Marriage and Singleness By John Paterson
SGFC 1988
Well as you know brethren we've changed the last topic for today from that which
was advertised in the program mainly because just given the kind of range of
people we have here at such a conference it's appropriate that we examine the
question where do singles fit into God's plan for family? How do families, people
in families relate to those who are single? For the Word of God has a great
deal to say about that. A great deal to say about marital status whether married
or single and it's appropriate that we address that and it was an oversight not
to consider that when we planned the series. So we're moving out of Proverbs
this morning having been there for the last three studies and moving a little
more broadly through the scripture. I have a friend who said to me one day you
know I could never belong to that particular church. I said oh really?
Teaching's good isn't it? He said oh it's the best I know. I said there's some fine
people there? He said yes you'd get really good fellowship there. He said but
for me no I couldn't belong because they make so much about the family. All the
activities are geared to families. There are always sermon series on the family
and so on and so on and it may well be that even as we've done these
particular studies this weekend you may have found it a little difficult because
you're single, you're divorced, you're widowed, of course perhaps you're
childless, your children have been totally wayward in the worst sense of
the word and that you found it a little painful in some ways. Well Brethren what I
want to say right at the end here is I guess a word to those of us who make too
much of families and that's possible to make too much of marriage and that's
possible. I've been encouraging us to make a lot but it's possible to make too
much and I also want to say a word to those of us who feel perhaps a little
little like my friend at times that things are too family orientated and
they feel their singleness too much. So hopefully a word to both sides of the
questions, both sides of the question. Let me start with the two negatives
you'll be used to starting with negatives I guess by the end of the
weekend. I want to say two negatives but draw some positive conclusions from
them before we move to the two positives that form the second half of our study
this morning. The first of the negatives, it's this, your marital status does not
identify you. You're not a person because you're married and a non person because
you're not married. Now the way some Christians speak you'd almost think that
were the case and what we need to do is to maintain God's normal and beautiful
pattern of marriage as we've seen it but without saying people who aren't in that
state are somehow subhuman or second-rate somehow only half people.
When we looked in our first study at Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we made the
point you might make here to turn there as we as we commence in the scripture we
saw there God's creation of the mailman Adam and everything in the garden was
perfect and the mailman Adam bore the image of God. He bore the image of God. He
did not as we saw in chapter 2 verse verses 8 through to about 21 he did not
find any one who could compare with him in the garden. There was nobody else who
bore the image of God. The animals didn't bear the image of God. The trees didn't
bear the image of God. There was no one with whom he might relate as an image
bearer. No one who might stand beside him and help him in his work of horticulture
and agriculture being a grazier and so God made Eve whom you remember he took
from Adam and he brought her to the man.
Eve was not made joined to Adam. It's an obvious point but Eve was not made joined
to Adam. She came from Adam she stood beside Adam and the Lord God brought her
to Adam that she might be joined to him but before the joining she stood there
as a person as a perfect person as a person bearing the image of God as Adam
bore the image of God and they saw him one another the image of God. They were
born to stand beside one another in that kind of way. There's a complementarity in
Adam and Eve. It's not a sameness. The sameness is only at the point where they
both bear the image of God but they are complementary to one another. Each bears
the image of God. Each is fully human. Each is a full person. To make that point
so clearly it's so obvious so basic that we tend to miss it. Each in his or her
single state was in the image of God and a person and as we said yesterday I
think it was there had to be the case otherwise you've got to say that the
scriptures are false when they tell us that Jesus Christ is the image of the
invisible God. If he needs to be married to be fully human then he can't atone he
can't be a man but in a single state Jesus Christ in a perfect state I'll
grant you as Adam and Eve were in a perfect state in Genesis 2 but
nonetheless in its perfect state fully human fully bearing fully image bearers
of the living God. Brethren you don't get your identification. You don't work out
whether you're important or unimportant by whether you're married or unmarried
whether you're male or female. I tell you it's irrelevant in terms of what makes
you you. Not irrelevant in terms of what you do but it's irrelevant in terms of
what makes you you. You're a full person. You're a person who's made to bear the
image of God and if you're a believer you're being remade into that image from
one degree of likeness to the next. You don't get your identification from your
