God's Word for Singles - 1 Corinthians 7:17-40

Two weeks ago, we dove into chapter 7 of 1st Corinthians. I preached a message on that Sunday about marriage and singleness, and said that on the 3rd sermon in chapter 7, we deal a lot more with singleness on that afternoon, one of our church members sent me a text message with this meme, and he said, I know you're going to preach to singles. Maybe this will be helpful. It says when you're single, and you're told there are plenty of fish in the sea, and these are the fish. And so does that look familiar, single people? Maybe those actual photos from dating apps that you're on right there. You get a lot of advice when you're single, don't you? A lot of people want to give you advice. I want to give you encouragement. And that's true. In life, there's a lot of places to find advice. There's a lot of places to find those willing to share their opinions with you. Today, we're going to look at the pages of God's word. And what does the Bible say about singleness? We've been in the book of one Corinthians for a while now. It doesn't exactly break down this way, but roughly the 1st half of the book deals with issues in the church that Paul had heard about. Paul was a preacher, missionary of the 1st century. He had planted this church in this city and now has gone on to other places with his missionary journeys, and he has learned about some problems in the church. And about the 1st half of the letter, he's addressing those problems he's heard about. Kind of roughly the 2nd half of the letter. He's addressing issues about which they've written to him about. And so they're facing some problems. They're facing some questions, and they wrote to him and say, how do we handle these issues? Some of those questions regarded marriage and singleness, marriage and divorce, and how do we live as Christians, as married people, single people? Should we get married? Should we not be married? And he writes the 7th chapter here of this book to cover those questions. If you miss the 1st 2 sermons. We encourage you to go back and hear those. You can go to our website, Northland.church, find all of our sermons there. You can go to our podcast app, wherever you find your podcast, just search Northland Church sermons, and you can find the sermons that we preach here if you want to get caught up. We're going to dive in today. What does God's word say to single people? Now, this applies to everybody in this room. Generally, this is a principle, you should always have in mind, when you hear the word of God preach, that even if you don't think that the content or the topic or the focus of that message applies to you, it very likely, almost certainly applies to someone you care about. So even when you're hearing a sermon, for example, today on singleness. And you say, I'm not single, what do I do with this? You have single people in your life. And as followers of Jesus and living in community with other followers of Jesus, we should want to be an encouragement to the other people around us. And so when you hear the word of God preach, you should either be saying, what do I do with this, how to supply to me? Or how can I use this to help or encourage or challenge someone else around me that might be dealing with the issue that the scripture addressed today? And so today, my hope is that this message will encourage single people in our church and will encourage those who care about single people in our church. And so how do we help support, encourage, and challenge those around us from God's word? I think you'll also find some places along the way, some general principles that it apply to you regardless of what sees in a life, what situation of life you were in. So let's jump in. Four lessons for single people. We find in the closing verses of chapter 7 of 1st Corinthians, if you want to begin to make your way there. 1st Corinthians chapter 7. We're going to jump in in verse 17. The 1st lesson I want you to see, and this is for single people he's addressing here, but this principle applies in one way or another to everyone in this room, and that is that we need to be content in whatever situation we find ourselves. As followers of Jesus, we should be striving to find contentment wherever God has us at this particular point in time. Now, he's going to address specifically singleness, but I think this applies to a lot of other areas of our life. Look at verse 17. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the church. Let's put that verse up on the screen. We're not going to put all of them on the screen, but I want you to catch a couple of things about this. I want you to see the word assigned and the phrase has called him. What he's saying is that all of us, wherever we are today, we're in a season of life, that God and his sovereign plan for our lives has assigned us where we are right now. We're living right now in the place, in the season, in the situation, in the circumstance, to which God has called us at this point in our lives. Now, he's just written to husbands and wives. And he said to them, if you were married, stay married. He even says to the person who would ask Paul, what if I am now a follower of Jesus and my wife is not a follower of Jesus. Should I leave my wife because she's not following Jesus? He says, no, you stay in that marriage. You stay in the marriage that you're in. This is God's will