Single- Hearted With Beautiful Feet

Pastor Gary L. Cox

The Lord put a message on my heart for people that aren’t married that are over the age eighteen.

If you’ll open your Bibles up to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, I’ll try to find some words to introduce the discussion. For you visitors who are just visiting, what you don’t realize is that we spent quite a bit of time during this last year talking about issues relating to marriage and family and we’ll probably do that some more in the future. One of the themes that we discussed was ideas relating to courtship and choosing God’s spouse that He has for you and making those kind of decisions. But I was doing some reading yesterday or the night before, I’m not certain exactly when, and I was in this passage of 1 Corinthians 7 and it was just the Lord really spoke to my heart and put a burden on my heart and I really feel compelled to speak to young people who are not yet married. Actually for those people who are under 18 and you’re not yet married, this also really applies to you. If you’re too young and you can’t really follow through, maybe you’ll have to let your parents share with you later.

Let’s start with prayer. Lord we come in the name of Christ and we thank You that we have access to You through Him. And Lord we quiet ourselves and we remind ourselves that we are a people who are primarily spiritual yet who live in the physical realm and by which Lord we are often distracted and we’re often confused by living only in the physical realm and thinking only of our situations and our concerns in the physical realm and not recognizing and not realizing that we are primarily spiritual people and the things that are invisible, things that we cannot see and recognize about ourselves they’re eternal. And the things that we do touch and feel that they’re just passing away, they’re temporal. Lord direct our thoughts this morning so that we might be encouraged, strengthened and directed by You. I ask it in Christ’s name, amen.

That hymn that we just sang, I was wishing yesterday that that would be the hymn we would sing just before I speak, and then I forgot about it so I forgot to ask for it. “How lovely on the mountaintops are the feet of those that bring good news.” This relates to our message.

First thing, I’ve done a little bit of contemplating about “feet on the mountain.” I heard R.C. Sproul on the radio a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago or so, I heard him give a brief description of that beloved passage, “how lovely on the mountaintops are the feet of those that bring good news.” And he just made a passing description that in terms of historical context and what benefit that Scripture lent to our understanding, the cities of those days were walled cities. And the communication of those days were footrunners. We today have lost track of foot runners. I get news on my e-mail; I can pick up a newspaper, I can get a radio. If you want to you can even get a t.v. There are all kinds of means of getting news. But in the old days, the means of news, the means of communication, the means of informing a city of events and circumstances of war etc. came by footrunners. So it was in those days that as the footrunners were sent off, the watchmen on the gate or on the city wall, they were always straining their eyes for as far as they could see in the distance, waiting news of a runner. And there’s a passage of King David waiting for news from battle and the little conversation that goes and as soon as he first starts seeing this individual running, reports start coming. It’s like the reporters are spewing off what they see or feel or think. Well in that particular context of this sending forth the message, giving the message, the watchmen begin to be trained in recognizing whether the news was good or evil based upon the manner of the runner’s foot pace. And he began to recognize off in the distance when the guy was still on the mountain, if he had good news. And the expression, “how beautiful on the mountaintops are the feet of them that bear good news, was a direct understanding to people back in those days because they saw the lilting step of excitement with the one that had good news. As I’ve been meditating on that expression in recent weeks, it has struck me substantially that the mountains where the feet are treading are the circumstances of ordinary life that you and I have to engage in. And as we’re engaged on this path, our feet are treading the steps and we have by our testimony, we have by our example, the means of influencing many around us by the appearance of our footsteps on the path. If you can imagine for a moment two neighbors living next to each other, neighbors experiencing similar circumstances and these neighbors – one knows the Lord and is pursuing the Lord and the other is attempting to make all of the meaning of life arise out of the temporal circumstances that he’s cast in. In that context the believer has the opportunity not merely, not primarily to witness to his neighbor not with his mouth but with his feet. In other words, that mountain where he must tread he has inwardly a different perspective. He has inwardly a different understanding. And if you remember some of the words of Hebrews where the writer spoke of our faith and said, “We have here no continuing city.” “We have here no continuing city, but we rather look for a city to come, a city whose builder and maker is God.” And for the believer the manner by which our feet trod the path of temporal living, absolutely reflects the genuineness of our faith and the focus of our hope. And I can tell you without feeling guilty of overstating something that if you have your hope fixed where it should be fixed, if your fixation is upon the Lord and that which God has promised, if that’s true of you, that’s your case, that’s your lot, you will speak loudly to your neighbors because everyone treading the path that does not have this hope in them that gives them a different kind of focus, a different kind of purpose. And it is if you please, it’s as if the circumstances that come upon us perhaps increase in their difficulty and are magnified in their hardship but as those circumstances hit us it tells on us, it tells who we are, it tells what we’re dreaming, it tells what we’re thinking and it tells what we’re feeling. And those who have good news in their heart, those who have the King reigning and those who are looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. Those folk have a different step. Did you ever wonder why in the New Testament there are no instructions at all about how to witness? Did you know that? There’s no instructions at all how to witness in terms of having a witnessing plan, in terms of a scheme, in terms of specific kinds of activities that we might construct as an organization or an institution to go witness to the world, there’s no instruction. It says go into the world and as you go, bear witness. The word “witness” means something pretty simple. It means that I tell of my experience. If I am a witness of Christ, I am telling of that which I have partaken in. We have a problem today in America. We have a lot of people who are telling about Christ in an existential fashion, outside of their own experience, outside of their own existence, they’re speaking words about Christ and they’re telling people about how they can come to faith and the focus is an external type focus. What did Paul mean when he was speaking to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2 when he says, “the husbandman must first be the partaker of the fruits?” The husbandman is a farmer, gardener. “The husbandman must first be partaker of the fruits?” What does it mean? I don’t have to witness that which I have not experienced and if I have not experienced something, I have nothing to witness about. What did the apostle John say in his little epistle? “That which I have seen and heard, declare we unto you.” There’s the experience. “That your fellowship may be with us and truly our fellowship is with God and with His Son Jesus Christ.” So there’s this substance. There’s this substantial reality that you and I have been called to God. We’ve been called to Him as a person. We’ve been called to God that we might experience Him and that we might experience all that He has for us by His provisions. And that is our lot and that is our hope and that is our life. And our privilege is to so live, to so tread upon the mountains that our feet clearly give appearance to the bright and glorious hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to which we have laid hold of and for which we pursue. That’s our lot. That’s not something you can put on is it? That’s not accessible by some phony mechanism. That’s not a systematized means of ordering your life. There has to be a reality. You have to lay a hold of that which God has offered and you have to lay a hold of it in the fashion of trading it off for that which is worthless before you knew of that offer. That’s just a first point and some concepts and some discussions this morning and I’ll encapsulate it and go on. The bottom line is, who are you by your testimony? Who are you by your walk? Are you alive? Is the blood of Christ as it were flowing freely through your veins and is there that sense of joy and hope? That’s why Peter could exhort through his epistle when he said, 1 Peter 3 he said this about witnessing, he said “Be ready to give an answer to him that asks you the reason of the hope that lies within you and do that with meekness and fear.” My means of extending ministry and concern into the hearts of other people does not come as in academic engagement of opportunity, rather it’s a reality that is already being fully lived and fully experienced; in my walk, in my life I am experiencing Christ. And those who are next to me and who are experiencing the hope of life temporally and they are only bound up and fettered by that temporal sense of purpose, those look over their shoulder and they see the difference. And I have a question for God’s people this morning, can people look over their shoulder and see the difference? Is there a witness in your feet or is the witness merely in your mouth? Good question. Now for you young people I wasn’t meaning that that part of the discussion was just exclusively for you, that’s for us all. That’s just kind of some background. For those of you who came in a little bit later, we took a poll earlier of how many people were here that weren’t married and I had a message that I felt the Lord put on my heart for the unmarried. And I kind of wished there would be a few unmarried’s to speak it to and then all the sudden there’s all these unmarrieds that show up here from Virginia which I thank the Lord, I guess it’s for you guys. If you’re not married and you can understand what I’m saying, this message is primarily directed to you. The first challenge here is the authenticity of our faith. Are you an authentic believer? Now if you’re not an authentic believer the one thing about it you can’t pretend to be one. There’s nothing that you can do to correct it except to come to Christ and receive Him and all that He is on His terms and abandon yourself of all that you are outside of Christ and recognize the worthlessness of those things. But outside of that reality you have no capacity to experience and to walk in who Jesus Christ is.

