Myths of Marriage: "My failure to find a spouse means I'm called to singleness"

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All right, everybody if I could get your attention Everybody if I could get your attention for a minute or for 30 minutes
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Everybody hey, I get your attention Everyone, I'm Conley. I'm one of the pastors here
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I'm one of the pastors here. My name is Conley Glad you all are here. Thanks for coming. I'll welcome the
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Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church in our single center Uh, if you do not currently have a church or you're looking for one
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We'd love it. If you could come join us. Oh meet every Sunday. We've got a Sunday school at 930
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The main service is at 11 and then afterward we have a prayer service at 2 So maybe you already have a service but you want to come check us out at 2 o 'clock
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It's a great time to come check us out for the for the afternoon service Also, I introduced last time to you
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Tim mullet who's joined in the past right here. He has a podcast called Bible bash I'd really encourage you to subscribe to that if you listen to podcasts a lot of really good stuff about Things like this, you know about singleness about family life about all kinds of but all kinds of really practical stuff and it's very very helpful well each time we go through a different myth about marriage and This time the myth is that my failure to find a spouse means that I've been called the singleness
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All right But the fact of it is is that you're calling the reality of her calling is not based on whether or not
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You've succeeded in that calling Okay Now different people try things and they and they work towards them and then they give up for different reasons
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There's some good things that people give up on right like exercise A lot of people will you know get a gym membership beginning of January and then in the middle of January They've decided that's just not for them
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It doesn't work with their schedule or whatever reasons or you know, maybe the metabolism just isn't made for losing weight, right?
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So people give up on good things to give up on bad things. A lot of people are pursuing some kind of You know artist career within a in a field that's already saturated
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And so they realize you know, maybe I shouldn't spend all my time Waiting tables hoping to get an acting gig.
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Maybe I should you know go into a field that might be a little more a little more profitable
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Or there are things that are a little harder to discern, right? Like a lot of people come out here for the software field and they decide the software fields not for them, right?
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That's a really common thing. So that's not as clear. Oh, where does pursuing a spouse come into that?
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You know, a lot of people get discouraged in that and they wonder maybe that's not for me Maybe God hasn't called me to that. I'd like to encourage you tonight
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Not to give up on pursuing marriage like to encourage you to keep at it
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And that is a it is a good thing. It should be pursued now You're already here.
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So I know that means you haven't given up on it. And so that's a good thing Congratulations on that at the same time.
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Maybe you're discouraged. Maybe you've been discouraged in the past Maybe you will be discouraged in the future And so I want to equip you with a few things that will help you to navigate that so that you don't
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Just end up in this conundrum of you know, maybe I'm not maybe I'm not called toward marriage
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So tonight I want to look at two different things One is the the danger of rejecting
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God's calling on your life and two is how to discern God's calling on your life. Okay, so the danger and then and then the rejection
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So it's or sorry and then the the importance of discerning the call how to discern the call Okay, so there are different people who reject
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God's calling on their life I can think of a couple of famous examples in the Bible a lot of people know about Jonah He's called to go to Nineveh goes to Tarshish and said right he rejects his calling
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Another example in the Bible is Ezekiel, right? Ezekiel's told to go talk to the people of Israel and he sits in the hot heat of his anger for seven days and Refuses to until God pulls him aside and says blood would be on your hands if you do not talk to this people
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So it's a very real thing to Reject a calling now a lot of people
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Will say well, I'm not You know, I'm not Actively rebellious against the calling.
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I just don't know whether or not Something is my calling and I'll let you in on what a lot of people are doing when when they do this not talking about Marriage in particular just in general when people talk about calling what happens is
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There's an obfuscation of what the word means. There's a lot of equivocation for example when we talk about calling a lot of times we're talking about salvation and So there's a general call every time the gospel is proclaimed and people are people are called to repent, right?
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And so that's a calling and then there's an effectual call where their heart is actually transformed and they believe right, so these are these are two different kinds of calling and so Someone just because they haven't experienced something inside themselves might think that they have one calling versus another right or another another word
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That's involved in this kind of thing is will the will of God, right? There's two different kinds of will there's
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God's Prescriptive will the things that he has said are good that you should pursue Right or the things that he has said that it's his law that you should obey and there's his decreed of will
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Those things which he has, you know by his providence a decided will take place those things that he has
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Has ordained would would come to pass and a lot of times when people are discerning the will of God.
