Myths of Marriage #7: "To find a spouse, I should only spend time around people my age."

us on Sunday for worship. We have additional 930 and then worship service at 11.

We've got lunch afterwards every week at 1230, so we'd love for you to join us for any of that. So, we've been going through a series called

Myths About Marriage, and we're on myth number seven today. This myth is that if you're pursuing a spouse, you shouldn't waste time in church contexts where there are not many compatible singles.

Now, obviously, you want to meet compatible singles. By compatible, I just mean of the right age range and of the opposite sex.

Obviously, that's what an event like this is for, but what I'm talking about is a strategy some people have where they don't want to waste time if they're not going to be around compatible singles.

They're looking at the different groups they might join in church, and they only join the ones with their age range.

People who are going to be single like them, their stage of life, and their age. Then, when they're looking at which

Bible studies to join, they only join the young professionals' Bible study. When they're looking around for which church they're going to be a part of, they might even decide not to be a part of a church because of whether or not there are people their age there.

This is something that happens all the time. I know people who have been a part of a church, been a fruitful member of a church, and decided that because there aren't other singles there, that they're going to go to a different church even though it means compromising on their doctrinal convictions.

Even though it means being further away from where they go to church so they can't participate as much and give as much of their time.

People who have this strategy end up pursuing these sorts of things so much that it ends up ultimately,

I believe, being a detriment to their development, which would help them end up pursuing marriage.

Let me give you one more example. There are a lot of church functions where there's a lunch or something like that, some kind of fellowship event.

Who do they sit with? They only sit with people their age. This applies to any group. It applies to youth.

It applies to young professionals. It applies to older adults. A lot of people are just naturally drawn to people who share your interests.

So you don't think to sit with people who are not your age. Now, as I say almost every time in these talks, we need to consider the era that we live in and whether or not that biases us in how we're thinking about these things.

I would like to submit to you that we live in one of the most age -segregated areas that has ever existed.

If you just consider how you were raised, if you were raised in the public school system, now homeschool or small private schools are different.

But if you're raised in the public school system, you've got a very small teacher -to -student ratio. So you're not even around that many adults.

Then on top of that, you're each classed by a different grade. And so you're only around kids who are at most one, maybe two years different in your age.

And so there's not a lot of opportunities to meet people who are – and learn from people who are in more traditional school contexts.

There's less students to break into these thin slices. So you actually have to be around students who are older, students who are younger in order for you to have a classroom or anything.

And this can be very helpful. But now consider, as you grow into adulthood and you have the opportunity to meet people at different stages of life, but what happens then?

Society is so disconnected that that often doesn't happen. We live in an era of remote work. How many of you really know your coworkers?

Even neighborhoods are pretty broken down. Now think about the neighbor to your left and the neighbor to your right.

Not the neighbor at the table, but the neighbor at your house or apartment or wherever you are. How many of you know the names of both of those neighbors?

Go ahead and raise your hand if you do. All right, we've got two people. Good for you. Nobody else. See how rare that is?

See how disconnected society is? And so even when there are opportunities to meet people in a different stage of life than you, that usually doesn't happen.

And then that even affects churches. Consider how churches go about their church life.

You often have churches that have children's churches, so the children are segregated from the adults.

You often have main Bible studies that exist based on age range. You've got your senior

Bible study. You've got your youth Bible study. You've got your young professional Bible study and your middle -aged

Bible study, et cetera. And consider how many churches have two services, one with traditional worship, one with contemporary worship.

And what does that design do? It breaks down the church so that you're only meeting with the older or you're only meeting with the younger.

And something that's pretty common around here at the ethnic churches that were designed particularly for immigrants who are speaking a certain language, a lot of times what happens is because their children are mostly speaking

English, they have an English convocation, and then the foreign language convocation. And then you end up, once again, breaking the church between the older and younger.

Now, obviously, there's a need for addressing people who speak one language better than another one.

But all these things work to segregate the church into different ages.

A lot of people don't think about just how age -segregated everything in society is, even church.

Even church more than many other things in a lot of ways. All right, so the myth is that someone pursuing marriage shouldn't waste time in church context

The fact is that if you're pursuing marriage, you need to be spending time with the whole community of God.

That is a myth to teach. All right, so I've got several verses I want you to think about.

The first one, let's talk about the elderly first. The first one is the Leviticus 1332.

You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your

God. Repeatedly speaks of the importance of honoring those who are older.

Now, you might not feel particularly disrespectful if you're only spending time around your peers.

But what does that say in your heart if you're exclusively hanging around your peers and not going out of your way to spend time around those who are older?

Does that speak to a heart that really honors the values of the elderly who have money? I would say it doesn't.

And consider also what the Bible says in Titus. Now, this is even more direct about marriage.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

So it describes that older women should be teaching younger women. Now, in this context, it's talking particularly about older wives teaching younger wives.

But this obviously applies even if someone is not a wife yet, and one day may be, that she should be taught by an older woman who would be able to pass on the information that she should be learning.

And I think it's also obviously true, especially given the context that we just talked about men, that this applies to men as well, that men have a lot to learn from older men in how to be a husband and how to even pursue being a husband.

This is incredibly valuable, and it's valuable in two ways. One is that mentorship where there's this passing on of information that can help shape you and mold you.

But the other way, and I think the way that many people don't consider very much, is actually hands -on holding. If you are trying to find a spouse, have you actually asked someone who is older to help you find a spouse?

It's something they can do. They know people. They know what you should be looking for. They probably know what you should be looking for even better than you know what you should be looking for.

And so there's just so much value you can have by forming relationships with older people in church, not exclusively with peers.

Now I'd also like to tell you about the importance of spending time with people who are younger than you. And by younger than you, we're talking about stages of life, so I'm not talking about five or ten years younger than you, but specifically those who haven't reached development yet.