Let’s go on to the next point, the next concern I had this morning. I have a handout that I want everyone to get and you’re going to have to fold it yourself, it’s a tri-fold. Maybe a couple people can come up and pass it out. Take one for each of you that can usefully use it in terms of reading and put the rest of them on the back table when we’re done. This little pamphlet I made up out of a chapter of a book by Jean Guyon. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Madame Guyon. She was a French Christian in a day of very very severe and serious persecution. Her little book which I took this from used to be publicly burned in France by the priests. The purpose of this book that she wrote was to help us in some practical ways as it relates to our own personal walk. This is chapter 2 of her book and it’s her expression of how you gain intimate communion and revelation with God. When I began reading the chapter I was very rediscent of considering whether or not it would have much fruit because I don’t have a lot of patience with folk who attempt to tell you a method of getting close to God because methods don’t bring you close to God. So when I read this chapter I read it with a very large grain of salt, for I was concerned that it would not have much value. But as I went on and understood clearly what she was saying, it’s very hard to put words around the concept that she’s trying to discuss in terms of how you engage in communion with God. But I want to speak this to especially to, well to everyone to us adults as well as to the young people, but to the young people especially. And here’s what I want to say as our thoughts turn a corner and we’re going to talk about issues relating to the unmarried: this is an issue related to unmarried but it relates to everyone and that’s the issue of your personal walk with God, your personal communion with God.

Just a moment ago I criticized the believer who would speak with his mouth about Christ but would not walk with his feet that hope and that life in a genuine sort of way. And you have to ask a practical question, well what is the means and what is the manner in which I might feast upon Him in such a way that I am filled with Him and my hope is focused on Him. That’s a good question in terms of practical how do you do something. And it’s not easy to answer that practically. You’ve heard me say many times that the Word of God is not a book of intellectual progress. It’s rather a book that was written by God and it has a spiritual end primarily. And that spiritual end is attained not by the exertion of the temporal nature of man but that spiritual element is attained by connecting heart to God.

And so we quote often the little verse in Corinthians that says “eye hath not seen, ear has not heard and neither has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those that love Him, but they are revealed to him by the Spirit.” So all the sudden we find this very difficult mechanism of spiritual reality. That is God has something for me in this book but temporally I cannot access it by my own strength, by my own insight, by my own courage, by my own study. I cannot bring it into myself by myself. There’s a precondition for understanding and that is that I have to come to God on His terms, I have to come to God in love on His terms and God is the one through His Spirit that reaches into my heart and opens up understanding.

Now when we were studying the book of Hebrews one of the main things we spent a great deal of time was focusing on the New Covenant and recognizing how the difference of the New Covenant was so superior to the Old Covenant and the main reality of the New Covenant was that God was going to do a different kind of work. The Old Covenant had a law written in stone and it was external from man and it was visible in a temporal way and it had no power through that temporal means to change man’s life. But the New Covenant was a different kind of covenant, it was a covenant that addressed the heart, “and I’ll put a New Covenant and I’ll write my laws on their hearts and there’ll no longer be any need where any man says, ‘Know the Lord, know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, everyone.” And so that work of the Gospel in the New Covenant is a work primarily of reaching into a heart. I love the Old Testament passage, it escapes me what part of Isaiah it’s in, where it talks about, “And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give ye an heart of flesh,” and I don’t know if that’s in Jeremiah or Isaiah. But that passage just has thunderstruck me over the years because that’s the work of the Gospel, that’s the work of Christ. He’s dealing in hearts, He’s dealing in hearts, hearts transformed, hearts changed. And so in terms of this little pamphlet which you can take home and utilize hopefully with some success, I felt it was good to explain and express to you that this pamphlet attempts to explain the process by how we establish deliberate attempt to commune with God in our hearts. There’s a heart communion that takes place and she gives some explanation as to how you approach the Word and how you approach it not from an intellectual viewpoint but how you approach it from a spiritual viewpoint where you’re asking God to reach you.