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For example, they will Move away from thinking about the prescriptive will of God, you know what
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God is actually commanded What he has said is good and they'll just think about the decreed of will of God what God has brought about in their lives
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And so they'll just discern their situation We'll look at God's hand of providence and by the the favorability of the situation
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They'll decide whether or not that's God's will for their life, but you see what happened there how they switch
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Prescriptive will what God has said is good regardless of what the circumstances are and going to what
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God may have in plan for them These are two different kinds of will and so there's an equivocation that goes on in a lot of people's mind that they don't even
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Realize where they swap from one will to the other and so that's very important not to look at your circumstances and discern
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God's will just based on Circumstances So one example of this in Israel, there was a lot of corruption developing in Israel Micah 3 11 say its heads give judgment for a bribe.
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It's priests teach for a price Price its prophets practice divination for money yet. They lean on the
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Lord and say is not the Lord in the midst of us No disaster shall come upon us. All right, so they look at their circumstance.
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They're selling things. They shouldn't sell They're selling teaching. They're selling judgments. They're selling a prophecy
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Right. They're selling these things that they shouldn't sell and they're deciding Oh, this is within the will of God because things are going.
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Okay right now All right, and so they're discerning God's will just based on how favorable the circumstances are
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That's not though. That's not the way to discern God's will now There's a phrase a lot of times that gets brought up in these discussions about discerning
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God's will Let me see if I came out Yep do a fill -in -the -blank with you here when
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God Well, I I can't think of a way to do this without making it too obvious But if God opens one blank or when
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God closes one blank, he opens another Right. Yeah, I mean what opens and closes? Yeah, I should have thought more about how to make that Make that a little more difficult.
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But yeah when God closes one door, he opens another so a lot of people talk in this open door Closed door language and they really think that this must be the way to discern
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God's will you look for the doors that are open? You look for the doors that are closed you go through the ones that are open. You don't go through the ones that are closed
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That's not really very biblical language There's one time I can think of that speaks of open doors in that way and you'd probably be very surprised by what it says
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Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 2 12 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ Even though a door was open for me in the
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Lord My spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there
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So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia All right So Paul says there's a door open the spirit has opened it for me
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And what does Paul decide the right thing to do is not go through the door because he's got to go to Titus Right his deciding whether or not to go through that open door wasn't based on Whether or not
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God had opened a door for him. It was based on what is the right thing to do at this moment? I need to worry about Titus even though God has opened a door in the circumstance
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And so he's not he's not caring so much which doors are open and which doors are closed.
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That's a factor But his main concern is what is behind that door, right? if you've got a bunch of doors and behind one is
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You know a man -eating tiger and behind the other is gold and we say well This door is closed.
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This door is open. I'm gonna go through the one that's open because that seems easier No, this is you don't go through the door that's open that has the man -eating tiger
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You decide what's behind the doors and that's how you decide whether or not which one to go through right, you go through the one that has the good thing behind it and This applies to open doors.
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It applies to closed doors A lot of people will look at the difficulty of the situation and they'll decide well, I shouldn't do this
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Maybe I'm not called to this because it's too difficult. It seems like God has God has closed the door You look at the parable of the talents and what does the man say?
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Oh, it just seems too hard I know you that you were a hard master and I didn't want to lose it I was afraid I'd lose it that just didn't seem to be the right way of going about it for me
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Master is very displeased with us This is not this is not how we should go about it There's all kinds of things where people people use that sort of excuse, right?
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Hebrews 10 25 tells us not to forsake the gathering our first selves with one another but a lot of people will say well
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You know I haven't been a part of a church for a long time and don't really intend to because I was a part of church before And I just got hurt by it.
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It was too hard, you know That's just really not for me. And so they reject the plain command of Scripture right to not forsake the gathering together and they discern
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God's will for their life just based on whether or not the Circumstances are favorable whether or not and you know, if they're unfavorable, well, let's not let's not do that He considered what happens in a lot of circumstances when you read things that way
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What happens in the stock market if you read things that way right if you say, oh things are good I'm gonna put a lot of money into the stock market and then you wait for things to get bad and you say all things
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Are bad. I'm gonna take money out of stock market. This is what a lot of people do, right? They buy high and they sell low and they just end up losing money because you know, their emotions are okay.
