to have such a large, single demographic. And, I'm extremely grateful that the Lord, for some reason, and I'm not sure why, but he has seemed fit to bring so many singles into our church. And I want you to hear me say that we are a much better church because of your presence. But I bet that many of you here do not believe that it is perfectly acceptable for you to remain single. Paul, he talks about having the gift of singleness.
Joel Brooks:And I've heard outside of the gift of martyrdom, there is not a gift that is wanted less. Alright? Than than the gift of singleness. I like to affectionately call it the aunt Louise of all gifts. I had an aunt Louise and every Christmas, she would give me underwear.
Joel Brooks:You know, just white Hanes underwear. And and I had to open it up in front of all my extended family and I had to thank her for it every Christmas. And some of you view the gift of singleness that way. It was given to you, you have to open it up and somehow publicly seem thankful for it, and happy that you got it. But really, you're embarrassed by it.
Joel Brooks:Unfortunately, it can be hard being single in the church. And the church isn't exactly the most encouraging, it can be to our singles. How many of you singles have heard, heard this backhanded compliment before? How is it that somebody is so great as you is not married? Or maybe you've heard this, you know, one of your married friends calls you up on a Saturday around 11 o'clock or noon, and they begin the conversation by saying, hey, I didn't wake you up, did I?
Joel Brooks:But but now that I have you on the phone, my family's free tonight. I mean, we're we're free tonight. We actually have nothing on the calendar, and so we were wondering if you would love we'd love to have you come over and babysit, so my husband and I could go out. Married people even pray for singles differently. If in your small group you you say to to those around you, I I would love to be married and I would love for you to to pray that I could find, you know, a spouse.
Joel Brooks:The prayer probably goes something like this. Be with so and so. And and I pray that you would provide for her a husband. But if you choose not to, I pray that you would help her to be content in her singleness. Now, if if somebody else had said, you know, I lost my job, could you, would you pray for me to, to get a new job?
Joel Brooks:You wouldn't say, well, maybe God's given you the gift of unemployment. We we don't view it that way. We pray for singleness just like we pray for sicknesses. God, heal this person of this disease, but if you choose not to, teach them through it. Give them contentment as they endure this.
Joel Brooks:Let's be honest, church. There are times that we have mistreated or neglected, or at the very least been insensitive to our singles. There are some churches out there who will not even hire pastors who are single. Which means if Paul or Jesus turned in his resume to to a church, they would have both been rejected, which is absurd. But this is not the biblical view of singleness.
Joel Brooks:Not at all. Paul teaches us this glorious view of singleness and this glorious view of marriage, and he says both are great options for you as believers. And Paul's view on singleness is just as revolutionary as his view on sex because being single in the 1st century was not an option. Most marriages at this time were arranged early on. Most women were given away to be married by the ages of 12 to 14, is usually when a woman got married in this culture.
Joel Brooks:And so, pretty much every single person was married. Julius Caesar even passed a law, and he said that if you were widowed or you were divorced, you had to get remarried within 2 years or you were fined. And so, it was almost impossible to not be married in this culture. And then comes Christianity. And, for the first time in history, we have a religion or we have this this group of people who say, no singleness.
Joel Brooks:Long term singleness is a legitimate good option. And it's astonishing. Now, this has become somewhat, preferable today for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is because sex outside of marriage has unfortunately become acceptable today. And so, we can fool ourselves into thinking we could be single and yet have all the benefits of marriage.
Joel Brooks:But hear me, Paul is assuming that Christians are not having sex outside of marriage. And it's a biblical assumption that should apply to us. But once again, he's saying, you could go your whole life without experiencing that. Now how how can Paul say this? How can how can he say these things?
Joel Brooks:Look again at verse 29. This is what I mean brothers, the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none. Now you could get a lot you get in a lot of danger if you just landed there. I mean if you just stopped right there.
Joel Brooks:But Paul, he he goes on thankfully to explain what he has meaning here. And so we read in verse 30, 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 with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. The key to understanding what Paul is talking about there is that last little sent sentence. This the present form of this world is passing away.
Joel Brooks:You see Paul understood that he was living just like we are living in a very unique time in history. We're living in between the advents. In between the time when Jesus first came and between the time where he will come again. And Jesus has come and he he lived a perfect life and he died and he rose again. And we looked at that last week when we were celebrating Easter, and how when we saw the resurrected Jesus, we were looking at the first fruits of what awaits us, of his kingdom coming to us.