So let me give you an illustration of this. When I was in Bible college, I was nearing the end of my days and for reasons that are not necessary to go into and most likely it was my own spiritual deadness, I was sick and tired of Bible school and some of my friends were getting ready to think about going on to seminary and they did and I had this kind of general reaction, “I’ll go to seminary over my dead body; the last place on earth I’m going is a seminary.” I remember some people challenging me saying, “You’re never going to have the tools that you need to study the Word of God if you don’t go to seminary and get your Hebrew and Greek really deeply expounded in your soul, in your heart or what have you.” And I remember I was taking a Greek class at the time and as I was studying the Greek and was meditating through the Greek and was trying to think of the passage through Greek eyes, I remember feeling kind of excited that I had gotten some insight from the passage by thinking of it from the Greek angle and I was kind of excited about that sense of success and I was thinking about maybe you really do need to know the original language just to get substance out of the Word and maybe I really do need to consider going to seminary. About that time this particular insight that I got to a passage is fresh in my heart and I spoke to a relative of mine who had been having quiet time in English, in an English Bible on the same passage and he made an off hand comment to me that as he was meditating on the Scripture it seemed impressed upon him that the passage had this meaning and then he kind of proved it from the English text because it was the little gem that I had uncovered so to speak through the Greek language. And the Lord just spoke to me and just taught me a little lesson, and He said, “Listen, My Word is living and you are living and I want to take My Living Word and I want to feed you with it in your inner man and do not look to the mechanisms, do not look to the means, look to Me and deal with issues of the heart because that’s what will block you or that’s what will give you issue or utterance.” What I’m saying here, please don’t misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong with using original languages in your study, absolutely nothing wrong, but there is something wrong if I think that only through original languages can I unlock the secrets of God because whether it be original languages or modern languages, that which is truly designed to minister and nurture my heart is given to me on a personal basis individually into my own heart. And so as I look back on my life as a Christian and I think about the structures of study and worship that I’ve tried to walk in, it’s been very difficult for me to find structures at all, I have discovered without really knowing that I discovered anything, I discovered that the Lord does speak to your spirit and that’s the place to be. Get to the place in your own walk where you can let the Lord speak to your spirit through His Word. And the passage that I’m hoping to turn to now in 1 Corinthians 7 it’s kind of an illustration to me, I’ve got about three different sermons lined up that are supposed to be getting preached here and I’m getting so behind every time I start a little project I get set back because here’s another one and I have about six messages that are overdue waiting on the list and the Lord just keeps redirecting my heart. But as I was just meditating I was looking for something else and one word came and my spirit immediately grabbed the Word. It was amazing how the physical and the Spirit work because as I was cruising through the Scriptures looking for something for a particular reason, that was my temporal objective. In time and space I was looking for another verse, looking for something. And as I was cruising along, a word from the Scripture jumped out and it was driven right into my heart and it was just an amazing like a punch and it just caught me, it knocked the wind out of me. And I gave brief consideration of it thinking I need to visit that later but I was in a hurry with my temporal task and went on and later on through another means the Lord drew my attention back to that passage that He wanted to speak to me in that passage and it was just in a few short minutes, it was like the Word just became alive to me for the truth. I’m not speaking as if to hold myself up as an example for you as if I’ve arrived because I haven’t, this is not a process that you can look to and say with any kind of success that I have permanently found the means of dwelling in His presence without error. But what I can say to you is this, when we start talking about singleness today and marriage and questions relating to our lives, there’s a fundamental first question that has to be asked and that is, “Whose are you?” Whose are you? As I have the burden on my heart this morning, my desire is that today in this room that God may begin a work in some hearts of you young people and that work to be a kind of work that is so substantially permanent, so directed towards your personal walk with God that you would recognize that perhaps He’s calling you to singleness and not to marriage at all. And that’s something that needs to be considered, that’s something that needs to be spoken about. And so I hope the little tract will be useful to you, I can get more made up if you’re interested. But the question is, whose are you? Now there’s a verse that Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “You’re not your own, you’re bought with a price.” And the conclusion that you’re not your own and you’re bought with a price is that you have an obligation to glorify God in your body period. That is the expectation, that is the invitation. You are to glorify God, that’s the call. How we glorify God unfolds from a living relationship with God. That’s the simple reality of it. My walk with God is going to unfold over the years and God is going to call me to Himself in certain ways and in certain means and the question isn’t, “How is He going to call me to Himself?” the question is, “What is going to be my response when He calls me to Himself?” Because often what God does, and maybe you can say every time He does this, but often God calls me away from that which is my temporal and carnal inclination, He calls me away from that by which I might find means of success and happiness alone in the earth; He calls me away from that and He calls me to Himself in a different path that isn’t one I would choose. I want to say something about God calling you to a path that you wouldn’t choose. If God calls you to a path that you wouldn’t choose, it’s always because He wants you and not you getting your ego stroked. He’s calling you to Himself so He’s not calling you to build you up and make a great name for yourself. When God calls you to Himself, He wants His name to be made great and that’s the goal and that’s the effort and that’s the desire. So when He calls me to Himself He usually separates me from that which is my natural inclination for human glory, He separates me from that and He gives me rather something else that He blesses me in and that is useful and that as I quiet my heart before Him it becomes a joy to me as well. And I know that you’ve probably heard my testimony on a number of occasions but just on this point I’m reminded again of how the Lord has worked in my life. Before I was saved I was determined to be a professional basketball player. I had set my course and that was the goal. It began to appear that I would prosper in that which I laid my hand to do. Well I got saved by the grace and the mercy of God and it was an amazing thing that occurred. I was saved on a Sunday morning and Monday morning without any consideration or quest or anything, the quiet deep pulling of the Spirit brought into my focus the understanding that I had a basketball god that was not compatible with God who now was my Savior in Christ. And the Holy Spirit told me with no exception that I needed to set aside my basketball god. And I remember at the time what that actually meant to me physically was I took these really expensive basketball shoes and a really expensive basketball that I had just purchased for my plans of the summer activity and I put them and I had this deep deep closet and I put them all the way in the back and said, “I’m finished, I’m out of here, I’m done with that.” And then later on I turned them over to just an ordinary reckless use and they were gone. But there was God calling me, He called me personally. It was in the quietness of my heart, it was in the quietness of my own room. Nobody cornered me and collared me and shook me and said, “This is what you have to do.” It was the Holy Spirit pulling on me and He called me away from that. Well years later I began teaching in a Christian school partly just looking to do anything that was ministry but the Lord certainly was the one that opened the door. But I remember as I was involved in Christian school ministry, I remembered that my attitude was this is temporary, I can’t wait for real ministry and I can really do something for God. And in my mind a Christian school teacher was not something that was worth aspiring to and I certainly wasn’t going to be caught being one of them very long. I was willing to condescend to it shortly but not forever. But one day the Lord dealt with me on that. I had begun my decision to transfer into real ministry and I was preaching through Ecclesiastes. I had just finished seven credits towards premed, straight As, 4.0 average and made some arrangements and it looked like George Washington University would be willing to accept me into a medical school program. And I was headed for that direction and the Lord spoke to me and He pointed out to me that my pursuit of medical degree so I could be a medical missionary that was once again Gary laying a hold of the throttle and wanting to run the ship in his way. And God challenged me if I would surrender that issue up to Him, that was the easy part, “O.k. Lord, what do You want to bless me in? What’s Your objective?” And it was at that point that a real clear understanding in my heart was the Lord spoke to me, “I want to bless you in Christian education.” I didn’t know all that that meant at the time but all I remember is the disappointment and my first response was, “Is that all?” Come on give me a break. This is like being the janitor. And the Lord responded, “Is it enough that I’ll bless you in the work I call you to? Isn’t it enough?” And at that moment it was that little insight that the Lord showed me that’s what’s important is my relationship to God and what’s important in my relationship to God that God blesses me. It doesn’t matter what I do and what people call it and how they give me acclaim. What’s important is does it have a connection to eternity? Does God Himself want to have you do this so that He can glorify Himself in what He’s calling you to do? And that’s the nature of which God calls us. He calls us to Himself so that He’s glorified. And He calls us away from ourself in the pursuits that we would choose so that we might be glorified. And I can say pretty clearly this morning that anything that you’re doing out of an ambition for your own glory, that is outside of the plan and purpose of God for your life because it is not God’s plan or not God’s will. In fact, God is never going to permit you or I ever to share in His glory. He wants to glorify Himself in the appropriate holiness of His glory that no man can share in terms of sharing the glory, but we all can share in in terms of that life and that blessing that God will bring to us.

In thinking of these things, thinking of that foot on the mountaintop bearing good news, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 if you please. And beginning at verse 7 Paul makes a statement and Paul says in verse 7, “For I would that all men who are even as I am myself, that every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that.” Now if you’ll permit me I’m going to make comments as we read through the Scripture because I don’t think I can come back to them. What did Paul just say? He said, “I would that all men were as myself.” Well what was Paul himself? In the context of this chapter, Paul was singled, unmarried, never been married, will not be married. Paul was single and he said in terms of the general sense of consideration, he said, “I would that all men were like myself.” Pay close attention. Paul was acknowledging something that he has that is substantial, that is a blessing and that has such hope and privilege and joy in it that his general consideration is that he wished all men could have this same thing. He’s talking about singleness. He’s talking about being unmarried. And I think that it’s important for us to recognize and to understand that as the Holy Spirit does some revelation here that we need to recognize that as Paul moves along in this discussion, Paul is going to establish a spiritual fact for the church and that fact is this: it is spiritually better to be unmarried from a structural viewpoint than it is to be married if your heart’s desire is to seek after and pursue and follow the Lord. Your capacity and your liberty to pursue God is greater if you’re unmarried than if you’re married. That’s the general overriding premise and there are reasons for that. And we’ll get to the reasons and hold your fire. I want to say that though at the first because we’re probably needing to deal with a myth in our midst right upfront and we don’t want to deal with this myth. We dads probably don’t want to deal with this myth. We wives probably don’t want to deal with this myth. We children don’t want to deal with this myth. Certainly those people in the group that I called over 18 that aren’t married, you might not want to deal with this issue. But the issue is this, in our American Christian culture, we tend to think that you will not find much genuine happiness and fulfillment until you’re married. And that to be unmarried is to be handicapped at best, is to be a disadvantage at best. And when you’re unmarried you always have something more to look forward to hopefully soon. And it’s first important for us to address the issue this morning about the American attitude of marriage, the American Christian attitude of marriage. Let’s be a little more personal, what is our own attitude of marriage? Being unmarried is not a unfinished job of God left until who knows when is going to get done, “I certainly wish You would hurry up and get it over with.” Being unmarried is not a flaw. Do you understand. That’s the first point we need to rivet out of this understanding.