marital status. You're identified as a human because you've
been made in God's image and if you're a Christian you're being remade into that
image. Is that fair enough for the first point? Everybody with me. Your marital
status doesn't determine what worth you are as a person or what kind of person
you are half or full. The second point, second negative before we draw some
conclusions from the two negatives and that is that your marital status does
not touch your standing before God. This will be a terrifically obvious and
familiar point I guess but it needs to be said because of the wrong inferences
people draw from marital status questions. In Galatians chapter 3
familiar verses to you verses 28 and 29 perhaps we better read from verse 26. In
the first three chapters the Apostle Paul has sought to answer the question
of those who say well aren't people who are circumcised only the true blue
Christians. The people who've been Jewish first. If you haven't come to Christ
through Judaism then you can't be a full Christian and it may be that you're not
even a Christian at all and so for three chapters Paul has been seeking to reason
the foolishness and stupidity of that position because it's all boiled
down to circumcision. One tiny bit of skin. Is that going to make the
difference between going to heaven and not going to heaven? What folly. What
stupidity. One miserable little bit of skin and then his conclusion comes
together here in verse 26 of chapter 3. You are all sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus for all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ. Here we are there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,
male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ
then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Who are the
true children of Abraham? Married people? Male people? Bright people? Christ
speaking through the Apostle Paul says it's irrelevant, totally irrelevant. What
matters is that through faith in Jesus Christ you've been joined to Christ. It's
all that matters. Whether you're male or female, slave or free, regardless of your
social background, your sexual background, whatever it is, it's totally irrelevant
when it comes to your standing before Jesus Christ. You are together in him. I
tell you some Australian Christians are going to find that a surprise when they
get to heaven and find the Aboriginals who live next door to them and who tore
down their fence and threw rubbish over the fence are going to be standing
beside them. We live the other side of the great dividing range where many
Aboriginals in our part of the world and not exclusively but by and large they
are terrifically looked down upon. Even the Christians in our town, the Christian
Aboriginals. Well some some Christians who've been snobs and have not been
biblically based are going to be surprised to see those people standing
beside them in heaven. Some slave traders will be surprised to see the slaves they
sold and killed even standing beside them in heaven. They are not the
distinctions that matter. Male-ness and female-ness doesn't matter in terms of our
standing before God, in terms of being in the kingdom of God. Makes a great
difference to our functioning in the kingdom but it makes no difference to
our being in the kingdom. Our marriedness and unmarriedness will be make a great
difference to the way we function in the kingdom but no difference to being in
the kingdom. Your marital status does not touch your standing before God. Well it's
obvious. I'm stating the obvious. I know that and I apologize for doing it in one
sense but it's so crucial. For we tend to think of ourselves so often as second
rate and maybe others are just a little different in their standing before the
Lord from me. Let me draw some positive conclusions from these two negatives.
Your marital status does not identify you as a person and it's got nothing to
do with whether or not you're in the kingdom of God. Let me draw some
conclusions from those two points. Some consequences. Firstly that means don't
make marriage the goal of your life. I'm speaking to married people and I'm
speaking to unmarried people. Don't make marriage or family the goal of your life.
I wonder sometimes whether Christian pressures at this very point aren't
worse and more severe than than the kind of pressures people feel ordinarily in
life. That somehow you're second rate and that you've got to get married and there
are some Christian mothers who fear more than anything that their daughters might
get to 25 or 28 and still be unmarried as though that were the unforgivable sin.
And there'd be nothing worse than that.
Marriage is a marvelous privilege. It's one of God's chief graces but it's not the goal of life.
It's not what matters most. The question of life. The question of life. Do I know Jesus Christ?
Am I in the kingdom? Not am I in the family. The biological family. Am I in the family of God?
Not am I in a family with a husband and children. As marvelous as the family with
husband and children is, it is of no consequence compared with being in the
family of God the kingdom of Christ. It's all that matters in the end. Without the
knowing the marvelous privileges and blessings of all the blessings God gives
us in this life. Beside being Christians. All that matters. The goal of life is
knowing Jesus Christ. And brethren it may well be that the way you hear some
maybe some here. We have some young couples at Tamworth and the way they
speak about their spouses. You'd almost thought that their spouse was an idol.
