REDEEMED: Relationships (Singleness)
[Read 1 Corinthians 7:17-40]
It doesn’t matter which chores you assign to your children, they’re never going to be happy, right? Someone’s always gonna say, “Why do I always get this chore and she always gets that chore?” The assumption from that child is that she is always getting the bad chore and the other child is always getting the good chore. But here’s the crazy part. Every child is thinking the same thing. Every child is mumbling to themself about getting “the bad chore,” thinking that everyone else has “the good chore.” Isn’t that crazy? There’s something inside us that always thinks we’re getting the short end of the stick—like we’re always the victim, like everyone else has things better than us.
That grows with us into adulthood. I talk to adults all the time who think everyone else has it better than they do. Someone else is always getting the promotion. Someone else is always getting “the cushy job.” Someone else is always getting a raise or more vacation or, or, or… There’s something inside us that thinks everyone else has things better than us or that we’re getting the short end of the stick. There’s something inside of us that has us constantly feeling unsatisfied with life—like we’d be more satisfied if we had someone else’s life.
In the midst of that temptation we hear this statement from God’s Word: “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 churches.” (1 Corinthians 7:17, ESV). That understanding of our life and God’s role in our life, flies in the face of our unsatisfaction. It flies in the face of our constant murmuring about everyone else having a “better life” than we do.
Here’s why: The Lord has assigned you your life. Just like a parent divvying out chores to their children, the Lord has divvied out lives to his children. And, just like our children respond to their chore assignments, we respond to God about our live assignments: “Really, God? I mean, could you have given me a better assignment? Why do they always get the good assignment and I always get the tough assignment?” Are you willing to have that conversation with the God who created the universe? Are you going to complain to him about the life he has assigned to you?
Yet, once we stop complaining about our assignment in life, we can actually see the blessing of it. God has assigned you this life. He gave it to you for a reason. Once you realize that, and accept it, a couple things flow from it. First, God isn’t a dummy. If he assigned this life to you, he did it for a reason and he doesn’t make mistakes. So, you can have confidence that you are able to live the life he assigned you and that God will accomplish his purposes through the life he assigned to you.
But, on top of that realization, we can also have comfort being reminded that it is the good and loving God who assigned us this life. God didn’t assign you this life because he wanted you to suffer. God didn’t assign you this life because he wanted to watch you squirm. God assigned you this life because he loves you and wants what’s good for you and wants to be glorified through you.
That’s the broader application of this passage, but we need to dive into the particular point of this passage. The particular point is that you don’t have to change any of your externals in order to faithfully follow Christ because this is the life he assigned to you. This passage mentions that you don’t need to worry about being circumcised or uncircumcised to faithfully follow Christ. You don’t need to worry about being a slave or being a free person to faithfully follow Christ. I would add a few more to our current situation. You don’t need more money to faithfully follow Christ. You don’t need a better job to faithfully follow Christ. You don’t need a better home to faithfully follow Christ. You don’t need to change any of that to follow Christ—you just need to start following Christ where you are. You just need to start faithfully following Christ with the life you’ve been assigned by God.
And, to get to the main point of this sermon, you don’t need to change your marital status to faithfully follow Christ. You don’t need to get married to faithfully follow Christ and you don’t need to remain unmarried to faithfully follow Christ. That’s why we read, “I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” (1 Corinthians 7:26–27, ESV). The call of this passage is to faithfully follow Christ with the life you’ve been assigned. For some of you, God has assigned you a life of marriage. If that’s you, you are called to faithfully follow Christ in your marriage. For others, God has assigned you a life of singleness or widowhood. If that’s you, you are called to faithfully follow Christ in your singleness or widowhood. That’s the life God has assigned to you.
It’s interesting that this rubs some people wrong. Some people hear me say something like this and say, “Well, that’s easy for you to say, you’re married. That’s not so easy for the single person to say.” Underneath that statement is an assumption—an assumption that the married life is easier than the single life. But that’s not really the case. Life experience doesn’t tell us that the married life is easier than the single life. And, more importantly, the Bible never says the married life is easier than the single life.
Actually, there are a few places that explicitly talk about the difficulty of marriage. I hinted at this a few weeks ago, but look at the way the disciples respond to Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Matthew 19: “The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”” (Matthew 19:10, ESV). To paraphrase, the disciples hear Jesus say that divorce was never part of God’s design for marriage. If you’re married, you’re in it for the long haul. And how do the disciples respond? Ummmm. That sounds really hard. Maybe it’s better not to get married. Isn’t that funny? Then, notice how Jesus responds to them. He doesn’t actually rebuke them. He goes on to talk about how there are some people who have remained single their entire lives for the kingdom of God. Jesus actually acknowledges the difficulty of the married life and holds up the single life—to some degree.
We’ll get into this a little more in a bit, but here’s an essential point we need to understand. BOTH the married life and the single life are difficult callings. Both of them are. And, BOTH the married life and the single life have particular blessings associated with them. Neither life is “better” than the other. Both are particular assignments given to particular people by God and those assignments are filled with BOTH difficulty and blessing.