Let’s go on. Let’s look at it again. Now Paul recognizes that from a personal experience, he has much to say for being single. And he really is going to get a chance to say it here. But in that expression of his own desire, what he’s reaching into, it’s a very exclusive group he’s reaching into, he’s reaching into the singles and he’s saying, “Think about it, there’s some serious things to think about concerning your opportunities to fellowship closely with God if you’re single. Don’t run past it.” He goes on in the next part of the verse and says, “But every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that.” Here he makes basically you could say a tourist[?] observation that obviously we have two manners of existence that are within the church, we have those that are married and we have those that are not. That’s a general observation. But he makes a clear address to the key point of it. And this is every man has his proper gift of God. Every man has his proper gift of God. I want to stop here. I want to stop you dead in your tracks and I want you to think for a moment. The natural man is inclined to consider marriage as the obvious necessity of having a full and happy life. I mean we’re supposed to be married, it’s just the way we were made, it’s just necessary. But God draws a line and for His people He’s directly dealing with blood bought servants, and this is what the issue is with God: what gift will I give my child? Will I give this child the gift of singleness or will I give this child the gift of marriage? But what’s extremely important for you and I to understand is that generally speaking God is the One whose directly involved in this particular process. And if I’m going to walk spiritually and if I’m going to walk after God in the manner in which He would call me, I have to reckon and I have to deal with the principle and the premise that it is God who’s the one giving out gifts. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the general gift giving occasion but I remember once as I was a child, Santa Claus came to town, or he came to the school..(tape turned here)…got a gift but every gift was wrapped and all I remember is that Santa knew was this pile of gifts here is for boys and this pile of gifts here is for girls and when we came up on stage he just reached back and indiscriminately grabbed either a boy or a girl gift and gave us a gift. We did not as students go through and rummage through the gifts and open them all to see the ones we want and then picked the one we wanted. We simply were given the gift and the gift that we got was ours. And that’s a stark picture of dealing with God. When God is the One giving out gifts, He’s the chooser of what the gift is and He’s the chooser of the recipient. In this case there’s only two gifts, marriage or singleness, but those occupations are to be seen by us as gifts from God. That’s the primary consideration. What I want to admit here at this point is we are now a step ahead fleshly and carnal living. We’re evaluating things from a different viewpoint. The natural man isn’t even going to think twice in his whole consideration because he has no concept in any area of his life of doing something for God’s sake or because God led him or because God gifted him. But for you and I, we have a different thing to consider and that is this: are you His? Are you His? Well if you are then you don’t have any business running your life. You don’t have any business imposing your preferences on your life. That’s not your place. That’s not your privilege. You are bought with a price and you must glorify God in the deeds of your body. And so for you and I we must accept His gift whatever it is. I’m going to be frank in my own experience. By the blessed mercy of God He revealed to me that He gave me the gift of marriage and it was kind of like the gift of being a Christian school teacher to me. It wasn’t a gift I wanted. I had already before I was saved, I had already made my mind up never to get married, never to have a family. I had a course I set myself in my own wisdom, my own insight, my own understanding. And when I got saved the Lord seemed to deal with those things that I had already set up for my whole life. First He knocks out my basketball and actually I think He did it the other way around. First He gives me the gift of marriage and then He knocks out my basketball. I didn’t have much left when I was finished. I didn’t have much left of me but I had all of Him, praise God and I’m here today by the grace and glory of God and I can rejoice in those gifts that He’s given me. But getting back to that picture, I do have an experience in wrestling with accepting gifts from God that I didn’t want. And the marriage gift when it came my way, I had to wrestle with it. I had to wrestle with it and it simply came down to a question, will you receive My gift and trust My wisdom? And I only had the choice of faith or unbelief. And by God’s grace and mercy I took the gift that He gave me. And it wasn’t easy at first to handle all the human turmoil that went along with taking it because I was so unsettled by the whole concept. But God was faithful and God was merciful and I find almost humorously that the first issue God dealt with me in was with willing to have a spouse and my understanding of the place of women that God has called. That was the very first thing He did and that seemed really weird to me back then but I look back and I realize, “God has just been continuously working in me in that area all these years and my primary ministry springs out of my family.” In fact if I didn’t have my family I wouldn’t have a ministry in more ways than one. So God’s wisdom and His gifts extend well into the future beyond our capacity to see or understand today what He’s calling us to. But it’s a fact so this morning I want to say to you here in the room this morning if you’re not married, if you’re not married God wants to give you a gift. Will you take His gift? That’s the first question. Now the gift’s wrapped. You can’t open it yet. He wants to give you a gift and He just wants to give it to you and He wants to give you the gift that He wants to give you and I want to ask you a question this morning. Will you take the gift that God has determined to give you? Will you do that? Can you say yes to God this morning? “Yes Lord, whatever gift it is that You want to give me, I receive it in Christ, I receive it by faith.” Can you do that this morning? Will you accept His gift without opening it first to find out what it is? Will you do that? Now I want to say the Lord knows your heart and if you will transfer your right to determine which gift you get, if you’ll transfer that over to God, and take the gift that He has for you, if you’ll accept that you do that simply by holding your heart out to the Lord and releasing it to Him and saying, “Yes,” and then taking your hand back on every front and in every attitude where you are pressing to get a certain gift that you want of your own. Can you surrender your right to get the gift that you want?

We’re not finished but let’s pray a second. Let’s just pray. Lord we come before You and we acknowledge that You love us and You have a great and glorious purpose to magnify the person and the love of Christ through our lives. But You want us to be Your people walking along the mountains, having that skip in our feet of the hope of the call of God. Thank You Lord. Lord grant to us that You would give us the freedom from selfish ambition, from selfish determination of our future that we might release into Your hands fully and entirely that which You’ve called us to. And Lord I pray for these young people that are here knowing Lord what a tremendous strain it is in the world we live in the Christian community that we live in, in the home school communities that we live in. Such a picture Lord of Your purpose and Your work in the Christian home and in families and I ask for these young people Lord that You would seal in the heart, quicken in their heart a determination to accept the gifts that You give. Lord we thank You that You’re the giver and we thank You that Your reasons are perfect and we ask Lord for receiving hearts, for gracious receiving hearts that will accept from Your hands instead of demanding for our wants. We ask in Christ’s name, amen.

Now moving on, it’s going to be a long day if I don’t hurry up here. I’m still on verse 7 and we’ve got a long way to go. Let’s go to verse 17. In verse 17 we pick up this thought again that as God has distributed to every man, as the Lord has called everyone so let him walk and so I ordain in all the churches.” So this follow-up premise to that first picture of God giving gifts, the follow-up premise is this: as God has distributed to every man, as God has called every man, so let him walk, this I ordain in all the churches. What this amounts to is the control of God over His people as a common place of fellowship and interaction. When you speak to me and when I speak to you, when we interact in fellowship with one another, we really don’t have any right to express or to encourage or to impose on another believer anything beyond that which God has called them to, any thing beyond or any thing differently from that which God has distributed to them. God is the giver of gifts. He’s the distributor; He passes them out. And our obligation is not to take our perspective or our happiness in our perspective and to unilaterally try and conform all of God’s people to that narrow expression of our own understanding of God’s goodness to us. But we have an obligation to have a communal relationship whereby we hold each other accountable for what God has distributed one to another. God is the giver of gifts and He gives them, it’s His choice, it’s His determination. And we must hold up that authority and we must hold up that expectation one to another, God is the giver of good gifts and I walk in that which He calls me to. Did God call you to something? Walk. Walk in that which you’re called.