No one like him. No one like her. But it may well be true. But then it goes on
that there's the center of affection is so governed by the spouse that the
spouse fills the horizon and not Jesus Christ. Now if I'm if Jesus Christ fills
my horizon then of course I'll love my wife. Of course I'll seek to care for my
wife. Of course I'll seek to do everything best for my wife. But she's
not my focal point. Jesus Christ is to be. And from that then I'm able to minister
to my wife. My wife is the focal point as we saw the night before last. Then what
I'll be doing all the time is doing things that satisfy her and make her
love me. What I've got to do is say that my security is in Jesus
Christ. And that will enable me to say things that maybe even hurt her. That she
doesn't like. That means there are no returns for love. I can only do it if
Jesus Christ is my goal. Not my wife. Do you see the point? Being in the kingdom
is not a matter of being married or unmarried. And being in the kingdom is a
first importance. So don't make marriage whether you're single or married. Don't
make it the goal of your life. Secondly brethren by way of conclusion from these
two negatives by way of consequence. Don't see yourself as inferior or
superior because of your marital status. You know some Christians the way they
speak and I think speaks so insensitively. Some married people. You'd almost
thought they were just a cut above the rest. They've got blessings that the
others haven't got. They are living as we were really meant to live and anything
short of that is just so inferior. They are superior. They've made it. And they
think of themselves in that way. And consciously or unconsciously the others
feel inferior. It's possible the other way around. I can remember when I was the
ripe old age of 25 to 29 thinking how right it was that I was single. Look at
the things I could do. What a superior position I was in. Young fellows came. 10
of them every week an hour each. Some of them 10 o'clock 11 o'clock at night for
Bible study. And this went on for a couple of years. And they were productive
years. And I think oh see what I can do. Couldn't do this if you were married. What
a position of superiority. Unencumbered by worldly concerns. Possible
to feel superior whichever side of the coin you're on. Possible to feel inferior
whichever side of the coin you're on. When you're up to your neck in wet
nappies after four days at a conference. And when the kids aren't doing the right
thing. And when you see other people standing around and chatting and doing
all sorts of things. It's possible to feel that maybe you've missed out. Maybe
it was a mistake. Maybe it'd be so nice. Might just be for a fleeting moment but
there it is. Might be for a week. When there's not the love and the affection
you'd craved and hopeful. And you feel limited as a married person because of
the natural limitations. Alright for some of the men who parade around the
countryside living leaving the wife at home to look after four children
underage and all the rest of it. But then the ladies may feel it more that
somehow they've well they've missed out. And it really is second best. Possible of
course if you're single, unmarried, divorced, widowed. That's what we mean by
unmarried I think this morning. Not just people who've never married but without
a partner. Possible to feel you're missing out on the best. You're inferior.
You're missing the intimacy that God meant for us. Maybe you're even just half
a person. There may be some things that your married friends say make you feel
that way. And the result of course is brethren that if you feel superior and
you're married. You look at the unmarried with pity. If you're unmarried and you
feel superior. You look at the married people with pity. You may feel resentful.
You may feel awkward. You may feel as though you don't fit. You may feel as though
you're not doing what God intended that you ought to be doing. Brethren it's only
a short step between feeling like that to then saying in terms of my standing
before God I'm inferior. He married, she unmarried, whatever it is whichever side
you're speaking from. She or he must be closer to God and more pleasing to God
than I am. She or he must have a more prestigious position in the kingdom of
God than I have. Or I have a higher position because I've got the best.
Galatians 3 29 if you belong to Jesus Christ then you're Abraham seed and in
Christ there is no one closer to Christ than any other. We stand before him
equally on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. Therefore brethren we need
to do away with this dramatic distinction that Christians more than
anybody else have introduced. Being married or unmarried ought to be
irrelevant so far as the way I view my position in regard to others in the
congregation. It's irrelevant and the sorts of patterns that by and large have
gone in the world. People don't matter too much and don't worry too much by
and large in your neighborhood whether you're married or unmarried anymore. And
we need to take a leaf out of that book. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It
gives you no basis for superiority, no basis for inferiority. Don't see yourself
as inferior or superior because of your marital status. In Christ you're a child
of Abraham and that's what matters. The third therefore from these two negatives
don't let marital status destroy your sense of complementarity with the
opposite sex. Brethren it's a fact of life the truest complementarity is seen
in marriage. The ultimate complementarity in this life is seen in marriage. That's
undeniable. Eve came to Adam, they were glued together, that's the word, glued
together and they became one flesh. That's true, that's the truest form of
complementarity. But even before that while Eve stood there, before that
bringing together and Adam stood there, they complemented one another. Their
maleness and femaleness complemented each other. The truest complementarity
when they were joined but there was nonetheless complementarity because of
their sexuality. Maleness and femaleness. Brethren that's too, that's to be, that's a
mark that God has put upon creation from that point on. It exists today. There is
complementarity between males and females and our sexuality. I don't mean
our sexual drives that lead to intercourse and so on but our sexuality, our
maleness, our femaleness is meant to be complementary. Woe betide the person who
belongs to a church made up only of women or the man who belongs to church
made up only of men or a man who finds the focus of his point the men's club in
the church or the woman who finds the focus of her, her focal point that the
women's Bible study. That'd be an awful situation. For God has made us male and
female to be complementary, even short of marriage, even short of marriage. We don't
make a very good job of that as Australians. The males feel awkward so
often. Christian males. There aren't many men who can ring up wanting to speak to
a male friend and get the wife and carry on a conversation. Feel awkward. Feel a
little sort of gauche. Whereas God's actually made us male and female for
complementarity and yet we sort of too often draw away on that very school. Now
in terms of the dangers we've already mentioned these past couple of days,
we ought to be hesitant to certain points but brethren our hesitancy so
often has meant withdrawal into male groupings and female groupings. Well
brethren there are some conclusions, some consequences of these two negatives. Your
marital status does not identify you as a person and your marital status does
not touch your standing before God. Therefore don't make marriage the goal
of life. Don't judge yourself as superior or inferior because of your marital
status and don't let your marital status, married or unmarried, affect
your general complementarity with the opposite sex. We need to find ourselves
in company with those whom God has given and the marks who bear the marks
of God's created order, male and female. Let me say two positives, mention two
positives. Simple truths but I trust are helpful. The first is this, that each
marital state requires grace. Now we're really experts in dichotomy, we make the
visions all the time and if you're unmarried you think it takes all the
boys in the world to be unmarried and people who are married need no grace and
if you're married you think you're the ones who need all the grace and then the
unmarried people need nothing. They've got it easy and we draw that sort of
dichotomy and we think we're the ones who are sort of battling with issues and
the other ones aren't and we eat we view it all the time from the other side of
the coin. We see the unmarried people without the strains, the demands. I tell
you I've prepared this and thought about it for some time, this was the first of
the studies I prepared for this weekend and so it was in my mind fairly clearly
and Saturday morning we had a one-year-old and a two-year-old with
obvious ear ache and throat ache and so on and so I took them off to Belmont
Hospital here while Sue came to the first session and I was to come to the
second session with the children and we got to the hospital and after I'd held
each one in turn for about 20 minutes while a doctor poked in ears and
down throat and they each screamed and the house felt like it was coming down.
