Not everybody on this planet is meant to get married. Some will stay single all their lives. Others will find themselves single again, through marriage breakdown, or the death of their spouse. Question is – can a single person be truly content? FINDING CONTENTMENT IN SINGLENESS The last time we talked about marriage and family on the program … last year I think it was … I had a number of requests from single people to talk about singleness. So today, as we chat about contentment again, I thought that that would be a great thing to do.Because there are some people who don’t want to be married. There are some people who were never meant to be married. I was having dinner just the other night with a bunch of my classmates from the Royal Military College Duntroon.Now, we graduated from the college over 30 years ago, as officers in the Australian army, so it had been a while. One of the guys, a great bloke, salt of the earth, has never been married. He lives on a yacht on a marina, and works at one of the large, free to air TV stations. Now, this guy is a live wire – he’s always been that and he always will be. Some would call him eccentric. He is totally content being who he is, being single and I doubt he will ever get married. Knowing him as I do, can I tell you, I think that’s the right choice for him. No, I am not saying that everyone who’s single is slightly eccentric. It’s just one example. But I think sometimes the rest of us – the ones who are married – sometimes we think that people who have never been married and are never likely to be married are a little bit odd. But that’s not the case. Some people are meant to be married and others aren’t. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 19, verses 9 to 11: And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery. So His disciples said to him, ‘Well if that’s the case, isn’t it better not to get married.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept that teaching, but only those to whom it is given’. And so to me, when it comes to contentment and the decision to be married or single, that’s the key. Some can accept the idea of being single. They like the idea of remaining single, and so it’s an awesome choice for them. As we’ll see in a moment, it frees them up to get focussed on God’s work without any restrictions or limitations. The rest of us need to see that as a perfectly valid choice. Others, like me, can’t accept that. I am not one to remain single. And so those people should seek out a wife or a husband as the case may be and get married. And again that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says, expounding a bit on what Jesus said. Let’s have a read, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 to 9: Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman.’ But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of a command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another having a different kind. To the unmarried and to the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. Some people might be surprised about the fact that the Bible is so direct about sexuality, but hey, our sexuality is a big part of who we are. And as we chatted about this the other day, we saw that God’s plan is not for us to fulfil our sexual needs in a casual relationship. Sex is an amazing gift from God … it was, after all, His idea … and so He knows that we are designed for physical intimacy to occur in an exclusive bond that we call marriage. Not everyone has that need. Paul makes the point that he himself was single – I wish you all were as I am. Why? Because as a single person you can very easily go and serve the Lord wherever He may call. And that’s the key. Come back to it, God made me, God made you. He chose one life for me, he chose another life for you. We are all perfectly made to live the life that God’s chosen for us and that’s the life we should be living. Again, the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17: However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches. I’ve been in churches where single people aren’t included in family barbecues, somehow they’re shunned. I’ve seen it, perhaps you’ve seen it too. And those of you who are single have no doubt experienced it. I’ve experienced it from the receiving end. I was single and 36 years old, and often after church on Sundays, a few families would head off and go and have a BBQ together. And they wouldn’t think to invite me along – because I was single. I didn’t have a family at the time. That really hurts. Some churches have singles ministries – well, fair enough, but it’s almost as though we put singles over there in one corner and segregate them from families. When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy, because if there’s one thing a single person needs, it’s other people around them. So I say to those who are single, if you are content being single, for goodness sake, stay single. Singleness is not a disease. It’s something that God chooses for some people, and it’s a high calling indeed, as it was for the Apostle Paul. It can be an absolutely wonderful way to live your life. It can be a completely satisfying way to live your life. In fact the worst thing that a person can do who feels called to be single is to get married and I think that life would be just a nightmare. But if you’re not content being single, then as Jesus says, the Apostle Paul says, for goodness sakes, get married so that you can be completely fulfilled. Do what God made you to do. Be who God made you to be. Live the life that the Lord has assigned, to which He has called you. One of the most difficult things is the situation though where someone finds themselves single again, either through the death of a loved one, or through marriage breakdown and divorce. We don’t have time to go into the single–again situation fully today. But I promise that one day in the not too distant future we will do that. But for the rest of us, we need to understand that those who were once married and now find themselves single again, they need our special love and care and understanding and support. People who have been divorced have typically been through a painful and bloody separation. It hurts terribly when this special, God–anointed relationship between husband and wife, which was meant to last a lifetime, is torn apart. Is divorce a sin? Sure it is. But so are a lot of other things. And sin always hurts and special compassion is required to love someone through that. Those who have lost their husband or wife too, they need our love and attention, particularly let me say, the widows, for whom God has a very special heart. Psalm 68, verse 5 said that the: Father of the fatherless and the protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation. So, if you know someone who is single again, for whatever reason, there is an opportunity … a great oppor...

Released on 16 Jan 2022