In our passage this morning, there is a particular emphasis on the beauty and blessing of singleness. We read, “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.” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34, ESV). Here’s one of the primary blessings of the single life—a freedom to wholly devote yourself to the Lord. If you are married, your life is filled with various anxieties. You are worried about how to care for your spouse. You are worried about whether you are caring for them well enough. Most likely, you have children, and you’re worried about what they’re doing and if you’re raising them right and if you’ve messed them up and where they are and… You’re worried about providing for them and their needs and taking care of them. You have so many things to be worried about. It can be exhausting at times. And Paul says, “I want you to be free from anxieties. That’s why I want you to see the beauty and benefit of singleness.” When you’re single, you have a unique ability and privilege to devote every aspect of yourself—every part of your heart, soul, mind, and strength to the Lord—and you have a unique ability to do that in a way that no married person could ever do. I think we need to talk about this more. I really think we must recover the beauty and benefit of the single life in the church. I want us to stop thinking the single life is the “ultimate cross to bear”. It’s not.
I was just reminded of this while I was away at Synod. I had an opportunity to connect with one of my close friends who has committed himself to celibacy. He is committed to being single because of the life the Lord has assigned him. And I spoke with him about his life, of course there were struggles, but he also regularly spoke about his life with joy. He regularly teased me by saying things like, “I guess that’s the benefit of being a single guy, isn’t it?” There wasn’t any animosity or jealousy in his voice as he spoke about the life God assigned him. He was content and finding joy in the life that was assigned to him.
So, I want to make sure we stop thinking that the single life is a sub-par life. Actually, I think we need to take it further than that. I think that single people—in particular those who’ve lived a single, celibate life for a long time—have a lot to teach us. My friend has taught me a lot about the importance of community and friendship and devotion to the Lord—and a bunch of other stuff too, because he has so much time to read and study. Because of their particular struggles and their particular blessings, they will see the world differently and offer unique insight into particular situations. We need that in the church and it’s a beautiful thing.
Yet, in the midst of all this, I want to offer a caution/correction that actually came from John Calvin, but I think is even more relevant today. John Calvin reminded his readers that not all singleness leads to Godliness. Singleness isn’t a solid pathway to wholehearted devotion to God. I think that’s especially true today. I’ve known many people who have remained single because they didn’t want to be “tied down” and wanted to “play the field” or wanted to “mess around.” They remained single for completely selfish reasons. They didn’t remain single because it was the life God assigned them or because they wanted to wholly devote themselves to God. They remained single because they wanted to focus all of their efforts and emotions on themself. That is becoming more and more common in our culture today. And that type of singleness is not a blessing to anybody. It’s not beautiful and it’s not a blessing. It will eventually end in destruction.
The key to a beautiful and blessed single life, is the key to any beautiful and blessed life. It’s the core teaching of this passage: Devote yourself to God, be Content with the life he’s assigned you, and live out His calling on your life. That’s the key.
The first step is to devote yourself to God. That begins by putting your faith and trust in Him. You look to him by faith, trust him for the forgiveness of your sins then trust him with the rest of your life. When you trust God with the rest of your life, you are devoting your life to him. You’re saying, “God, I’ll go wherever you tell me to go, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, and I’ll say whatever you tell me to say.” In connection with today’s message you say, “God I’ll live whatever life you assign to me. If you’ve assigned me a life of marriage, I’ll live that life. If you’ve assigned me a life of singleness, I’ll live that life. I’m devoted to you and I trust you.”
The next step is to be content with the life God has assigned you—the life He’s given you. That’s also part of living by faith. If you go through life grumbling and mumbling about the life God has given you, are you really living by faith and trust in God? I don’t think so. You can’t truly devote your life to God and then grumble about it at the same time. Those actions are contradictory. If you are devoting your life to God, entrusting your life to God, then by necessity, you must be content with the life God has assigned you because you trust him. So, part of living by faith, is living content with the life God has assigned you.
Finally, we live our that calling in the world. We take action by faith. We live into the life God has assigned us and we live into that life with passion and joy. As I mentioned recently, if God has assigned you a life of marriage, live into that marriage with passion and joy—live into that marriage in a way that preaches to the true gospel to the world. However, you can accomplish something similar with the single life. If God has assigned you a life of singleness, live into that life with passion and joy—live into that singleness in a way that shows us the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Show us that Jesus Christ is enough.
I think that’s one of the beautiful truths we can learn from our single brother and sisters. Jesus Christ is enough. Even though they don’t have a spouse or children, Jesus Christ is enough. Even when they struggle with loneliness, Jesus Christ is enough. Single people have a unique opportunity to realize this powerful truth: Jesus Christ is enough.
That’s something each one of us can learn from our single brothers and sisters. When things become difficult in our marriages, Jesus Christ is enough. When there is tension in our friends and family, Jesus Christ is enough. When our jobs are difficult and exhausting, Jesus Christ is enough. When everything is stripped away, and all of our distractions are gone, and all of our artificial crutches have been removed, Jesus Christ is enough and will always be enough for the rest of eternity.