So consider these words in 1

Timothy 5 that talk about the normative mode of the church, to be spending time with people who are not your peers.

It says, You know, what that's describing is a church life where if you're spending time with older people, you're spending time with younger people, you're spending time with the opposite sex, you're spending time with your own sex.

A church life is supposed to be one where you are exposed to your own demographic.

So with that in mind, the Bible greatly values children. You know, it is very important that we value children and that we would help children, assist them in their pursuit of what is good, in their pursuit of what is holy, and to keep them from stumbling into temptation.

And just like I asked about the gray -haired man, etc., you know, if someone thinks of this, well,

I'll honor the gray -haired man if I ever encounter him, or I'll care about the child if I ever encounter him. What does that describe about the heart of the person who thinks that this is only important once you happen to encounter those, and that the caring only begins there, and not before, where you might seek out these people to care for?

But it doesn't show real care, once again. I would say it doesn't. There are a lot of ways that you can interact with children in the church in order to lead them in the right way, that they should go, you know, speak

Bible verses to them in the situations that they're in. And I am always amazed, you know, based on, once again, this problem of age segregation,

I'm always amazed when people spend time around my kids, who aren't usually around kids, just how they're surprised by very normal things.

You know, you'll be holding a baby, maybe you'll be toying, someone will say, oh, he's got something there, you need to take it out to him, and he'll go and wipe it.

You know, baby drills all the time, you don't really need to do anything about it, it's not as big of a deal as I've seen some people react to it, or, you know, surprising kids getting dirty, things like that.

People are very surprised by kids, it kind of shows how little they interact with kids. And I really do believe a lot of the world's problems would be greatly mitigated if people spent more time with children.

You know, people develop all sorts of ideas about social policies and politics, all sorts of ideas about education, based on the fictitious ideas that children may have in their own heads that aren't based on any real experience or reality.

You know, people have all kinds of things that they do, for example, you know, they're willing to elevate child activists, like Greta Thunberg, you know who that is.

You know, unless you, you know, really, yes, she's well -spoken, but being well -spoken doesn't mean you aren't fraught with the same frailties as a child, but as any other child might be.

You might be greatly mistaken about things. That doesn't speak to, you know, great wisdom.

And those people who don't spend a lot of time around kids, when they have kids of their own, if they ever do, then they are surprised by everything.

They don't know what to do. It's a lot harder for them than it would be otherwise if they had spent time around kids. So it's worthwhile to spend time around kids.

It's very beneficial. It's something that can really change your world view on a lot of things.

We host a lot of people at my house. I have eight kids.

My wife and I have people staying here often. And the number of people who come through and just really change their view, either about kids, about families, about all kinds of things, just by being around the children and interacting with them is quite a lot.

So when I say you should spend time around children, what I'm not saying is that you need to go volunteering or nurturing.

I'm also not saying that you need to go be creepy and say, I'm going to keep the children.

What I'm really describing is spending time with young families. You should get to know young families. And if you spend time with them, watch the parents interact with the children, things like that, all that would be beneficial to you.

So pulling it all back, where does this come from? The heart that would segregate one's own self.

Spend time just with peers. James 2, verse 8 says,

If you really fulfill royal law, but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

For whoever keeps the whole law but vows in one point has become guilty of all of it. What is it that leads people to segregate themselves into their peer groups?

Not that there's anything wrong with doing that on occasion, but primarily and exclusively, it's a part of partiality that would do that.

And what James says is the one who has that part of partiality is transgressed against the whole law.

This is not as small a thing as people might imagine it being. Now, there is a way to address that, and that way is through having unity, right?

So why is it that people want to be around people their own age, because you have shared experiences, shared interests, right?

You want to be around people who know your experience, who care about the things that you care about.

For example, if I'm really into baseball cards, I'm going to want to be around people who are really into baseball cards, or at least

I really enjoy being around people who are really into it. In the church, what do we have?

We have Jesus Christ, who is really, who is primary to you. He's your greatest interest.

That provides the grounds for having excellent unity with people across the spectrum as far as their stage of life.

If that's more important to you than the other experiences you have during your relationship with Jesus Christ, you can bond better with an old man or with a young child who shares the same interest than you can even with a peer who doesn't.

And this should be so primary that it should get past many of these problems that we have in interacting.

Galatians 3 .28 says, there is neither Jew nor priest, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female.

There is a unity that is provided in Christ Jesus that surpasses all other unities, something that is greatly enjoyed by the church, and you can deal with that partiality where it exists.

So, in conclusion, consider these questions. Consider whether or not you spend time with young families.

Consider whether or not you have a mentor who is helping you think through marriage and the pursuit of marriage.

Could it be that your difficulty in these things, finding a spouse or whatever your case may be, could it be that your difficulties are from not having someone to help you in this area?

And then if you do have some kind of mentor in the church, what have you asked them for?

What kind of help have you asked them for? Have you asked them to give you some kind of evaluation of yourself as a potential spouse?

To know whether or not you have character flaws that need to be addressed as you pursue marriage? Have you asked this mentor to help you find someone who would be an appropriate partner to the wife?

These are important questions to be asking yourself.

And then, in conclusion, consider this, that they're in that same passage about partiality in Jesus.

It says, Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who are young?

So in James, partiality is primarily talking about the poor is still rich against the poor.

But this could just apply to anyone else as God is impartial towards us. Has God not chosen the young to be mature and safe?

Has not God chosen the old to be poor? If these things are true, if he hasn't even chosen us to go through all those stages, there's no room for partiality.

Rather, we should experience it and bless it.

And so this thing that Christ has done for us, impartial toward us and saving us, is something that should flow out of our heart as we connect with those who share those same priorities of salvation in Jesus Christ.