Singleness is not a season to endure, it’s a status to celebrate!
In this episode, we talk about what it takes to celebrate singleness.
- Change our language
- Include singles in our lives
- Lean into the mission
Resources Mentioned:
Breaking The Marriage Idol by Kutter Callaway
Impossible Marriage by Laurie and Matt Krieg
No Longer Strangers by Greg Coles
#Single sermon series at Element Church Fall of 2019
Episode’s 018, 019, 023 “Marriage on Mission Part 1, 2, 3”
Scripture used:
Matthew 19:11-12 11 “Not everyone can accept this statement,” Jesus said. “Only those whom God helps. 12 Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
1 Corinthians 7:32-35 32 I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. 33 But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. 34 His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.
Quotes shared:
“God, what is the mode you want me to do the mission of making disciples? Single or married? Kids or no kids?” – Laurie Krieg
…When we expect a friend or lover to take away our deepest pain, (or fulfill our deepest longings), we expect from him or her something that cannot be given by another human being. — Henri Nouwen
Lonely insecure single people become lonely insecure married people. Because problems like loneliness and insecurity are not cured by another human being, they are only cured by the infinite love of God. — Pastor J.D. Grear
To understand single life in terms of waiting for a soulmate is to treat one’s imagined future spouse as both a fetish and an idol. It is sub-Christian. Inside this framework, marriage can only ever be an arrangement that caters to the individual needs of the consumer. Its culmination is not self-giving love but rather self-serving love. —Kutter Callaway (Breaking the Marriage Idol)
When Paul speaks of singleness as a gift, he isn’t speaking of a particular ability some people have to be contentedly single. Rather, he’s speaking of the state of being single. As long as you have it, it’s a gift from God, just as marriage will be God’s gift if and when you receive it. — Vaughan Roberts
Marriage shows us the shape of the Gospel in that it models the covenant promises that God has made to us in Christ. Singleness shows us the sufficiency of the Gospel because it shows us the reality of what marriage points to—which is our own relationship with Jesus. — Sam Alberry
So marriage and singleness are about more than who to take out on a Friday night or whether sex will or will not follow. It’s about God’s mission in the world. Or, to put it differently, what if the chief criteria for a future spouse were not sexual chemistry, a common set of personal interests and hobbies, or even emotional compatibility, but rather a capacity (and willingness) to collaborate in a lifelong project of caring for the outsider, the marginalized, and the oppressed? — Kutter Callaway (Breaking the Marriage Idol)