That was fine, we settled things down after a while. I went to the car, put
them in the car and they were crying and so on and the car wouldn't start. So back
to the hospital, ring up NRMA, waited 37 minutes before they answered, put on
hold, rocking one child in the pram like this and the other one
sort of trying to rock this way and hold until the phone. I'm thinking oh it must be
nice, must be nice not to have these hassles, I'd like to get back to the
session. Now I thought how easy it would be not to be encumbered at this point.
How easy, oh it wouldn't take any grace to be single. Do you see that's how I mean
just in the very ordinary things of life. Too easy, too easy for unmarried
people to see the married people with intimacy and support and to feel that
they are the ones who've got to battle all the time. Well brethren the truth is,
the truth is, there is grace needed for each. It'd be foolish wouldn't it to
deny that. If I'm a Christian regardless of my marital status and God calls on me
to do all manner of things, I need grace for everything I'm, for everything I do
if I'm to please Him. Regardless of my status, regardless of my sex, regardless
of my age. We need to get rid of this view that says oh because I'm such and
such an age, they're real it's really hard for me but the others don't find it
hard I'm sure. Any work of pleasing Christ has got, has got to be hard, got
to be difficult, got to be unnatural and therefore got to need grace, got to need
grace. Just turn to Matthew chapter 19 would you please. Matthew chapter 19 in
the first dozen verses we won't read them but Jesus Christ is speaking about
divorce and you remember the scribes and Pharisees came to him and said why did
Moses command a bill of divorce. He said oh no no Moses didn't command it. Moses
permitted it for hardness of heart and then goes on to speak about remarriage
after divorce and the Christians are divided on that issue of course but let
me suggest that Christ is pushing a particularly hard line. He's limiting the
options that people believe are available to them. See one school of
Pharisees, one school of Pharisees, one group of rabbis said well you can
divorce your wife and remarry for any cause. If she burns the porridge you can
divorce her. The other group said no we're a tough line only in cases of
porneia, immorality. It's not just adultery by the way. The word porneia is
used in other parts in the same verse as the word for adultery so you can't just
make adultery because it's porneia, sexual immorality. They said if there's
sexual immorality then there can be divorce. In my understanding I stress
it's mine, together with some others of course, is that Christ takes a hard line
on both. Sexual immorality notwithstanding it's not on remarriage
after divorce. Now you may differ from that and please do because God's people
have been different from that for many many many many years but the point is
Christ has made it hard, very hard. He's made put limitations on marriage
that people have not expected. So the disciples can say verse 10 if this is a
situation between a husband and wife better not to marry. See Christ has said
it requires a commitment and a grace that's that's terrifically demanding and
the disciples get the message. Well if that's what you're on about Jesus it's
better that we stay single. Christ's teaching, who can do it? Oh we romp into
marriage with the barely a thought to what's involved and of course people who
romp into marriage romp out of it again so easily. So it's a little consequence
poor anticipation or an unreal view of what God intends. Christ says not
everyone verse 11 can accept this word but only to those it has been given. You
mustn't assume that getting married is just like falling off a log. It requires
grace to be married and stay married. Don't think that because
you're unmarried and you feel it's difficult that this is simple to be
married. Better not to get married if it's as hard as this. If it requires as
much grace as our Lord has just described say the disciples. That's one
side of the coin. First Corinthians chapter 7 where we spend the rest of our
time gives us the other side. Let me say a word before we look at 1st
Corinthians 7 about Paul's method in 1st Corinthians. Now you may chime out here
and say oh this is going to be a bit technical. I don't think it is technical
but I believe it's crucial to understanding 1st Corinthians if I might
say that. People are all the time making the Apostle Paul say things out of 1st
Corinthians he never meant to say. It's because we don't understand the way the
Apostle Paul argued. He had a particular method. See what happened was these
Corinthians said you know we're the big tough guys. We're the spiritual elite.