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It's good I'm gonna put my money in it's bad. I'm gonna take my money out and you're supposed to be doing the opposite You're supposed to be you know, if you're a good investor, you're going to recognize the value of taking a risk at the right time
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And how it's going to pay off. You're not just you're not just you know feeling the moment It's not the way of that's not the way of doing it
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So a lot of people really settle into discerning God's providence and they feel very fatalistic you know, they see what what's going on in their life and They think about you know several things that they've tried toward whatever, you know
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Maybe it's several relationships that didn't work out the way you thought they would or something like that They get very fatalistic and they say well, this is just this is just God's plan
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You know nothing I try is going to is going to change anything here, right? You see those, uh time travel movies where someone tries to go back in the past and change things no matter what they change it always turns out the
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Same and a lot of people get that idea in their head that you know, God's just out to get them There's nothing they could do to fix it.
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That's not though. That's not the right way of thinking about it There's an example in Isaiah where God has sent
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Assyria the nation of Assyria against Judah to call them to repentance and because God has sent enemies and because the enemies have gotten closer and and really
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Destroyed a lot of things around them the people start getting very fatalistic instead of turning to God in repentance like they're supposed to They just kind of dig into the idea that you know, maybe we're just gonna die says in Isaiah 22 12 and that day the
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Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning for baldness and wearing sackcloth and behold Joy and gladness killing oxen and slaughtering sheep eating flesh and drinking wine.
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Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die Right. This is how so many people think about it.
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Oh, this is a difficult circumstance Let's just let's just go ahead and resign ourselves to it and enjoy it for what it is
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You know, there's one character in particular it mentions in the following verses Says thus says the
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Lord God of hosts come go to the steward to Shebna who is over the whole household Okay, so there's there's someone in charge of the whole household of the king in Judah.
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That's Shebna What have you to do here? And whom have you here that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself?
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You cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock Okay, so what's
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Shebna done in the face of the situation? Has he turned to God in repentance? Does he have hope that God's gonna deliver him?
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No, he's working on making a good grave for himself because he's gonna die might as well have a good grave to be buried in Behold the
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Lord will hurl you away violently. Oh you strong man He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you around and around and throw you like a ball into a wide land
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There you shall die and there he shall there shall be your glorious chariots you shame of your master's house
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I will thrust you from your office and you'll be pulled down from your station in that day I will call my servant
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Eliakim the son of Hilkiah and I will clothe him with your robe and will bind your sash on him And we'll commit your authority into his hand and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah Okay, so the prophecy is
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Eliakim is gonna be head of the house What do we see several chapters later in Isaiah 37?
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Has the Kai is king and it describes the situation. It doesn't it doesn't really Make it explicit that this is fulfillment of prophecy, but it's obviously is it says and he sent
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Eliakim Who was over the household and Shebna the secretary? Okay, so he sends them on a mission, right?
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But who's head of the household? It's Eliakim just like was prophesied because Shebna had engaged in this fatalism because he had just given up on what
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God had called him to and Decided he was just gonna settle into it, you know, except well God's hand is against me.
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I guess I can't do anything I guess I'm gonna eat drink and be merry. I guess I'm going to build a tomb for myself
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He's removed from his station and Eliakim is put above that So a lot of people consider this a virtue, right?
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It's authentic, you know, I've recognized who I am I recognize, you know
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What God has called me to and I'm not gonna try to be something I'm not And so I'm just gonna settle here at ease in this in this station
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I'm in the way a lot of people approach it. This is not this is not the way to approach it so if you want to discern
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God's call you want to really discern God's call instead of just reading the situation and Making that the only datum that they're putting into your
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Analytics, you know to decide what what response you're gonna have to it What should you do?
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You should go to God's Word. You should see what it says Proverbs 18 22 says whoever finds a good wife
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Finds a good thing or finds a wife finds a good thing and receives favor from the Lord Okay, a wife is a good thing the same is true for a husband husband is a good thing
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These are good things that people should pursue and then and Genesis 2 18 says it's not good for man to be alone
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Right. It's not good for him to be alone. It's good for him to be out with someone Right.
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So if the Bible says that something is good. You should certainly value that thing as good You should not devalue it as being something bad and a lot of times when
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God puts trials in your way in order to test You it's so that you desire that good thing more
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Right consider the the people of Israel when they left Egypt, you know after a while they stopped desiring
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That promised land they started wanting to go back to Egypt and what did God do? He went ahead and he punished them so that they had to wander around the wilderness
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What was the purpose that the buildup of people that are going to actually want to go in the promised land who aren't going to be?