for your life. And now to single people, he's going to say, if you are single today, you should learn to be content in that season of life where you find yourself today. And so verse 17, I think really applies back to the verses in context that he's just shared, and then the verses that follow it. Whatever situation you're in. If you're married, stay married. If you're single today, he's going to say it's good to stay single. We'll talk about why he says that and how that applies to life here in a little bit. In other words, what he's saying here is don't be anxious to alter your status in life, be content where you are today. Remain in the situation. He says it 3 times, actually. Verse 17. Notice this. Verse 17, let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him. Verse 20, each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. And then again in verse 24, in whatever condition each was called, there, let him remain with God. He repeats himself 3 times in just these few short verses, learn to be content in the situation God has you today, trust his sovereign plan for your life. Now, he's going to illustrate this point with a couple of examples. Just like a preacher today would make a point of a message and then give a couple of examples of how you might illustrate that. Paul does that. He's gonna choose 2 things that aren't as common today. So you understand that today, I might, or Ruston might, use a sermon illustration that may be very timely and just a good fit for our church in our day, but if you heard that sermon 30 years from now, it might not make as much sense, or a 1000 years from now, it might not have the same impact. He does that here. He's gonna use 2 examples very common in the 1st century, not common things that we would wrestle with today. circumcision and slavery. He makes this point. He's going to compare it to circumcision and slavery. In fact, verse 18 begins this way. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? The new living translation adds. It's not in the original language, but adds this phrase, I think, is helpful. He said, it reads this way. For instance, for instance, and then goes on to say this. We say, I'm leaving you an example. Verse 17, be content where you are. Verse 18 following. Let me share a couple of examples. What does he share? He says, was anyone at that time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call? Uncircumcised. Let him not seek, circum, let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. And he gives a 2nd example. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord is a bondservant, is a freedman in the Lord. Likewise, he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, let him remain with God. So he gives his example, circumcision. Again, not a big deal today, something that would hit us the way that it would his audience. But you have, at that time, you have a church made up of Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile followers of Jesus, those who were Jewish and had been circumcised. And in that day, those who were non-Jewish and had not been circumcised. And the church wrestled with this. You've seen this as we've gone through other books of the Bible over the years. This is often comes up as an issue. The church said, well, if the Jews were following Jesus, and now the Gentiles want to follow Jesus, then they need to become Jewish. And they need to get circumcised, to become a follower of Jesus. And the church said, no, the leadership got together, said, no, God has led us to say, you can follow Jesus as a Jewish person. You can follow Jesus as a Gentile person. So what is he saying to the church? If you were a Jew who started to follow Jesus, then keep being a Jew. And if you were a Gentile who started to follow Jesus, then keep being a Gentile. circumcision is nothing here. It's a matter of that you are now trusting in Jesus, a matter of what Jesus has done in your life, when you realized you were a sinner, you turned from your sins, to trust Jesus, you're now a child of God, a follower of Jesus, your circumcision doesn't matter. So don't worry about that. That's the illustration he's making. Then he talks about slavery, very common in the 1st century Roman Empire, probably as many as a 3rd of the Roman Empire were made up, was made up of slaves. And so the Bible often addresses slavery. And many times Paul would say, you, as a slave, you can't change the circumstance you're in. And so learn how do I give glory to God in this circumstance that I'm in? How do I live for Jesus as a slave? And so what he's saying here is he said, he would write, Paul, write other places. There's now no longer slave or free, Jew or Gentile. We're all one in Jesus. So he said, if you're a slave in this world, you really have freedom in Christ. And he said, if you have freedom in this world, you're really a slave to Christ. And so we're all one in Christ. And so what he says to the slave is, if you can gain your freedom, gain your freedom. But if you can't learn to live with contentment in the situation where God has you. Now, the point of this chapter wasn't really about circumcision or really about bond slaves, bond servants, he was really using those to illustrate his point. And that is that we all will find ourselves in certain circumstances when we begin to follow Jesus. In those circumstances are the circumstances to which God