We're the pneumaticoid, the spiritual ones and you know as spiritual
ones we're free. We can eat anything. As spiritual ones we show it by being
unmarried. As spiritual ones we show it by speaking in tongues. You know how then
the Apostle Paul deals with that? On each of those issues he starts by
agreeing with them. You eat meat offered to idols? You eat anything? So do I. You
think it's good to be single? So do I. You speak in tongues? So do I. And you can
rub your hands you say wacko. See you there. Paul's on our side. But then in
each instance what the Apostle Paul does is start adding conditions. He says but
what about this? But what about that? What about the other? But what about this? And
in the end when he's added so many buts he's in the end reversed the position. So
people want to say the Apostle Paul says I want you all to speak in tongues. That's
the end of the subject. Have not considered the whole context. Paul says
you want to speak in tongues? So do I. I want you to. But if you consider this it
doesn't edify the unbeliever. If you consider this it doesn't edify the
believer. Have you considered this and this and this and this? And then me and
he's poured a bucket of cold water over the whole idea. Likewise I'm eating meat.
They say we're free. In the end he's got them back saying we can't eat meat under
certain conditions. You're single? You think it's spiritual to be single?
Spiritual to be unmarried? Well in the end he had so many conditions. Oh you
can't leave your wife. He says in chapter chapter 7 whether or not your wife or
your husband is a believer has got nothing to do with your being married.
You may be married this morning to an unbeliever. You don't have to wait for
his or her conversion to call your marriage a marriage. It's a marriage
regardless of the conversion of your spouse. It's a full marriage in that
before God with the obligations of marriage and requiring the commitment of
marriage from you. Now you can't leave your spouse. Don't so well about the
single state says the Apostle Paul. The unmarried state that you want to get out.
Don't don't see he says that being converted requires you to change your
state. You must stay in the position where God would you in when God called
you. He doesn't mean that if you are single when you became a Christian
you've always got to be single but you don't have to change simply because of
your conversion. Some I think some some Christians some people who become
Christians are told that but now they're a Christian they really need to make
sure they get married. Well the Apostle Paul doesn't say that. Nothing wrong with
getting married may be good and proper to get married but you don't have to. You
don't have to change your marital status from married to unmarried simply because
you become a Christian. He says sure there are special circumstances in which
singleness may be good. Chapter 7 because of the distress that's
coming. I tell you if you had lived like some of the early martyrs you'd know
exactly what he meant. If you were to see your wife and children taken to the
stake or impaled by spear you'd have to wonder whether you could maintain your
testimony to Christ. If it's only you it's a much easier matter but when you
see your love children run through with a sword will you stay firm to Christ in
your commitment to Christ? I hope you don't answer that simple easy yes of
course. No simple no simple answer to that one. You'd pray by God's grace you'd
be given grace to maintain your testimony. Of course you would but he says
because of the impending distress there may be value in being single but you see
as he adds condition after condition circumstance after circumstance he's
saying only under exceptional circumstances would you would you say to
be unmarried is the thing. Only under exceptional circumstances is singleness
the way to go. Why? Well for one thing it takes great grace to be single. Matthew
it takes great grace to be married. 1st Corinthians 7 it takes great grace to be
single at least for the ordinary reason of handling the sexual desires passion
and nature that God has placed within you. Verse 9 of chapter 7 if you can't
control yourselves then you should marry. His implication being that these
Corinthians were making life harder for themselves and they ought to have done
they've said singleness is the way to go and he says that because of
immoralities because it will naturally lead you because God's God's provision of
marriage is a way of avoiding immorality among other things. For the sake of
immorality if you can't control yourself you should marry for it's better to
marry then to be then to burn with passion to be perturbed about the matter
than to be perturbed about the matter. The alternative for being single is
being married. It takes great great grace to be single and you people who are
married you start to think that. When you are do have a child on each arm and they
are crying when the demands of family life seem to press in upon you and you
say oh dear me this is more than I can be. Think again, yes of course it takes
grace to do that rightly in a way that's pleasing to the Lord but it takes grace
for the single person to please the Lord. Great grace in this area at least in
others as well.
I'd like to talk about those who can't choose the alternative of being single
but I think that's going to have to wait if we have time we'll come back to
it at the end. Let me mention the other positive. The first positive is that your
marital state whatever it is requires grace. We need to see the brethren
regardless of their marital status in great need of God's grace our prayer and
secondly our ministry. Your marital state is a grace for ministry. Let me say a
little bit about gifts. By the way not spiritual gifts not gifts of the Spirit.