Now as we move along I would like to pick it up a short while later here. Verse 26 the Scripture says, “I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress I say that it is good for a man so to be.” What he’s talking about again is being single. “For the present distress it’s good for a man so to be,” that is to be single. So he kind of carries here a little self-examination. Verse 27, “Are you bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed. Are you loosed from a wife, seek not a wife. But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned and if a virgin marry she has not sinned. Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh that I spare you. But this I say brethren the time is short. It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they have none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoice as they that rejoice not and they that buy as though they possess not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passes away but I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried cares for the things that belong to the Lord and how he may please the Lord, but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world and how he may please his wife. And there’s a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried wife careth for the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And I speak this for your own profit not that I may cast a snare upon you but for that which is comely and that you may attend upon the Lord without distraction.” Verse 40, “Happier if she abide in my judgment and I think also I have the Spirit of God.” I’d like to touch on a few issues here and it connects to mountaintop experiences, walking on the mountaintop, understanding what Paul and reckoning with issues that relate to this matter of singleness and our call in life. If you slip back up to verse 26 he says, I suppose this is good for the present distress, I say it is good so for a man so to be.” In speaking in a limited context here that singleness because of the present distress is better in terms of a man occupying himself. Of course he gets to that a little bit later and he explains it also for wives as well. Let me ask the question, is this present distress a limited present distress to Paul’s day in Corinth just at that time when they were suffering persecution, they were suffering persecution? Is the distress limited to that day? It’s a question that perhaps the text begs to be asked and answered in terms of trying to understand what exactly Paul’s speaking. Personally I’m not certain. It seems like it certainly could mean that in the simple context as you read it, but if you balance that out with the rest of the passage it seems like that present distress in Paul’s mind happens to be with a little bit better understanding of who we are as God’s people. In other words, Paul sees God’s people living in present distress because we’re living in a world that’s going to be destroyed by God. There’s a judgment coming upon this earth and the time in which we have to live on this earth is all very limited. I made this comment to someone recently, it was interesting their response immediately was, “Yeah and if the Lord doesn’t come, we only have fifty or so years more to live anyway. Time is still short.” And he was just responding to the general premise of what our obligations are and what our motivations are. Now let me extract from this some baseline understanding as it relates to yours and my response to the Lord in these matters. The first thing I want to remind us is that we’re not talking about Paul dictating to us that we all must be single in order to be holy, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about Paul recognizing that being married isn’t the only way to pursue after God. In fact, if God gives you the gift of singleness, you have a decided advantage in that certain temporal and carnal necessities that come along with marriage are kept from you and you have greater freedom and greater opportunity to serve the Lord without distraction and that is better for one reason, that’s better because this world is temporary and this world is passing away and we’re called to serve God and there’s another world coming. It’s far better if I can be more undistracted in my devotion to the Lord. And I believe that it is necessary to say that every unmarried individual must reckon with and ask this question concerning themselves, “Is God giving me the gift of marriage or not?” Let’s not just assume that we’re all going to be married. Let’s not just fall into that careless non-thinking trap that it just is automatic, everyone of us are going to be married. As a father I tend to think that way in terms of my children, it’s just kind of natural, wondering about their spouses and who they’ll be and what’s going to come about. That’s a natural inclination for me as a father and I’m hearing here from the Lord that I need to be a little bit wider in my general expectation. There is the possibility that God is going to give one of my children or more than one of my children, a gift and it’s not going to be the gift of marriage and here is some substantial significant guidance for our understanding to work through this. I want us to understand something. Here’s a little bit of confusion that can enter into our thinking: a man once wrote a check to Amy Carmichael and mailed it to her ministry in Donhavur, India and with the large check came the little note, “I request respectfully that you use this gift exclusively for spiritual work.” And Amy Carmichael’s quip immediately upon receiving the gift was, “Well kind sir it is rather apparent to me that every spirit is rather firmly attached to a body in this compound.” And we as Christians stress ourselves often with thinking that there’s this spiritual realm and there’s this temporal realm and the spiritual realm is over here and the temporal one is over here and this is a distraction to that. But the spiritual reality is God has called man to Himself in the flesh. There’s no one going to be given an opportunity to be saved in Heaven or after we’ve died. The opportunity to connect with God, the opportunity to begin reaping spiritual fruit happens to be exclusively connected to a temporal world and there is no disconnect until you’re dead and when you’re dead you can’t add any spiritual dimension beyond what in terms of your own growth or what beyond what you had before you died. So it’s important for us to understand that God has the right to call us to Himself in any manner or fashion that He wishes because God is wanting to demonstrate life in the flesh. And so Paul when he was reflecting upon the opportunity for spiritual service, he made a clear and a succinct statement and let’s not let the statement go beyond this but let’s not refuse to let the statement be what it is and his clear statement was this, when you’re married you have additional temporal duties. Sorry there’s no escape from it. And I want to say something about that in terms of the way we divorce ourselves from our spiritual thinking. There are pastors who under the spiritual significance of ministry and reaching souls and what have you they have abandoned the natural and the necessary nurturing and care of their own families. I read of the story once, I wish I could remember the guy’s name, he wrote the book, it’s a good book but anyway this guy wrote this story about how he was so spiritually minded and he began to see that God was really blessing him with spiritual vision and insight and when he spoke many converts came to the Lord and he began to be really burdened with winning the world and just the burden got bigger and bigger and he began to just abandon any care for his family whatsoever, just carelessly abandon it because there was spiritual work. One time his wife came and said, “Listen honey there is a need for you to spend some time with the children. They need you. They need a daddy.” And so finally with her conjoling or whatever he agreed that Friday nights we’ll have family night and during family night I’ll spend time with the kids. And so Friday comes and he meets this commitment, just an appointment with his family. And he describes it somewhat this way as I can remember it that he’s sitting down and the kids want to get out games and play monopoly or this or that or what have you and they’re all playing it and he gets so agitated and stirred up and he rises up and he says, “Well if you all think this is worthy use of your time, you go ahead and play. But there are souls out there dying and going to hell and I can’t sit around doing this.” And he upends the table and he goes off to a study or off to the church or whatever. That was the end of his input to his family. Now that’s warped because it’s an attempt to divorce and separate the dynamic life of Christ being expressed fully in the flesh and there’s something that we have to acknowledge with the flesh and that’s this, while I’m here I have to condescend from my pride and experience a little bit of humanity. Amy Carmichael said, “I’m not quite sure how many thousands of fingernails I’ve clipped in my spiritual ministry.” But it’s this connectedness to the temporal whereby in that connectedness the light and life of Christ shines forth. And Paul is trying to make a clear statement. If you think that you would rather, or if you think that you’re called to a type of service that just leaves you disengaged from temporal activities, then don’t get married, stay single, don’t even consider the prospect of getting married because once you engage in the considerations of marriage, you are bound by God’s order, you are bound by God’s purpose and decree and you must engage in the temporal reality of marriage. And I’ll guarantee you, when you’re engaging in anything temporal, it takes up time and space out of your schedule. That’s just the way it is, it takes time and space and you cannot be married without