has assigned us, to which God has called us. And so he says, wherever you are today, be in that place and trust God's sovereignty. One translation of the Bible puts it this way, where you are right now is God's place for you. That's it. Where you are right now is God's place. Now, you see how that applies to all of us here, not just single people. It doesn't just apply to marriage and singleness. It applies to all of our circumstances. Many times we wish we were in a different circumstances than the circumstance we find ourselves in today. And we need to strive to trust God's sovereignty. Where does God have me today and will I trust him today? I know I'm guilty. You probably are as well. of using a lot of if and when language when I think about serving God. Do you ever say something like this? You know, I would do this if, If this happens, then I would serve God. Or I'll do this when. When this happens, I'll do this. When this happens, I'll serve God in this way. And we think about some future day when something might happen or if something might happen, Paul says, we need to forget the if and win and say, where am I today? Where does God have me today? How do I live content in the station of life where God has placed me? How do I live in obedience to God, trusting his sovereign place that I am right where he has assigned me to be? I was looking on Facebook a few weeks ago, a friend of mine, who was a pastor, he's older than me. He's about 10 years older than me, and he was writing about things he'd learned over the course of his life as he gets older, and lessons that he wished he had known earlier in his life and ministry, and he had sort of like a list of those. And one of the things that really caught my attention. I thought so much about since I read it. He said, be where your feet are. Be where your feet are. I'm put on a screen there. I've been thinking about that short, simple sentence a lot over the last month or so since I first read it. B where your feet are. Don't you have a tendency to want to be somewhere else, either physically, or in some other, a figurative way? It's so hard to just be present right where we are. My mind is always somewhere else. Many of you maybe do this, even physically, literally sometimes. I'll be standing there talking to someone. And my mind goes somewhere else to some other thing later in the day. Even like in the lobby at church, I will be talking to someone right in front. Maggie is right in front of me. And out of the corner of my eye, I see Brad. And I think I wanted to talk to Brad about something, the other Brad over here. Sorry, you're also Brad. Hi, Brad. And I'm thinking like, I really want to lock in. I mean, Maggie is talking to me about something very important, but all I'm thinking about is I need to be sure I catch Brad before I get out of here today. And now my mind isn't where my feet are. My mind has now gone somewhere else. Maybe you even did that over the holiday this week. You were in there with your family, this special moment, but your mind drifted to some other place, some other time. Maybe it was even something by looking on your phone and responding to text messages or read something on Facebook. You're looking at what someone else's family's doing right now. And the fun they're having with their family, when you're right there with your family and you weren't where your feet were. And we do that throughout our life. I've done that with raising my kids. I talk to people now, like, you know, being a grandparent is it's as cool as they said it would be. It's I'll tell you, it's the only thing in my life that has exceeded my expectations. Maybe not the only thing, but one of the few things. I mean, a lot of things in life fail, they let you down, right? It does not what you thought it would be. And some things are as cool as you think it's going to be. Being a grandparent ended up being cooler than I expected it to be. Why? One of the reasons is, when I was raising kids, my mind wasn't always where my feet were. I was wanting to get to the next season. If they'll get out of diapers, it'll be cheaper. If they'll get out of this car seat, it'll be easier. If they'll get their driver's license, I won't have to, I'll have Uber and Uber Eats all rolled into one and car side to go. I'll roll it away. My mind was always in a future place where I wanted to be instead of right where my feet weren't. Anybody else guilty of that? We let our minds go to another place. I think we need to learn contentment to say, Lord, where my feet are right now is where you have assigned my feet to be. And if it's single, it's where God has called you to be today. This is a season of life to say, Lord, this is where you have me. Let me learn to be faithful in this season. Let me learn to give you glory in this season. Let me learn to trust that I'm right, where you called me to be. Second, He says to the single people to whom he writes, leverage your single status. Leverage your single status as an opportunity for greater devotion to the Lord. This status of singleness right now affords you an opportunity to be more devoted to the Lord than you would be if you were married. This is the season of life to leverage that. Look at 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. What is he saying here? He's saying, I don't have for you a direct black and white, right or wrong, command from the