The term gifts of the Spirit is never mentioned in the Bible is it? We can't
talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit not a biblical term. We may talk about the
gifts of the risen Christ or gifts of the Father that are mediated and made
effectual by the Holy Spirit but they don't come from the Holy Spirit and we
ought to perhaps once and for all do away with the term gifts of the Spirit.
Not a biblical term. They're gifts of Christ. The obvious reason is so that as
we use our gifts they lead back in glory to Christ not the Holy Spirit. Glory to
Christ. What are the marks of gifted people? Of spiritual people? Of
spiritually gifted people? Who are the true the truly spiritual? Well we've
mentioned already this morning there was a group at Corinth that said we are the
spiritual elite. We're single. We speak in tongues. We eat anything. We're free. We
show that we're the great ones and I think that probably they are the people
the Apostle Paul refers to in chapter 12 verse 1 where he doesn't say now about
spiritual gifts. No word for gifts in the original. Now about the spiritual ones
people or spiritual things. Probably the spiritual ones. Now about this spiritual
group. Let me put the boot into them. If I might put it that way. Which the
Apostle Paul then does in chapters 12 13 and 14. Now concerning this spiritual
elite. Who are the spiritual elite? What kind of things do you do with your gifts?
Who are the gifted ones? Who has the gift? Well let me ask you brethren. What's the
chief gift of the risen Christ? What's the crowning gift? The gift of the Holy
Spirit. Is that not right? Is not he God's crowning gift? If I have the Holy Spirit
do I have God's gift? Charis? Am I not a charismatic? Yes? If I have God's chief
gift. Grace. Charis. Am I not a charismatic? And you go on in this very
very passage of 1st Corinthians 7. Verse 7 of chapter 7. I wish that all men
were as I am. That's his agreeing with them. That's his method again. He's not
saying you must be single. That's his method. But, but here come the but you see
but, but, but, but, but, but he's the first. But each man has his own Charis from God.
Charisma from God. One has this charisma. Another has that charisma. What's he
talking about? The charisma of being married or the charisma of being single.
Now everybody here today therefore has a second gift. If you're a Christian you
have the first gift of the Holy Spirit. You have at least the second gift of
being married or being single. So you're charismatic on two counts at least. You
may well have a number of the other gifts of good administration or
hospitality or generous giving or any of them. Well the true Charismatics put
their hand up. If I were to say that. You're a Christian you'd have to put your
hand up. Let's get the term back. Let's stop being defensive about it. Let's say
yes I've been gifted. And brethren if I might suggest the very fact that the
Apostle Paul can speak of being married. Your marital state as a gift. It's
telling us that we need to somehow despoop the gifts. That very often the
gifts are very ordinary, natural if I can use that term, situations of life.
Harnessed in obedience to Christ and love for the brethren. It's not some
supernatural thing that's unmystical and drops out of heaven on top of me. Being
married. Being single. Grace is given by Christ in the context of the body to
serve the body. 1st Corinthians 12 7. Now to each one the manifestation of the
Spirit. Not the gift from the Spirit. It's as a spirit energizes it as the word in
1st Corinthians 12 is given for the common good. My marriage. What is it saying
you see this. My marriedness or my singleness is for the sake of the body.
Is for the sake of the body. In so far as I find my life in the context of the
body. We find that hard to see. We really do find that hard to believe. You see
because if we're married we somehow seem to get in the get in the track of
putting all our energy into our family. Or if we're unmarried we often see
ourselves compensating for our unmarriedness. And it's it's always so
sad it seems to me. I remember a girl who said to me some years back she said you
know I see all these married people with things well I'm not going to miss out.
And I'm going to make sure that I go on a cruise every year. I'm going to make
sure I have nice clothes. And she was compensating. She was turning her
singleness in on herself. Whereas 1st Corinthians 7 says she has been given
her singleness in the context of the body where she belonged for the sake of
the body. As I've been given my marriedness in the context of the body
for the sake of the body. What's it going to mean? Well if you're married what
kind of gifts will you exercise? How are you going to use your marriedness for
ministry in the body? And there'll be times brethren I know it. There'll be times
there'll be one year when you find your ministries limited because of the claims
of young children. And five years later you'll find a new liberty in ministry to
others. Ministries change but at every point regard for the age of the children
your goal must be ministry. Must be ministry at each point. If you're married
your ministry will be firstly to your spouse. If you have children to your
children. Your ministry will be that you'll have a home environment into
which you can invite others. You may say boy if you know what our meal table is
like we could never have anybody. Well that's fine. Have them for supper after
church Sunday night. Go on a picnic with them. Do something else but use your
familiness to include others to minister to others as a basis for ministry. You
know there are too many young people. Too many young people, teenagers, people in
their 20s, people in their 30s who are married and have got no idea how a
Christian family ought to operate. They didn't come from one. I didn't come from
one. My parents are still not believers and there was one family they were there
was one couple. He is now dead and she's quite old and they would have been in
their 50s when I was a teenager of 16. They used to invite me home and they'd
talk and they used their home as a basis of ministry to me. They used their family
for ministry for service. They were charismatic and I wasn't the only one.