Joel Brooks:And then we've been given his spirit which is also a first fruit. A guarantee of what is also going to come to us, but we don't have it all yet. The kingdom of God is broken through, but it is not here in full. We live in this time in between the ages, but we are firmly looking towards the future. That's what Paul means when he says the present form of this world is passing away.
Joel Brooks:Our hope is firmly fixed on our future and because of this, we don't place an ultimate value in anything. We shouldn't put too much stock in our sorrows. Too much stock in our joys. Too much stock in the times that we are we are happy or when we are married. Our hope isn't in those things.
Joel Brooks:Our hope is not in marriage. That's what he's telling the singles here. Now to help us understand this, I'm gonna have to quote from somebody that, I quote from probably once a year. But it's just it's so good. It's Ernest Becker And he wrote a book called, The Denial of Death.
Joel Brooks:I mean, how can you not quote from the denial of death when you're talking about sex, singleness and marriage? But, Ernest Becker, he was an atheist. Absolutely did not believe in any form of afterlife at all, and he wrote this book about death. And it's it was a It is a profound book. He actually won the Pulitzer prize for it when he wrote it.
Joel Brooks:In this book, Becker says that, of all the societies that have existed, we are the most secular that has ever existed. And because of this, we are left with a struggle for meaning. Keep in mind, he's an atheist, but he but he sees us. And he says, one of the ways that modern people have sought now to find meaning is in what he called the romantic solution. The romantic solution.
Joel Brooks:And so, hear hear this quote. It says, once we realize what the religious solution did, we can see how modern man edged himself into an impossible situation now that we are without it. He needs still needs to feel heroic to know that his life matters in the scheme of things. He still had to merge himself with some higher self absorbing meaning. If man no longer had God, how is he to do this?
Joel Brooks:One of the first ways that occurred to him was the romantic solution. He fixed his urge to cosmic to cosmic significance onto another person in the form of a love object. The self glorification that he needed in his innermost nature, he now looked for in the love partner. The love partner becomes the divine ideal within which to fulfill one's life. All spiritual and moral needs now become focused in one individual.
Joel Brooks:Spirituality, which once referred to another dimension of things, is now brought down to earth and given the form of another individual human being. However, no human relationship can bear the burden of Godhood, and the attempt to do so has taken its toil on both parties. After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption, nothing less. We want to be rid of our faults, of our feelings of nothingness.
Joel Brooks:We want to be justified to know that our creation has not been in vain. And so, we turn to the love partner for perfect validation. Needless to say, human partners can't do this. That is a profound statement. I mean, for an atheist, he got a lot right, didn't he?
Joel Brooks:A lot right. Becker argues here and I agree with him that in the absence of eternal hope, we try to find meaning, some kind of real meaning in a relationship. We try to find our fulfillment and our purpose through a romantic solution. So finding our soul mate is now how we find purpose. Now, of course, all we have to do to see that this is true is just turn on the radio or Spotify or Pandora, whatever you guys do.
Joel Brooks:I still use a radio. And you're gonna find out exactly what your culture believes just through the songs that are on. Because it seems like almost every single love song that is out there blurs the lines between heaven and Earth, and it attributes godlike qualities to the love partner. So you've got Hosier's take me to church, which is spoiler alert not about going to church, alright? You have these lines, my church offers no absolutes.
Joel Brooks:She tells me, worship in the bedroom. The only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you. Or Florida Georgia Line, I'm high on loving you. You cleanse all the demons that were killing my freedom. You're my saving grace.
Joel Brooks:You're my kind of church. You're holy. Bruno Mars, when he is talking about sex or his need for more of it, writes, it feels like I have been locked out of heaven for too long. I mean, back in my day, we, you know, we had Brian Adams singing about heaven, or we had Aerosmith singing, you're the reason I live, you're the reason I die, you're my angel, come and save me. All these love songs do this.
Joel Brooks:We ascribe to the romantic partner godlike qualities and we expect them to be godlike in the way that they save us. And it's in song after song after song. This is what people believe in the absence of a certain fixed eternal hope. Romance becomes your hope. And, Becker argues that no partner can bear that weight.