taking up time and space. And this is the meaning of what Paul is saying here when he was saying that the man or the virgin who gets married has to care about the things of the world and how they can please her husband and how they can please their wife. It is within that venue that I have to deal with spiritual things. And yes I’ll guarantee you there’s one thing true about being married, being married is a very significant temporal investment. And as Amy Carmichael said, “The spirits are rather firmly attached to the bodies.” The bodies need feeding, clothing and medical attention, education, etc. etc. and all these things are a part of that. I’m reminding you that God’s giving us gifts and if you are called to marriage like I was and if you are determined not to obey God which I was tempted, I didn’t disobey though, if you are tempted to disobey God, you cannot enjoy the significance of God’s ministry to you in your life on the earth. If God’s called you to marriage, singleness isn’t going to be the place you can hide out. But on the converse reality, if you’re called to singleness, if God has given you a gift of singleness, then with that gift comes some additional opportunities whereby you can be free from rather heavy and significant temporal tasks, you can be free from those tasks so that your capacity to devote yourself to the Lord is heightened and increased. And there is a significant advantage to being single over being married and that advantage is very temporal, how much time do you have to pursue God without having to attend to multiple temporal affairs, significant difference. And that is the important thing to understand. I don’t mean to go beyond but I want to take a quick observation. Here we are the church of Jesus Christ, brand new spirit filled and we’re about the business of witnessing and I just want to ask a question. I don’t know that there were no other candidates so I’m not making a claim that there were no other candidates. But I want to make an observation that when God wanted to send the Gospel around the world, who did He choose? He chose a single man. And when we get back to Thessalonians and take a look at Paul’s life, you know what we find out in terms of Paul’s testimony? In order for the Gospel of Christ to be made so plain, he abandoned himself to the work and he worked night and day. But he only had to provide a very little portion of bread for himself and he gave demonstration and example of how you work and you provide by working with your own hands. He gave that as an example to the Thessalonians. But he was free from temporal need that comes with taking about a wife. Paul indicates that Peter for example carried a wife about him, that was his purpose, that was his desire. But Paul was freed from it and what Paul had was liberty in the temporal ring in the temporal zone. He had more time; there was liberty there. That’s the crucial issue. As we look at this consideration, can we somehow draw a little bit of closure in our thinking and can we be a little bit gutsy for once and say a few things that are true? It takes a whole lot more time and expense to raise a family and that time and expense that it takes to raise a family cannot be separated from you if you get married. It’s Paul that says if you won’t provide for your own house, you’re worse than an unbeliever, you’re worse than an infidel if you don’t provide for your house. We have a primary obligation, a first level obligation to our family. We do not have the means to spiritualize our family’s needs and say that I don’t have to meet them because I’m about the Lord’s work. We don’t have that privilege, we don’t have that option. What God wants married people to do is this: He wants married people to find the satisfaction of Jesus Christ in their marriage. He wants married people to recognize what it means to live for Heaven instead of living for the earth. And married families I believe the greater majority over history would have been married families because of God’s greater intention, but I believe married families are supposed to be planted and they’re supposed to be sitting next to married families that don’t know the Lord and here they are experiencing all the temporal difficulties and circumstances related to raising a family and here you are in Christ experiencing all those same difficulties. You got to feed your family. You’ve got to put clothes on their back, you’ve got to put a roof over their head. All these things are yours but as you live next to your neighbors, what might come out which is God’s purpose is that you have a lilt in your step. You have a focus that’s not here and you partake of it in such a manner so as that you do not represent the unsaved mindset, but rather you would represent the mindset of a believer. In other words, there’s something that married people have to do if you’re Christian that you have to back off from. This heritage that’s yours is a spiritual heritage primarily and therefore your first investment to your family has to be a spiritual investment and you may have to pull back from some of the temporal investment. You may not be able to get the nicest house or the fanciest cars or all these things that men living on the earth who are living for the earth do to get their life meaning and satisfaction. Rather for you, you may need to live a different model, “My kingdom’s not here, my kingdom’s in Heaven and I’m going to transfer my welfare and I’m going to serve God here in light of Heaven.” And that’s what Paul meant when we go back to these verses here in verse 29, “Brethren I say the time is short.” That’s true today just like it was in Paul’s day. It remains that both they that have wives be as though they had none.” Let me pause for a second and say, “What does that mean?” Does that mean I ignore my wife and forget about it? No it means this: there is a general temporal benefit and privilege and joy associated with being married on the earth and the unbelievers share in that. There is that general sense of satisfaction that unbelievers know about when they’re engaged in marriage. But for the believer that’s not what you’re married for. You’re not married for here and you’re not married to have something substantial here, you’re married here to walk as partners toward there, toward the kingdom over there and you have to live differently. And you cannot make little selfish decisions that just satisfy the general happy feelings of human marriage. You can’t just make your decisions on that flat surface. There are times when you have to say no to yourself. What’s a good example? Well a simple example is this: when you get your income and you realize I’ve got to remember that all this is from the Lord and all this is the Lord’s and I’m going to honor the Lord with the firstfruits and I’m going to carve out a hunk of money and turn it back over to God for other use. That’s different isn’t it? The world that’s living for themselves take all the money that they want and need and use it for what they want. They’re buying boats and we’re living with less. There’s the temporal reality. We’re not married for temporal success and satisfaction, we’re married as a gift, as a call and we have to glorify God in it for His purposes. In this whole list here he unfolds the same thing, “They that weep as though they wept not.” What does that mean? Well think about it in temporal terms and you’ll get all these real easily. Temporally speaking those that are weeping are what? They’re weeping, they’re upset about a circumstance that occurred, that affected them, that struck them harshly, that difficult, and there’s this focus of loss that’s here and now and right this minute and the Lord said stop crying about that because your lot isn’t here, your hope isn’t here, your wealth is in Heaven. It’s not time to weep about these little earthly losses. It’s time to buck up and go on. This is not life. This is not the end, this is just passing through. Release your loss, give it up to God, praise God in it and go on. Those that weep as though they weep not and they that rejoice as though they rejoice not. Same thing, did you get a great promotion? All right. Observe prayer meetings. Observe believers in prayer meetings and when they praise just do a little tally one day. How many times do Christians get up in the assembly and praise God for the raise, for the promotion, for the new job, for the, for the, for the, for the, for the? We are so accustomed to living out our life as if this is life. See this a credible tempering of our understanding and of our spirits. God isn’t impressed when you get excited about a temporal gain. Here’s a little illustration of a temporal gain: seventy disciples sent by God, sent by Christ, to go and witness by twos, given an assignment, they preach, they come back, great work had been done. Demons had been cast out. And they come back and what’s taking place? They’re rejoicing in something temporal. It’s neat to see how the Holy Spirit, how God can just cut right through because if you and I were there, wouldn’t you be excited? Wouldn’t you be just thrilled that, great work of God? And of course deep down in resources of our soul there’s this temporal sense that I’m an important minister, I did good work for God. I feel pretty good about that. Did you hear about my story? I’ll tell you again. I had a preacher this week tell me some story about a opportunity for ministry and I just watched him and I was amazed. His eyes about fell out of his eye sockets. He said, “Can you believe this, this is what happened to me?” It’s a neat opportunity, he’s excited about it. But Paul’s warning us. What do you rejoice in? Don’t let your rejoicing be tangible, don’t let it be limited to that which is passing away. It’s not time to get all worked up about a temporary exciting advance that you made that’s going to be taken away from you in a short while, that you’re not going to hold on forever.