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Thinking about Egypt, you know all the ones who had lived in Egypt They all end up dying off so that he's got a people for himself
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We were desiring the good thing and not desiring the bad thing. That's a lot easier, you know, there might be slavery
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But at least there's leeks and onions and I like savory food You know, this is not Yeah, so you want to build up the good desires and a lot of times
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God's giving you trials to build up the good desires You don't want to morify it right the people wandering around the wilderness if they were just to sit there and think more and more about Egypt and try to go harder
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Back and back to Egypt that would have been insanity. I've been exactly the opposite of what they what they ought to do
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You don't mortify good desires. You build up you build up good desires now at this point you might be asking
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Well, I know the Bible does talk about singleness some how do I know if I've been called the signal singleness?
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Isn't that a possibility? Let's go ahead and look at first Corinthians 7
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I Think the first thing That's real important in figuring out what this passage is talking about is realizing that God does not call singleness a gift
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Okay Now every circumstance from the Lord can be called a gift in different ways, but this passage does not use the word gift to describe
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Singleness itself listen to this now as a concession not a command I say this I wish that all were as I myself in but each has his own gift from God one of one kind and one of another
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I Wish that all were as I myself am Okay, then he goes on to the unmarried into the widows
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I say that it's good for them to remain single as I am But if they cannot exercise self -control, they should be married where it is better to marry than to burn with passion
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Okay. So what he's describing is not the the singleness itself Describing is the equipment for singleness the self -control that would be required for singleness, right?
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Singleness itself isn't a gift in that sense. It is people are gifted for Singleness.
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Okay, so that's a that's the first thing. Okay. So how do you how you discern whether or not you're gifted for singleness?
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First of all, is it you not have the desire for marriage a lot of people they have some desire for marriage and they're wrestling with it because they're not
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Their desires don't seem to be borne out that well And so they think well, maybe I'm called the singleness if you have a desire for marriage
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Then you have not been gifted for singleness, right? This is a there would have to be a lack of desire for marriage
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Secondly He says later on I think that in my view of the present that in view of the present distress
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It is good for a person to remain as he is. Okay So singleness is also for times of great distress.
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That's another important thing So you ask yourself are we in a time of great distress? Is it a time of special persecution?
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Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. Okay, so He's got all these commands for people about them and their circumstances and ultimately
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What he's describing here is being free to do the things of the Lord It's good for people to be yet as he is free in order to do the things of the
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Lord now He is a church planner Paul's a church planner. He's traveling around It says in 1st
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Corinthians 9 that he's able to do this church planting work because he is not married now
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I know okay. So this is the third thing, right? The first thing was The first thing was a lack of desire.
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The second thing was it's for times of great distress and Three it is for very great callings.
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Okay, a lot of people Think that well, maybe this is this is for me. Well, what's what's their calling?
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You know, are they going around and planning churches, you know, are they going out into some? Frontier mission field that's going to be difficult enough that it would be unwise to bring along a spouse
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Is this what you are called to and a lot of people they decide that this is their calling for something much less
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You know, they're they think I'll be a prayer warrior and what that means is, you know They'll give an extra 30 minutes a day to prayer and they'll watch
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Netflix, right? And so this is not this is not a special calling.
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This is not the high calling that says, okay, you know Maybe you're going to have to forego this good thing for this great purpose, which
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God has called you But this is how a lot of people think about it because they're so discouraged. They're led to You know just look for any out they can get and they end up making
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Yeah, their reasoning ends up going in that direction but there's no reason to You know unless those things are true of you
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Which very very small fraction of people would this be true, right? Those great callings like Paul was called to you know, he out of all the
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Apostles You know, the Apostles had great callings, but none of them were called to singleness, you know, Peter describes him as having a wife
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But Paul is doing something even even beyond that much exceeding that Now there is no reason for up.
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So if this is true, you're called to pursue this good thing No, there's no reason for fatalism.
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There's no reason for despair a Christianity is a religion of hope Luke 18 27 says that But man not everything is possible with God all things are possible here with God all things are possible now
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Hope is so important because if people have hope they just you know Burn out real quick. But if you keep your eyes fixed on Christ, you can have the you can have the necessary Oh, maybe some of you have heard of this before but there was an experiment done back in the 50s with rats, okay, so they took rats and they
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Put them in water and let them go until they started drowning And so it was about 15 minutes and the rats are drowning.
