Sermon Notes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote...

Your standing with Christ and your standing in the church family are not impacted by your marital status. Both married and singles are called to an undivided devotion to Jesus. 

27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. 29 This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. 

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

“The ultimate family is in the future. The ultimate wedding is in the future. The wedding supper of the lamb. All of the deepest desires you have for love, for closure, for acceptance, for security will be satisfied when Christ returns.”

- Tim Keller

I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

“Single Christians communicate that a truer marriage is coming and that they are willing to bet their life on it. They communicate that the church really is a family and we better live like it. Even when his singleness is unchosen and painful, the single man communicates how much Jesus longs for his bride the church. The single woman shows the longing of the church away from the Lord: how worth waiting for he is. And neither will feel as if they have missed out when the picture is swallowed up by the real thing.”

-Rachel Gilson

A. To Singles - How do you think about your singleness?

B. To Marrieds - How do you think about your marriage?