There was a whole host of young people. They were pretty fuddy-duddyish. This couple
pretty ordinary. Nothing spectacular about them. He was a mechanic not all
that a good mechanic. She was nearly blind not a very able in the house but
they were godly people who used their home with a view to ministry. They could
have been quite content. They had difficult years, very difficult years, bad
years and they might have turned in on themselves and used their marriedness to
feed one another but they used their marriedness and their home as a basis of
ministry to others. You might use your home for evangelism as you have
neighbours or friends or friends of your children or wider relatives whatever it
might be. You might use your gifts in that way. You might adopt another family.
There's one family in a church where I was in Gladesville a long time ago now
in Sydney and they took under their wings a young mother whose husband had
been killed and her three children. They knew this couple who already had four
children of their own who were fairly demanding. They knew these other three
children with now without a father needed a fatherly model and they knew that the
mother now in her own needed from time to time adult company. You know what it's
like to live with three children all the time? Only children, no adults to speak to,
day in day out. Have you thought about that of people in your church? So do you
even just ring them? Talk to them? Have them in? Go on picnics with them? Oh it's
miserable I think being in some of our churches where there's such a strong
emphasis on the family. Some of these folk feel odd and left out and
deprived because we haven't got the view of ministry. We don't see our marriedness
of itself as a charismatic gift. Brethren if you're married, if you're married will
you see your marriedness as a charisma. As a grace given by the risen Christ
affected by the Holy Spirit that you might use it for building up the body
for the common good 1st Corinthians 12 7. What about if you're unmarried? Well
you've got the opportunity if you're unmarried, let me say perhaps without
children of your own, widowed, perhaps divorced without children, single never
having been married. You've got the opportunity to invest in other people's
lives in a unique way. There'd be any number of us who could speak about youth
leaders, maybe when we were in the youth group, single fellow, single girls who
took time, time out. They weren't concerned to fiddle around with their
own hobbies whether it's cars or camping or a million other things. They took us
with them. They took us camping. They spent long hours talking with us. They
took us after, they took us after Bible study Wednesday and off to the
milk bar for a milkshake and talked long to us and helped us and instructed us
and encouraged us. There was no urgency for them to return to a wife and
children and they used their singleness not to turn back on themselves but for
ministry. Any number of us could speak about people in that light. There's a
lady in Adelaide when we were there. She was in her 70s, two ladies, both in their
70s. One was widowed, one had never married. The one who'd never married
Blanche was a fairly particular kind of girl. Hardly call her a girl can I, if
she's in her 70s. A lovely lady, a fairly, fairly fussy kind of lady, terribly
generous and her small home unit, one bedroom home unit in one of the suburbs
of Adelaide was a haven for Asian students who came there frequently. There
was not, there was not a week where there were not Asian students in her home. She
had no particular Asian bent but she'd just been known as someone whose home
was open and who would always have a timely ministry. The other lady in her
70s, widowed, she drove her car still so she could drive old ladies to church and
she saw that as ministry to the body. She could have easily turned in on herself
as might well have Blanche, all these other people I've mentioned but they
used their marital status as a grace, as an opportunity for ministry. Brethren
each marital status requires grace to live rightly and each marital status
provides the marvelous opportunities for ministries of grace that you might
enrich and build up others of God's children. What's the key? What's the key
to doing it? Now can you see me just telling you to do it because you might
be sitting there saying oh boy if he only knew how hard it was for me, if he
only knew how much I resent it, if he only knew how difficult I find it, that
all sounds so airy-fairy. If he were in my boots he wouldn't be saying that. Well I
hope I've presented two truths on this positive side from the Word of God. I've
certainly sought to do that but let me give you the key God gives us. So often
God just doesn't tell us to do it. He gives the encouragement to do it. Let me
quickly mention the keys that come in this chapter 7 again of 1st Corinthians.