Lord, on whether or not a single person should get married. But what I do have for you is my judgment or as some translate this, my opinion. So we've saying here is I'm going to offer you my opinion. It's not a direct command from Jesus here, but I'm going to give you some sound advice that I have for single people today is what he's saying. And what is his opinion for single people today? verse 26? Or in his day. Verse 26 I think that in view of the present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is, what is the present distress or some translate it present crisis? What is the present crisis? It's a crisis of persecution. Intense of persecution, which Paul feared would get even worse. And so he's saying, in light of the distress, the crisis we're living in, it would be better for single people to remain single. It's going to be difficult enough for a single person to endure. But these problems are going to be far more difficult for those who are married or those who have children. So verse 27. He advises, 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, Mary, 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. So again, marriage and singleness, one is not superior to the other. If you want to get married, get married, if you want to stay single, stay single, what he said, what I'm telling you is, when you get married, that will bring with it worldly troubles or troubles in this life that you are spared from while you are single. So Paul often encourages marriage. He was pro-marriage, but his advice was, in light of the circumstances we're in today, singleness has its advantages. 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, 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. What does all of that mean? Well, in short, he is saying that the appointed time in which we live is very short. What he's calling them to in these verses, verses 29 through 31 is an eternal perspective. There will be a day, he said, when you're married, marital status won't matter. There will be a day when your mourning won't matter. Your rejoicing won't matter. Your worldly possessions won't matter. Your current business dealings will not matter. There's going to be a day where everything that is important in this short time will pass away and we need to keep our focus on eternity. Don't get bogged down in a temporal mindset with today's morning, or today's rejoicing, or today's goods you buy, or tomorrow's business dealings. But how in a Christian life do we live with urgency? believing, knowing that time is fleeting. 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. 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. I say this for your benefit, not to lay any restraint on you, but to promote good order, and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. Again, is marriage better than singleness? No, this single looks better than marriage? No. He's saying that both are fine, places to be, but married life is going to bring concerns and anxieties in verse 32 that single life didn't have. Verse 33, 34, when you get married, your interest becomes divided. You no longer are just pleasing the Lord. You pleasing the Lord and your spouse. But verse 35, he says the single person has undivided devotion to the Lord. Verse 36. If anyone thinks he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed. If his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes. Let them marry. It is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity, but having that his desire under control and has determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. What is he saying here? The language is a little bit ambiguous. If you dive into this and study this a little deeper, you would learn that it's a little unclear whether he's talking about a father and a his betrothed daughter or a fiance and his fiance he's engaged to. Is it, hey, dads are wondering, what, should I let my daughter get married or not? Or is it a man saying, should I marry this girl that I want to get married to? There's kind of split on what's going on here. I think the stronger case made for the latter. It's probably saying to the engaged man. Uh, it's okay if you marry this woman to whom you are engaged. What is he saying here? Because of passions. And this goes back to our sermon 2 weeks ago. What did he say? It's better to marry than to burn with passion. He said in verse nine. So here's what he says, to a single person. You'd be better offstate and single. That's what he says, but I get it. You may have desires that you are not able to control. And you are not able to control those desires, then it is best that you get married, but I'm going to tell you, says, if you can control those desires, And you can stay single. Under the current circumstances we're facing, it is better if you remain single. So it's a conclusion, verse 38. Marriage is fine. Singleness is fine, but singles have an opportunity to serve the Lord in a way that married people do not. Now, what do we do with this? You could say that here that Paul is writing about a very specific circumstance in which they were facing severe persecution of the church. But is there a general principle that, yes, there is, and that general principle is that singleness creates a season of greater devotion to the Lord. So how do we apply this? Single people, how you encourage a single people in your life to