Joel Brooks:Matter of fact, what you see over and over again is that many of the marriages, they fall apart. Completely fall apart, because they were not meant to carry that weight. And so, what happens when you look and you see your spouse finally have a crack? Finally, doesn't validate maybe something about you and your whole world falls apart. Because you were basing your purpose and your meaning on them.
Joel Brooks:And when they didn't give it to you that one time, you crumble because you built your identity on your love partner. Paul, here, argues that your foundation, our foundation as believers, is not so fickle. It is not so transient. Our hope is in Jesus. We don't have to find meaning through relationships.
Joel Brooks:We don't have to find meaning through our joys or through our sorrows or through the things that we buy. None of those things are ultimate things for us. Our lives have meaning because of Jesus and one day we will be with him forever. Listen. If being married and with that, having sex, being married was absolutely necessary in order for you to be a fulfilled human being, to have a life of meaning and purpose, then what you would have to say is that Jesus himself didn't live a fulfilled life.
Joel Brooks:Sam Albury, who, he is a gay Christian, who out of obedience to Jesus has determined to walk a celibate life. Now, he has those desires, but he has chosen a life of celibacy. And he wrote he wrote this, my primary sense of worth and fulfillment as a human being is not contingent on being romantically or sexually fulfilled, and this is liberating. The most fully human and never had sex. If we say these things are intrinsic to human fulfillment, we are calling our savior subhuman.
Joel Brooks:Marriage and sex within marriage is not necessary for us to be fulfilled as human beings. That's what Paul is spelling out for us. The next reason that Paul says is completely fine for us to remain single, we we find in verse 32. He says, I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the lord, how to please the lord.
Joel Brooks:But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or the 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. Now, Paul was single.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps he was widowed. Perhaps his his wife had left him. We don't know why Paul is is single here, but but he's single. And he wishes that everybody could be just like him. He says that earlier in chapter 7 and here he gives his reasons why.
Joel Brooks:He says, a single person can be singular in mission. A single person could be singular in mission. Paul could not have lived his missional life if he had been married. His focus would have been divided. And so Paul gives us a very realistic, practical understanding of what it takes to be married.
Joel Brooks:He basically says this, hey, marriage is great, but we all know that when you get married, you give up certain freedoms. You no longer just trying to take care of yourself. You've got to take care of a family, and there's a weight that comes with that. There are restrictions that come with having to take care of a family. There is more freedom in being single.
Joel Brooks:Now and I need to be clear here because Paul is very clear here. The reason he argues for singleness is because there is freedom for mission, not freedom to be selfish. Alright? Singleness is not to feed your selfishness. He's not arguing that you should remain single so you could do what you want.
Joel Brooks:You should remain single, so you don't have any commitment to anybody. So you could choose to do whatever you want every single day, so you could go on your trips. You could stay out late. You could be with your friends all the time. You could do whatever you want.
Joel Brooks:That is not Paul's argument for remaining single. He says, the benefit for being single is mission. As you can give yourself wholly to the glory of God through the way that you reach other people, and you serve Him. And so don't use your singleness as an excuse for selfishness. Listen, marriage is great, but it restricts freedom.
Joel Brooks:I can speak to that. Any married person can speak to that. And and singles, perhaps, you need to hear married people say that more and not just talk about all the joys in marriage, but in some of the duties and the restrictions that are there that actually keep married people from doing many of the things that they would want. I can't just get up and go on some mission trip. I can't just volunteer for whatever I want to volunteer for.
Joel Brooks:I'm not as available to people, for people as I would like to be because I've got to pick up kids from school. I've got to take them home. Make sure, you know, they get bathed, they get fed, they are clothed. I've got to spend time with my wife. And those are all joyful things.
Joel Brooks:They're joyful things. God can be glorified through all of those things. But it also is restrictive. I can't have the time or the energy as much as I would like to reach people outside of my immediate family. Paul paints a very realistic picture of what it means to be married.
Joel Brooks:Now final reason that Paul says it's okay to either remain single or to get married. This kinda undergirds all of these arguments. Is that family has now been redefined through Christ. Paul argues that a single woman is not anxious about worldly things. That's actually sounds odd.
Joel Brooks:It doesn't sound true, in many ways. Some of you here might be thinking that, Paul, you're completely wrong. A single woman has far more anxieties than a married woman. I mean, has to worry about how she's gonna provide for herself. Who will take care of her when she gets sick?