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They take the rats out They put the rats back in guess how long the rats last the second time around About 60 hours.
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Okay. So the first time was 15 minutes the second time was 16 hours because once they realize oh There's a chance of someone pulling me out of this mess
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You know, I'm gonna I'm just gonna keep all going on. I'm gonna keep holding on to that There's great hope people do great things by faith, you know, you look at Hebrews 11
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Hebrews 11 talks about all these people who live by faith trusting in God though They were not receiving the promise though.
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They didn't receive the thing that God was holding out for them Says and what more shall I say for time would fail me to tell of Gideon Barak Samson Jephthah David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms and forced justice obtained promises stop the mouth of lions
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Quench the power of fire escape the edge of the sword were made strong out of weakness became mighty in war
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But foreign armies to flight women received back their dead by resurrection Some were tortured refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life
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Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned.
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They were sawn in two They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats destitute afflicted
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Mistreated of whom the world was not worthy Wandering about in deserts and mountains and then dens and caves of the earth and all these though Commended through their faith did not receive what was promised.
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What was promised? It was Jesus. It was that Messiah, right? Since God had provided something better for us that apart from us
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They should not be made perfect were ones who enjoyed the Messiah having already come Okay, so these are people who by faith are obeying
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God, even though they're not getting that thing that God promised You know, they might be wondering why why am
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I not getting this thing? God promised is that really God's will or should I really just well in these tents out in the middle of the out in the middle of Fields and wilderness and whatnot
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Yes, that is God's will he has made it plain. He has made it plain So we are to keep our eyes
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Fixed on Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him
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There's a great joy in marriage to it for the joys that before him endured the cross bearing the shames now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, you know, hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm mixing two
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Very different things because the call here is just to all kinds of obedience Jesus in procuring our salvation
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In freeing us from the chains of death Frees us to obey him radically to pursue him and very difficult
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Circumstances it goes on to say that you have not in your struggle against and you have not resisted to the point of shedding your
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Blood, you know, I'm gonna guess for most of you In your pursuit of marriage, you've not resisted.
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You've not pursued to the point of shedding blood now Maybe some of you have got some crazy stories. I don't know but You've not shit.
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You've not resisted to the point of shedding blood. There's no reason to give up Christ has done so much and he does not just do this as an example for us to give us some kind of a
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Pattern that is true. You know, he does give us a pattern to follow But it's also the case like it says earlier in Hebrews that he frees us from death
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What happens when you're bound by the fear of death the chains of death? You've got to do whatever you can to make your life
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To give it some kind of meaning to give it some kind of some kind of value something But you're but you're just headed towards death.
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You're not free to obey him You've got to rely on pragmatism to try to clean it up as fast as possible Because there's no necessarily there's not any reward that's going to come from obedience
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There's not a reward that comes from up from following after Christ because or following after what's good
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Because there's no salvation. There's no hope of eternal life, but he's given you eternal life if he has saved you
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Then it is the case that you're free to simply trust him and know that what he's doing is good because there's not some
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End looming over you that you know makes you need to resort to all kinds of desperate measures to Pragmatically add some value to your life
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You can trust that that value is there that God is good that he will provide what is good and in his own timing and that whatever
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Whatever faithfulness you render that comes without reward in this life has a wonderful a wonderful reward in next life
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Hebrews 11 6 does it without faith is impossible to please God because the one who comes to him must believe that he is and That he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
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That is a key part of faith. So you've got to follow Jesus Christ, not just Right you but knowing because he has freed you for this because he has granted eternal life through his death on the cross because there is a
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Because of his obedience there is a great reward for those who follow him in that path of obedience
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So I hope that this is encouraging for you I don't know if you're currently struggling with that have in the past or will in the future
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But I hope that this is there for you to remind you of these things and that you will be well equipped to endure
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No matter what kind of struggle even if it's outside of the pursuit of marriage, but to endure pursuing
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God with obedience Following after with your your eyes pointed to Christ our
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Savior. Let me go ahead and pray for us Family father, I thank you for this people. I thank you for your word, which gives a great hope
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And I want to thank you for the the wonderful gift of marriage that you've given I pray that you would bless all these people here with that with that wonderful gift of marriage
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Jesus name. Amen All right, so we Have some discussion questions for you all to go through spend about 15 minutes or so in discussion and then afterward we'll do a