apply this to their lives, is we ought to be as single people, you ought to be, or we ought to be encouraging single people to leverage this season of their life in a way that they won't be able to leverage it later if they end up being married. There's a window of opportunity to serve the Lord in a way you won't be able to serve him later. I think it's so important. And I think single people today would say, I talk to so many young adults, single people at church, you might say that this resonates with you. Talk to so many who really desire to be married. They have a strong desire to be married. They'll express that often. And I think you have this internal desire, this internal pressure being married. And then I think we add to that, an external pressure. Maybe you single people would say, just Thursday at Thanksgiving. My mom was asking me, when am I going to get married? Mom was asking, when will you get married and give me grandkids? you maybe have that pressure from parents. You have that pressure from friends around you who are getting married. You have that pressure from pastors who are always saying, hey, have you met this guy at the adult ministry? We have that internal and extra pressure to be married. There can be a pressure on us to hurry and get married. What we ought to say is, look at this season of your life as a unique opportunity to serve the Lord in a way you won't be able to serve him later. It's going to be a day where your devotion will be divided. When you're single, fewer people are affected by the decisions that you make. If you feel like the Lord leading you to do something, take on some ministry, go to some place, take on some mission opportunity, there's really no one else affected by that. You could go and do that. Later, there'll be a time when you want to do something. There's now a spouse to be consulted. There's children to be considered. There's more time that you have to serve the Lord. When I want to put something on my calendar, I have to call my wife and say, can I put this thing on the calendar? It looks like the calendar is free. Is there something going on that you've not put on the calendar yet? I have to clear that with her. When you're single, you don't have to clear that with anybody. You can go and do this thing for the Lord. There's less demands on your money even. You may say, ah, you know, I'm single. I'm broke when I'm married. I hope I'll have money. You might have more money, but you might have more bills. You might have more disposable income today to do something for the Lord than you might not have the opportunity later. You can do things now when you're broke, better than later when you got to go be broke to do something for the Lord. And you said, this is the season. This is the time. Let me encourage you, don't take this time for granted. Don't waste your single years looking forward to a time when you'll be married and desiring to be married so much that you're missing the opportunity, the window that God has for you right now. I think there's, we don't realize when we're single. Sometimes there's a window that once we get married, we'll close and not open up again for decades. Let me explain what I mean by that. I'm 53 years old. I'm now, Lord willing, closer to retirement than being single, right? And I think about, what will that look like in retirement? How do I leverage my retirement years for the Lord? Will there be a day when I'm not dependent on a full-time job where I could just, if I just left for several months, you guys would start wondering where I was? There may be a day where I could go somewhere and nobody would wonder. There'll be a day when maybe the house is paid off, and there's money to invest in other ways in ministry that I didn't have before. There's a freedom. My kids are now, get, we'll get the last one married in March. And now I don't have as much concern there. And so you begin to hand this off. There's a window later that I'm looking at that I missed maybe back here. What I'm saying is this. You're in a window of time that's going to close, and you're going to have a husband and kids and a job and a house payment and responsibility, that you won't have maybe many years from now, but the window's going to shut on you for decades. Leverage it. Don't let this window close. If there's something that the Lord is compelling you to do, leading you to do a ministry to take on, a mission to engage in. Now is a season where that will be easier than it ever will be for the rest of your life. leverage this season to serve the Lord in an undivided way. Third, remember that a decision to marry is a lifelong commitment. A decision of Mary is a lifelong commitment. Verse 39, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. This takes us back to last week's message, rest and preached on marriage. What he's saying here is, when you're married, you're married for the rest of your life. You are free when your husband dies, the wife is then free, he says, but while your wife is living, while your husband is living, you are bound to that person for your life. Matthew 19, Jesus said these words, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning, made them male and female? And he said, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the 2 shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer 2 but one flesh. What therefore God is joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and send his wife away? Jesus said, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. This was never the plan. This was never designed. The design was always for marriage to be a lifelong commitment. I think singles need to hear that today. We encourage singles in this today. There was a day. My mom divorced years ago when I was very young and she has shared in other older ladies and men have shared with me that there was a day in the life of the church where there was a stigma with divorce that people felt often isolated, ostracized, if they had gone through a divorce. And I think there's a greater grace today in the body of Christ in general toward this. Sometimes, though, I wonder, I fear even that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. And it's lost its stigma to the point where it's becoming so commonplace, so accepted, that it just seems like an ultimate reality that will just bound to happen. I heard a female comedian one time saying, talking about divorce being so common. And she said, women used to ask, is this the man I want to spend the rest of my life with? And now when a woman meets a man, she said, is this the man I want my kids to spend every other weekend with? The divorce has become that common. I had a lady cutting my hair a few years ago, we'd become friends over the years, over cutting my hair, she told me one day she was getting a divorce. I knew she had two young daughters. I said, how are your daughters taking it? She said, surprisingly well. Then she said something that really was a sad commentary. She said, they told me they finally feel normal, because all of their other friends have divorced parents. Isn't that terrible? Like, mom and dad and I get divorced. Oh, good, I'll be like the rest of my friends. So become so common. that we need to be setting a culture that this is for life. Not asking when you're dating single people, don't ask. Could this be the kind of person that I would want to marry a year or 2 from now? You need to be asking, is this the kind of person I want to be married to 50 or 60 years from now? We need to have a long term view on this. Marriage is for life. I've shared this before when I do weddings. Most of the time the bridesmaids come down this aisle, then the bride comes down this aisle. Moms come in 1st and light candles or whatever and everybody's seated. The men are back here. The groom, the groomsman, the pastor. I'll often, every time we do it, that sort of setup, I take the groom to this back exit door, I open the, so my moms are being seated, the music's playing, we're in the beginning of the ceremony. I open that exit door and I see, this is your last chance to leave. Now, I say you get, I'll give you a 10 minute head start, and then I turn to the best man, and I say, in 10 minutes, you'll go in there and tell everyone that he left. But we're gonna let him get 10 minutes down the road before we tell anyone. We were touring wedding venues this week last week with my daughter, Kalen and her fiancé and my wife. And we were in this venue, and they had a back room like that, and there was a door, and Carrie said, You're not gonna tell him about that door. I said, I'm gonna tell him about that door. I'm gonna tell him right now, and I opened that door, and I said, there's a parking spot, right? You could back your truck into that parking spot. And if you change your mind, you can make her run for it. And she said, You're gonna tell that to your daughter. Yes, I'll tell it to every fiancé. You get two doors in that moment. And one of them leads to an escape, and the other leads to a lifelong commitment before the Lord. And so you're locked in here. Let's figure out how to trust God's sovereignty and pursue his glory and experience all that he has for us here. See, singles, choose wisely in this window. Finally, seek a spouse who loves the Lord. Seek a spouse who loves the Lord. Verse 39, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she's free to be married, to whom she wishes. So husbandage, you can get married, certainly free to get married. But then he adds this only in the Lord. Only in the Lord. What does that mean? I read a dozen study Bibles and commentaries this week, every single one of them, so that phrase means someone who is a follower of Jesus. A believer ought to marry another believer. someone who's following Jesus, out of marry someone who's following Jesus. If you love Jesus, you ought to marry someone who loves Jesus. And this should be our highest goal in looking for that person to spend our life with is, do they love Jesus? I'll talk to single people sometimes. They'll tell me about this person. They've gone on 3 or 4 dates with, and I'll say, is she a believer? And the guy will say, I think so. It hasn't come up. I'm going to say if it hasn't come up in 3 or 4 dates. This is probably a red flag. Okay? If this didn't come up in the 1st date. That's a red flag. You know, I'm going to say this again. You see, Matt, you just repeat yourself all the time. I know, I've been here 30 years. You guys have decided to keep coming back. Okay? So you're gonna keep hearing the same thing. I'm not creative to come up with new stuff in 30 years. I going to tell you this again. You will marry the last person you dated. That is how it works. You date people until you finally marry one of them. What does that