“They that rejoice as though they rejoice not and they that buy as though they possess not.” To me that gets down to practical. That really begins to strike, “O.k. this is what he’s meaning. I’ve got to go to the store and I’ve got to buy a shovel and I’ve got to dig a garden to feed my family.” When he said, “When you go buy something don’t buy it as though you possess it.” Boy does that cut through the quick because we tend to buy tools for their purpose but we tend as humans, this is universal, we tend to find a sense of our purpose, a sense of our distinction, our wealth represents us, it represents something important, so we make sure we keep our shovel real clean. Now there’s nothing wrong with keeping your shovel clean and sharp for the purpose of using it, but Paul’s trying to slice between the tendency that we naturally have to invest and absorb this world as if it’s the real thing and it’s where all of our satisfaction is coming from and he says, “No, cut it out, cut it off.”

“And they that use this world as not abusing it.” That’s an interesting statement. Ask yourself a question, “Am I abusing the world?” The word “abuse” is pretty clear in our minds. Abuse is using something completely inappropriately so that what it is is distorted from what it was supposed to be or is harmed or there’s a great loss from that which was supposed to be. And God is looking down at you and I and we’re kissing our shovels, “Have you seen my shovel? It’s the nicest shovel, it’s the last one, I really got a good deal.” We’re all excited about our shovels and the Lord looks at us and He says, “You’re abusing it, you’re abusing that shovel. You’re using it to get your ego puffed up. It’s just a tool, dig a ditch and fall in it you’re a dead man.” Abusing the world. That’s the whole key. We’re abusing it. We want to take that out of it which is not there for it. And it’s possible for us to abuse marriage and it’s possible to abuse singleness. When I thought about this discussion, an interesting thing crossed my mind for Christians and this is my last really hard hit to you guys that are single and I’m going to sit down and duck. But it appears that there aren’t many choices for you if you’re single and you’re in Christ. If you’re single and you’re in Christ, you have the choice of accepting God’s gift or rejecting. That’s not a very good choice because if you reject it you just kind of exclude yourself from any kind of growth or fellowship or harmony or significance in terms of walking in with Christ. So that’s not a good choice so you really have to accept the gift God gives you on His terms. So that’s that. The next thing is, with the gift, what do you do with it? You don’t abuse it. Here’s the other side of American culture today. Today believe it or not there’s a rise on singleness in American culture. Why? Because people have found how to abuse this life even better by being single. I’m not casting judgment on anybody in this room, these people here this morning I don’t even know who they are, certainly I’m not talking about you. But you know, how many Christians are abusing their singleness? Are you just living for yourself? Are you just happy? You say, “It’s really nice to be single. It’s great I can go, I can spend money on myself. I can do this, I can do that. This is really great.” When you’re called to singleness, with the call comes service, a greater service, a greater devotion, a greater surrender to Christ. That’s the only benefit and that’s the only privilege of singleness. And if you’re not using singleness to more intimately become acquainted with God and pursue Him on His terms, you are abusing your singleness and you will give an account, you will answer for that abuse. Your life is not your own. You must glorify God in the deeds of your body. That’s our call. I’m not mad at anybody and I’m not thinking of anybody. But you know what I am thinking? I’m thinking that there’s such a privilege. We have so many young people here and what a privilege today when the time is so short that there might be those of you who willingly listen and say, “Lord, Lord your servant hears, what’s Your gift for me?” And as long as you’re single and while you’re single, use your gift of singleness for serving God. Elisabeth Elliot said if you’re trying to figure out if you have the gift of singleness or not, figure it this way: you do have the gift of singleness until God clearly calls you out of it so stop worrying about it. Just give it up and go on. Live single, get a single mindset and just go for it. Go for the gold medal, go for the kingdom and don’t even think about getting married, just don’t even worry about it because if it’s time and if it’s God’s plan, He will. You can’t escape, He’ll get you. And just be ready to go when He says go. There may be some of you here who don’t want to go and that’s not good either. Charlie – ( This so cuts against what the world presents to us. It’s presented to us that you shouldn’t marry. .. marry several times. There’s a passage of Scripture that says, “She should remain single.” How do we as fathers know whether our daughters or our sons have received the gift of celibacy? It almost, maybe my flesh is so great that I don’t want to see any of my children single. Is that the problem here.) I’m certainly not going to sit in judgment on your flesh. I have a hard enough time with my own. I think I partly answered your question that you already had when I mentioned what Elisabeth Elliot did say and that is think about it this way: whatever state your in therewith be content. Whatever state you’re called in, we were just in that passage of Corinthians, what’s the state you’re in, God’s calling you to that state, walk in that and serve Him in that. And don’t go looking. Are you loosed from a wife, don’t go looking for a wife. It’s clear to understand something, it said, I read the verse, if you marry you have not sinned. You haven’t sinned if you’ve married. But what we’re talking about here is we’re talking about this level of recognition that I’m a disciple and I have an obligation to serve God. There’s an interesting thing about marriage. You can enter into marriage by free choice and by your choice, but once you get there, you have no choice. Now God takes over and His purposes and His interests and His goals and His objectives and you will be held accountable to God for His expectations in the marriage covenant. And of course the problem with our culture today is everybody in our culture enters in marriage for their own benefit, for their own interest, for their own happiness, for whatever. So they have the wrong motive for getting into marriage so when they get into marriage, they’re not interested in at all of glorifying God. So why do we have such a high divorce rate in the church? Bingo you hit it. We’re not here for serving God, we’re here for our own pleasures and when it ceases to be pleasurable it’s time to get out. And that’s how we measure it. But the reality is, the simple rule of thumb is, what condition are you right now? Are you married? Don’t seek to be loosed. Here’s the condition of your call, serve God in marriage and serve Him well, serve Him right. Are you single? Don’t seek a spouse, don’t seek to be married. Now if you’ll live by that Charlie, two things will happen, if you live by that sense that I am not seek after a spouse, I’m just going to continue in this singleness that God’s called me, first of all I begin to learn for the first time singlemindedness. My daughters once in a while share with me how they struggle with singlemindedness because they say, “Every once in a while the thought strays into my mind, I might get married. I might have a husband soon or whatever.” And as those thoughts stray into their mind it distracts them from simple daily service to the Lord, from honoring the Lord presently in our home right where they are. And so they remind themselves and they tell me and we pray and refocus. You are single, you are not married so you do not have to live like you’re married until you are married, live singly. But what happens if you can get this singlemindedness in your heart, you have a great liberty. It is true to some degree, not universally and less today than before, but it is true that one of the advantages of marriage is singlemindedness. And the Lord showed me that with me when I went to Bible college and I was married. I got so sick and tired of all these young people, almost a whole college was wasting their time chasing emotional infatuations instead of getting down and doing the work. Let’s get real. They’re all tangled in these emotions and everybody’s trying to figure out who’s going to marry whom and we decided that it really wasn’t Washington Bible College but it was Washington Bridal College. Everybody was there to find a bride. But the reality is you’re called and you’re existing in a call right today. You have a call and so we can tell our children, “This is your call, walk in it and don’t change from it and God will hand out the package when it comes next and He’ll do it.” But what a peace and what a focus can be developed in my heart if I learn to rest in what I am called. Bill Gothard asked if he was given the gift of singleness. This was when he was in his fifties he said this, “I don’t know yet, but I certainly know that He hasn’t called me to marriage yet.” That’s a good answer. Yet. And this really cool thing happened several years ago. I was at conference early getting ready for conference and the normal caretaker was on vacation so we had a substitute. This substitute was in his sixties or something. And he’s kind of friendly and jolly and been married before I think and along comes his wife and she walked in the door and she was beaming like Valerie did when she first got engaged to Dan, she was just beaming. I find out that this is his wife. I said that’s nice, I said, “How come she’s beaming?” He said, “We just got married last week, this is our honeymoon.” I said, “That’s nice. Were you married before?” He said, “Yes my wife died.” And I said, “Were you married?” And she said, “No this is my first marriage.” She was sixty-three and got the gift of marriage. And she had served as a missionary all her years before and then God called her at this late time in life. But she was beaming, she was happy, she was serving the Lord, she was focused, she was useful and she was called and there’s the issue. We are in a condition. Try figuring out how to walk after God in your condition. Let’s get that down first. Faithfulness is the key to promotion and if you can’t walk faithfully in singleness, what makes you think you’re going to walk faithfully in marriage? There’s a lot of people deluding themselves into that, “If I just had a wife.” If you just had a wife. If you only knew what it means to “just have a wife.” Your problems aren’t going to be decreased, they’re going to be compounded. Actually when you have kids, they’re multiplied because the Lord said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Did that help some or did you want to fire back. (That’s very helpful. It’s just I’m aware of several single people in my office and I find myself praying for those people to have spouses and just as I listen today, I’m thinking Lord maybe I shouldn’t be praying for these people to be married. Maybe I should be praying for hearts that are w..)…( tape turned here..) for His purpose and inside of marriage He’s sought to redeem and bring forth redemption safely which He has. Now therefore there is constraining in man that sense of desire and need to be married and there in this case happens to be a situation where someone, if you read the passage carefully you can recognize that someone has another someone who would make the perfect spouse. There’s someone that would be appropriate for their spouse. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the story of George Washington Carver but it’s a good illustration of this. George Washington Carver was serving God faithfully in the Tuskegee Institute and one day this wonderful woman was brought to the school and they began to spend time together and they realized that they were perfectly matched for each other and they began questioning and praying about marriage and what would be appropriate and as they talked and as they prayed George Carver said this to the dear lady, “Mam I so badly want to be married with you. It would be so wonderful and appropriate, but I need you know something, God’s called me to serve these people and the time is so short and I must serve these people. I have to surrender my right to marry to serve God.” And he did. They thought it wise that they disassociate themselves physically so they wouldn’t have unnecessary agitation. She went and lived the rest of her days single and he lived the rest of his days single. But it wasn’t because they didn’t have appropriate person to get married to. And I think the passage is relating to that kind of setting. There’s already a person. What you’re implying potentially is that there’s these people among us that are just so wound up with hormonal energies that they’re in a rage to find some kind of an outlet and that the answer to them is to go get married. That really is quite perverse in terms of what the Scripture is teaching. The Lord teaches us that as Christians we have to learn how to have control over our own passions and our own bodies and not to be defrauding.