Firstly you need to see where you are at the moment, not as an accident, not as
some foul judgment of God upon you. Even though it may be your sin that led to where
you are now. You see you may have married married you a believer and you married
an unbeliever and you've resented that ever since. Brethren you were wrong if you
did that but in God's provident purpose even your sin for which you're
accountable is part of his plan. Isn't that mind-boggling and isn't that
liberating. Regardless of why you are where you are, see where you are says
the Apostle Paul, as the Lord's sovereign choice. Doesn't mean it's always going to
be like that but see it as the Lord's sovereign choice. Verse 17, each one
should retain the place in life that the Lord has assigned to him. It's not an
accident that I'm in the marital state I am. It's out from a loving hand of a
sovereign God. He's not mean, he's not out to get me. He's not out to make life
miserable for me. He's out to be gracious to me. I need to see where I am now as
God's gracious and sovereign gift. Brethren the second key, first I need to
see that my marital state is a gift from God sovereignly ordered. Secondly my
preoccupation must be not with the state but with the giver of the state. If
I'm preoccupied with being married or being single then I will not be able to
please the Lord who's put me in that position. Verse 24, brothers each man as
responsible to God should remain in the situation. God called him to
situation not important. It's being responsible or faithful to the living
God. Verse 35 in the same chapter, I'm saying this for your own good says the
Apostle Paul, not to restrict you but that you may live in a right way in
undivided devotion to the Lord. Speaking to these people where he says so there
may be some value in being unmarried. What matters is being given in
undivided devotion to the Lord. So the second key is being preoccupied not with
where I am but with the Lord who's put me there. The only thing that's going to
make me preoccupied with that is a view of the gospel. Can I suggest to you brethren, if
your marital status matters too much to you it's because you've lost sight of the
gospel. You've lost sight of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. If you find yourself
getting resentful because of your marital status and because you've lost
sight of the gospel itself. Because when you haven't lost sight of the gospel
then you're able to respond to grace. Let's respond to Christ for his most
amazing grace and your preoccupation will be with that, not with your marital
state. And thirdly brethren, the third key and this is the last one, you need to
exercise your ministry sensitively. If you're married you need to have a
ministry as a married person that is a sensitive ministry and if you're
unmarried you need to have a ministry as a single person that is sensitive. I
remember a friend of mine who's a preacher saying you know I often find
that people make jokes. He's a fellow in his 50s he said I often find that people
make jokes about my singleness. He said you know you wouldn't laugh at a man
with one leg. He said people make jokes of me. Married people make jokes about
him being single. Some married people are so brazen in the way that they speak
rightly but in the wrong context about how terrific their spouses are and how
wonderful their love is to single people, Christian single people
without considering maybe the pain that causes. Now I'm not saying we
never speak about that. There's a right and proper way to place to speak. We
spoke about it this weekend but maybe in a one-to-one relationship is not the
place to do it if a person's feeling sensitive on that issue and we're not
being sensitive. It might be that when you have people to your home you're
sensitive in the selection of your guests so that rather having three
couples and one person who's divorced or widowed or unmarried why not have a
couple of people who are unmarried. We often just don't think about something
as ordinary as that and we make people feel awkward just by the very things we
do and by the kind of kind of conversation we might have then that
somehow leaves people sitting on the side or we all talk about how our kids
are going.
Sensitive ministry means that we remember special occasions. You've got
single people in your church for whom no one will cook a birthday cake, for whom no one will
remember the death of the spouse. Well do you? That's part of sensitive ministry
from your home to these, from you to them. Likewise if you're single you need to be
sensitive. Some single people need to learn that their friends have gotten
married. There's one young fellow in our church who needs to remain nameless who
who was notorious for hanging around homes of people in the church and he'd
come at 4 and he'd be there at 5 and he'd be there at 6 and the wife's trying to
cook tea and get kids baths and he'd stand there and be saying, now about that
verse in 2 Chronicles chapter 4, you know the one that says so and so and so
and so. Well I tell you that's awful and there was a night he was in our home and
he stayed on, Sue was sick. She was miscarrying and he stayed and he stayed
and we invited him for tea and at 10 o'clock he was still there and I had to
take Sue to hospital at 10.30 and he was still there and I had to say twice to him,
will you please go. That's rude isn't it if I had to say that. But they need
sensitive ministry. Sensitive ministry. If you're a married person you need to be
sensitive. If you're an unmarried person you need sensitivity. It's not simply we
just charge him to say what we like, what we think necessary, when we think it's
necessary but weighing it up with the situation of the person to whom I'm
seeking to have a real ministry. I just don't want to throw something at him or
bounce something off him. I want to really minister. That means I consider
the person to whom I'm ministering doesn't it. The key, the key to using my
grace as my charisma, being a true charismatic, I see the grace that God has
given me as sovereignly given. My concern is not with the grace but with the giver
and my concern under the giver is with the people that I might be sensitive
toward them. Brethren when that happens, when you and I are like that, when we in
our church can use our marital state as as graces, when we see that each requires
grace from God to live wisely before God, then we'll be able to care for one
another. Then the church will be what it should be and the principalities and
powers that look on the church will marvel at how they care for one another,
how their ministry is wise, sensitive, Christ honouring and godly and that will
be a testament to the world. The most graphic testimony that would be the best
apologetic for the gospel we'll ever have. When the church is the glorious
bride of Christ because we who live in it live by grace regardless of our
status and we use the grace mediated by the Holy Spirit and given by Christ for
our charismatic ministries each to the other. Let's pray shall we.