mean, okay? We've unpacked this scientific research has been done here. How to guarantee you marry someone who loves Jesus, you only date people who love Jesus. And we ought to talk about this often, and we ought to talk about this early, and parents, you ought to be having this conversation with your kids at very early ages. And when they start thinking about boys that are thinking about girls, we need to point them to the priority of loving Jesus. I'm not talking about the box of I'm a Christian that they check on a dating app. I'm talking about love, Jesus and desire to follow Jesus. Don't compromise. Trust God's plan. Wait for his plan to unfold, do not settle. Parents even now be praying this for your children. We've prayed for Marissa and Cody and Gatlin years before we ever met them years before we ever knew their names. We prayed for the men, the men, the women that our kids would one day marry, that they would love Jesus and point our kids to Jesus in their marriage. Make a commitment today. I won't date. I won't, I don't know if you swipe left or right or how it works, but he needs to love Jesus. And she needs to love Jesus and make that an uncompromising priority in your life. So let me show you how this works. Let's just create a little timeline here. Let's imagine that this wall right here is the day you were born. That's 0 right there, okay? And this wall down here is the day that you're going to die. Let's just call it 80. If you're over 80, don't be offended, be excited that you made it further than I think most of these people are going to make it, okay? And so it's going to make the math easy. So if you come to the world at 0 and you go be with Jesus at 80, that'd make this point right here what? 40, you guys. The early service was quicker, but okay, you got there. 40, okay? So this, that's zero, and that's it. This is 40. That put 20 right about here, okay? Single people, most of the young adults sing people at Northland, you're living right here. This is your season, okay? From about here to about here, okay? That's where you are, right here. What are you gonna do right here? This is the challenge of this passage. Right here, this is where your feet are. Where you say, God, I want to learn to trust you right here. I got all the rest of my life, that I've got to trust you in a lot of other ways, a lot of other things. I want to trust you in my singleness right here. I'm going to believe that you are sovereign and that my single status today is what you have assigned to me. This is where you had called me. God, let me be faithful right here. And then let's leverage it right here. You're going to have all these years where you're going to be distracted by worldly concerns, Paul says, all these years, where your devotion to the Lord is going to be divided by devotion to family and commitment to family, right here. What will you do right here? What will you take on for the Lord? What will you do for the Lord? What mission will you take on right now while your attention is undivided? And then let me challenge you single people right here, choose wisely. You got a long way to go. You got a long way. We not just thinking, will this person make me happy right here? But does this person love Jesus? And will he point me to Jesus for the rest of our life together? Will she point me to Jesus for the rest of our life together? This is the window. Don't miss this window. Now is the time to learn to trust him. Now is the time to serve him with undivided devotion. Now is the time to uncompromisingly commit to a spouse who loves Jesus. This is our window. This is the season. I don't know what God has for the rest of your life, but here's where he's called you. Here's where your feet are. Be there today for his glory, an undivided devotion to him. Let's pray together. God, I thank you for our diverse multi-generational church. I thank you that in this room are single people, and married people, and divorced people, and widows, and widowers. God, we all, together, as one family, we want to give you glory to serve you. And so God, help us to be right where we are today. to focus right where you've assigned us, right where we found ourselves, to use this season for your glory. God, I pray for the singles in our church family that you would show them how they might serve you in this window of time and ways that they may not be able to serve you later. What would you call them to? What mission could they take on in this season? How could they serve you in a way of leveraging this season for your glory? Show them what that looks like and help them to trust you in that, help them to find contentment in your sovereignty, trusting that you have them right where you want them, help them to make wise choices. who they grab coffee with this week, who they go out with on Friday, help them to realize the lifelong implications of that and help them to stay committed, uncompromisingly committed to marrying someone who loves Jesus, help our parents to raise our children. to find future spouses that love Jesus, to make to model what lifelong commitment in a marriage looks like for our children. And let us all find our contentment in you, Jesus, that you have made the slave free. You have circumcised all of our hearts to be made right with you. We find our contentment, our joy. In you. Let us bring you glory in every season. In your name, we pray. Amen.