If you can’t learn to control your passions before you find a wife, don’t think that finding a wife is going to be an answer to your uncontrolled passions. That’s what adultery is all about. People are uncontrolled and unsatisfied and they’ve allowed their sense of need to be just the only motor that propels them into the forward motion. I don’t think that we’re generally expressing here just a routine say that if you’re out of control get married as if that will fix it. Heaven forbid the poor wife that gets trapped into that kind of setting.

Comments from those assembled
(A real great struggle is that the world tries to put a mold on us constantly. One example is having children. The world says have one or two children. That’s what the world’s saying as a pressure. So people go out there and have one or two children, they’re married. But it becomes like having a car or a second car or a house with a garage. It’s just a thing to do because the world has pressured to do something and you do it not because of something coming out of your heart or what God is speaking to you. And something simply with marriage. People are forced to marry because the world is putting pressure that you have to be married, that it’s the thing to do and that’s something that we need to realize that the world is constantly battling in us and we’re feeling that pressure.) I appreciate your comment. It reminds me of that verse, are we abusing the world? And how many parents are there who have children and they’re abusing the world in having children? Their children are to them a possession, a point of self-satisfaction, they wanted the ones that they wanted and they put them where they wanted them and they wanted to do what they wanted to do and they’re abusing their family because they’re imposing a wrong moral premise. These children are eternal, they have souls and the value of them is before Christ not before your own trophy shelf. We as believers really today in America maybe more than in any other time, we need to be asking these questions. The common ordinary believer in America struggles with constant abuse of the world, living for this world as if this world is all there is and pretending that we’re serving the Lord in some kind of vain fakeness. Yes sir – ( One thing that I realized several years ago, I guess I’m struggling with this “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” This contentment is an area of my life that I’m struggling in and the Lord is being gracious and helping me there. I have to try to isolate what is contentment and what is the Lord calling on me to move and do something different because He’s leading me in a direction versus being discontent. But nevertheless that wasn’t the point I was after. The point I was after is the world is totally focused on our discontent everything. The newspaper, television, radio. If it wasn’t for our desire to be discontent there would be no newspaper because there would be no advertising and the news couldn’t be sold. You couldn’t afford a paper to pay the reporters if it wasn’t for the advertisements. There would be no television if it wasn’t for our discontent. There would be no communication in the worldly sense and it never occurred to me until I started looking and someone mentioned to me and said that. Every automobile advertisement in the newspaper is trying to make you discontent with the automobile that you have. Every tractor ad in the Pennsylvania or Lancaster Farming that I’m sharing with Gary is in there to make him discontent with that wonderful tractor that he’s got. The same for me. The world is constantly after us and it’s hard. It’s a challenge without the Holy Spirit really there to give me and you discernment as to what is His call for us to make a change versus what is our desire just to keep moving and keep doing things different because we’re discontent. I’m sure that applies to singleness as well as this.) Amen. Mark – (I suppose as we talk, my mind is drawn to a couple verses in Matthew 6 that I thought might add something to what we’re talking about. It’s Matthew 6:31 through 34 and it talks about to me the world ..to the Gentiles are seeking these things and God knows that we need these things. It’s amazing that God’s answer to that is to seek Him first and all these things shall be added unto you. And He talks about anxiety and here we are in the world and it’s easy for us to be anxious because we don’t have these things. It’s just a neat passage that helps me to have a perspective, to keep my eyes looking up and not around me and also to try to challenge my children as they grow that the one thing I look for, one thought I thought of when Charlie mentioned his question was the first thing I look for as God speaks to me is I want to make sure my children are married to Christ before they’re going to be married to anybody else. Verse 33 really says that to me, that if they’re seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, then all of these things shall be added unto you. So it’s just a neat passage to give me perspective as what I need to be watching for and what I need to be watching for in my children to see if they’re ready for that step if that’s what God leads them to do. I hate to give my children, my daughters to another young man when they’re not ready. It’s a sobering thought for us dads to think about.) (I just want to say kind of a general prescription is also in Matthew where it says, it’s a promise, “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be satisfied.” And there’s a sense of fulfillment that you can’t get outside of the kingdom of Heaven that is kind of the lie of the devil that we live with everyday that these things are going to satisfy and they don’t, not the spirit anyway.) Maybe that’s a good way of defining abuse. Abuse is trying to use the world to satisfy my spiritual needs which can only be satisfied by God alone so we need to seek Him. (I’m just listening and I’m thinking about my own life and the time that I’ve spent looking at motor boats, not that there’s anything wrong with motor boats or a four-wheel drive vehicle and I don’t have a boat and I don’t have a four-wheel drive, and again nothing wrong with a four-wheel drive, but the big thing in our area down in Rockville and Bethesda is to go hang out at the mall, especially for godly young people. And I think about going to the mall for the mochaccinos and I wonder what is going to be satisfied in the midst of hanging out at the mall? It’s just a matter of time before the lust takes over and you’re literally having to buy everything you see going broke trying to do it. And I thought how can I ask my children to be quiet or to be still when they see their daddy looking at different things. Not that I’m a feign or I’m off the wall, but I’m just listening here thinking the key verse here was don’t seek a husband, if you’re single stay single. In other words, don’t seek a wife, remain content. How do you know if you’re seeking? The heart’s not trustworthy. And if I can’t be still as far as automobiles or houses or clothing or the things of this world, how can I ask my precious children to say no to these magazines that come into the house? We got rid of a t.v. about ten years ago. Guess who didn’t want to give the t.v. up? It was me because I was enjoying the world coming in, just a couple hours a week but I still liked it. So it really starts with us parents being in a place of being rested. I think we give our children appetites that sometimes exceed our own. I’m so grateful that my children have helped me in this.) Amen. (I appreciate this forum to ask questions and I’m wondering if you can clear up verse 27 which has been a verse of contention in my own heart for a number of years. Is Paul saying when he says, “Art thou loosed from a wife,” is he speaking of an unmarried person or is he speaking of a person who was married and has been loosed from that wife?) Well in the specific context of it he’s speaking of a woman that was married and speaking of her not seeking another husband. But also in that context he’s addressing at the very end of the chapter he brings up the principle of a wife is bound to her husband so long as he lives and then if he dies she’s at liberty to be married to whomever she chooses but then he’s encouraging her to consider singleness. I don’t know if you can’t catapult too far with that verse beyond this simple context. Anything more would be another hour sermon. (I was debating whether to say anything because that was actually the verse that the Lord really used in my life. I was struggling with the whole idea of well how can you get married if you’re not seeking anybody? And of course that’s what everybody was telling me in the world anyway. But that was the principle that the Lord began to teach me about, “Am I the God of Abraham and Isaac?” What did He do for Isaac? The Scripture says that he [Isaac] was content. There’s other descriptive passages there too. The whole joy of marriage can’t be found when you’re seeking it for yourself. The whole joy is knowing God did this! So I think that was the crucial point. We can be single and seek not to be married and the Lord can marry us. And it’s interesting, Elisabeth Elliot was asked the question, “How can you talk about singleness when you’ve been married three times?” She said, “Because I’ve been single longer than I’ve been married for two of my three husbands have died”) - End of audio tape-

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