Joel Brooks:What is she supposed to do when she gets lonely? But Paul assumes here that all of those needs will be met by the church. That's Paul's assumption. All of these needs will be met by her new family in Christ. Now there isn't a particular verse to point to here in this chapter that says this, but it's the underlying assumption.
Joel Brooks:As I mentioned earlier, remaining single was not even an option for a woman in the 1st century, Because she was completely dependent upon her husband for everything. If she didn't have a husband, she couldn't really do anything. Normally, she resorted to a life of prostitution. That was about the only way she could survive. But here, Jesus has redefined family.
Joel Brooks:The church church now becomes family. The church now takes care of one another. The church allows singleness to exist. A single woman didn't have to find a husband because the church in many ways would act as a husband and taking care of her. So you have all of these records from the 1st century of the radical way in which the church would take care of its widows.
Joel Brooks:You know there's a reason we call one another brother and sister when we're at church. It's not just because we can't remember one another's names. I mean, I know we we do that a lot. Brother, sister, good to see you this morning, but it's because we're family. It's because through Jesus we're family, we're closer than blood family.
Joel Brooks:When Jesus was on the cross and he looks down at his mother and he knows she needs to be taken care of, He sees James, his blood brother right there, but he doesn't tell James, his blood relative, He says, mom behold your son. And there at the cross, he says, it's not your blood that makes family, it's my blood that creates family. And my blood unites us together and your faith community is stronger than any blood relative you have. Our faith in Christ, for that's the bond that endures for all of eternity. And so when Jesus told his disciples in Mark 10, he says, truly I say to you that no one has left their house or their brother or their sisters or their mother or father or children or lands.
Joel Brooks:For the sake for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a 100 for 100 fold more now in this life, Brothers and sisters and mothers and childrens and lands and houses. Through the death of Jesus, we receive a 100 more mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters in this life. In this life. And with them comes everything they possess, the ability to take care of one another. So your faith family is tighter and more enduring than your bud blood family.
Joel Brooks:And I wanna I wanna end by just giving a a few practical examples, Ways that we can flesh this out and apply this in our church. For those of you who are married, invite singles into your life. Invite them into your family. Not, it doesn't have to be for like special event stuff. It could just be to invite them in as part of your everyday life.
Joel Brooks:Call them up and ask for something more than babysitting. Invite them for dinner. Invite them over to celebrate holidays with you. Singles, invite married people into your life. Don't just complain about how married people only call you up for babysitting.
Joel Brooks:When have you called up those who are married and invited them into your home? We're family. We actually have a few older couples who became members of our church for this reason. When they came here, a single woman invited them over for dinner. Like, we're 20 years older than this single lady and she invited us over for dinner.
Joel Brooks:Who does that? Well, it's people who believe that we are the family of God. And it's just one sister asking another sister and brother to come and share a meal together. So that's a practical way that we can do this. Whether you're married or whether you are single, you should be generous with all of your possessions because you freely share with family.
Joel Brooks:People do have many homes and land now in this life because of the relationships Jesus have given us. So let me end with this, if you are single here and you are wondering as to whether or not you have the gift of singleness, let me tell you what you do. You're single therefore, you have the gift of singleness. I don't know how long you will have it, whether it's for your whole life or whether it's for a season, but you have the gift of singleness. And the way you use this gift needs to reflect where your ultimate hope is.
Joel Brooks:You don't use this gift for selfishness. You use it for service. If you are married and you're wondering whether or not you have the gift of marriage, you do. And at last until death do you part. There's no out there.
Joel Brooks:But, you also are to live in a way that reflects that your ultimate hope is not in your spouse. It's not in your children. They were not meant to carry that weight. And you will be able to serve and to enjoy your spouse and your children so much more when you don't give them ultimate value, but when you recognize the good gift that they are from God. And now, you can glorify God through the way that you serve them.
Joel Brooks:Whether you are single or whether you are married, hear this, you belong to Jesus, and you have a sure and a fixed hope, an eternal hope in him. Pray with me. Father, all our satisfaction, all of our meaning and purpose in life, may it rest firmly on the solid rock of Jesus. Everything else is sinking sand. Lord, press that truth in us.
Joel Brooks:You're the happiest being in the universe and you're always inviting us in to partake and to enjoy who you are and to experience the joy that flows from your presence. And so, I pray that our goal would be to be more Christlike, whether that is in singleness or in marriage, that our hope is in you. In your name, Jesus. Amen.