Will I Be Single for the Rest of My Life?

00:00:00.000 | Based on the inbox, Pastor John, there are a lot of Christians listening to this podcast

00:00:04.880 | who did not expect to be single entering 2017.

00:00:09.080 | Ashley, one of our listeners, is among them.

00:00:11.800 | She writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, my struggle is singleness.

00:00:14.880 | I'm 28, an elementary teacher, and that's not really a profession to meet single men.

00:00:19.640 | I know that with the age of tender and hookups, casual sex will leave me empty inside, and

00:00:24.520 | it's not a lifestyle that I'm seeking.

00:00:26.720 | At the same time, I feel alone as a Christian single.

00:00:29.320 | I feel the church only sees me as serving material because I have "time to serve."

00:00:34.560 | In addition to the lack of men at church, I am an extrovert.

00:00:37.800 | I do have a life outside of my singleness, and I try to live as if my singleness doesn't

00:00:41.920 | define me.

00:00:43.240 | Everyone tells me I'm attractive, outgoing, and have a lot going for me.

00:00:46.520 | Well, everyone but a Christian male, which is hard not to take personally.

00:00:51.760 | How do I have hope in something uncertain?

00:00:54.040 | I'm not promised a life of marriage.

00:00:56.420 | How do I cling to the truth in a world lying to me about the satisfaction of hooking up?

00:01:01.320 | How do I not turn to the world when I feel like the church, Christian men, and even God

00:01:05.360 | himself seem to have no place for me?"

00:01:09.200 | Pastor John, what would you say to Ashley?

00:01:11.640 | Wow, there's so much there that we could talk about.

00:01:16.880 | What's clear from the way Ashley asks her question, and I'm going to determine what

00:01:23.840 | I say here because of what I hear in the way she asked the question, what's clear is that

00:01:29.440 | she knows at one level the essence of the right answers to her own questions.

00:01:38.140 | She asks with regard to a future husband, "How do I have hope in something uncertain?"

00:01:46.760 | And she answers, "I am not promised a life of a marriage."

00:01:52.760 | In other words, she knows we don't hope in uncertain things.

00:01:59.240 | We don't put our hope in what we are not promised.

00:02:04.920 | If we do, we're bound to be crushed.

00:02:09.320 | We hope in things that are certain, not uncertain, things that God has promised, not things that

00:02:18.140 | we may rightly want but have not been promised and may receive or may not receive.

00:02:26.480 | We hope in what is sure, what God has absolutely promised, and he watches over his word to

00:02:33.400 | perform it, and Ashley knows this.

00:02:37.720 | And she asks, "How do I not turn to the world when I feel like the church, Christian men,

00:02:46.480 | and God have no place for me?"

00:02:52.040 | And she answers, "The world is lying to me about the satisfaction of hooking up."

00:03:00.880 | She knows it's a lie.

00:03:02.700 | She knows it's a lie.

00:03:05.500 | Now my concern for Ashley, and many are like her and we're all like her from time to time,

00:03:13.380 | my concern for Ashley is that the lie is already starting to creep into the way she asks her

00:03:21.740 | questions.

00:03:24.200 | This is exactly the way Satan insinuated his lie into Eve's mind in Genesis 3, and I don't

00:03:33.100 | want Ashley to become another Eve in the garden.

00:03:39.080 | Here's what he said, or here's what God said.

00:03:42.380 | Now the serpent was more crafty, subtle, than any other beast of the field that the Lord

00:03:49.640 | God had made.

00:03:51.180 | He said to the woman, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?"

00:04:01.480 | Now you see already what he's doing.

00:04:05.300 | God only forbade one tree.

00:04:08.780 | Satan is insinuating the thought that God is stingy and forbade all the trees.

00:04:17.620 | Tragically, that seed of God's stinginess took root in Eve's mind, and you can see it

00:04:25.820 | immediately.

00:04:28.060 | The text goes on.

00:04:29.640 | The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the

00:04:35.540 | garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the

00:04:43.460 | garden,'" and then she adds, "neither shall you touch it, lest you die."

00:04:49.420 | God did not say that.

00:04:51.260 | God did not say, "You shall not touch this tree."

00:04:56.480 | But Eve was already feeling the lure of resentment against God.

00:05:04.320 | God is withholding something from me in my life, and I don't like it.

00:05:11.660 | He's a stingy God.

00:05:13.440 | He's a narrow God.

00:05:15.520 | He doesn't have my best interest at heart.

00:05:18.920 | So when Ashley says, "I feel like the church, Christian men, and God have no place for me,"

00:05:31.320 | we may understand and empathize with the feeling, but alarm bells should be going off in her

00:05:40.560 | and our mind that the lie of Satan is taking root in the statement, "God has no place for

00:05:50.140 | me."

00:05:51.580 | So in answer to Ashley's question, "How can I not turn to the world?"

00:06:01.100 | Even though she knows the world is lying, my answer is, "Swim in the truth.

00:06:08.740 | Swim in the truth of God's Word and promise about you, Ashley.

00:06:15.180 | You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free from the lies of the world and

00:06:21.100 | the devil."

00:06:22.100 | That's what Jesus meant when he said that in John 8.

00:06:24.700 | So let me point you, Ashley, to one truth.

00:06:28.100 | We could do dozens.

00:06:30.100 | One truth, big enough for you to swim in for a long time.

00:06:33.360 | When Jesus was teaching about marriage, and he told his disciples, "There's no back door.

00:06:41.380 | Once you walk in, you are committed for better or for worse till death separates you.

00:06:47.060 | No back door."

00:06:48.380 | The disciples were stunned that Jesus shut the back door of marriage.

00:06:54.660 | And they said, "If such is the case," this is Matthew 19.10, "If such is the case of

00:07:01.100 | a man with his wife, it's better not to marry."

00:07:04.340 | And then Jesus said something even more amazing.

00:07:07.140 | He said, "Not everyone is able to enter this relationship with such a high demand."

00:07:14.220 | And then he uses the word eunuch to describe different kinds of people who don't enter

00:07:20.940 | marriage.

00:07:21.940 | Here's what he says, "Not everyone can receive this saying," this high expectation of marriage

00:07:29.260 | without a back door.

00:07:30.460 | "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given."

00:07:35.020 | In other words, only divine grace.

00:07:38.100 | Verse 12 of Matthew 19, "For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are

00:07:43.620 | eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves

00:07:50.780 | eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

00:07:53.540 | Let the one who is able to receive it, receive it."

00:07:57.500 | Now however literal we may take the word eunuch here, the implication is that there are various

00:08:08.140 | reasons why people are not called into marriage.

00:08:14.020 | Some forgo it unwillingly, some willingly.

00:08:18.140 | What does the Bible have to say about God's grace toward them?

00:08:24.860 | What about their happiness and blessing?

00:08:29.060 | And the answer that God gives is found most beautifully in Isaiah 56.

00:08:36.100 | He pictures two kinds of people who feel explicitly or especially excluded.

00:08:43.300 | The foreigner, the Gentile who's not part of Israel, and the eunuch who feels fruitless

00:08:50.820 | and like there's no future for him because he has no family.

00:08:54.280 | And here's what he says.

00:08:56.100 | This is Isaiah 56 verse 3, "Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, 'The

00:09:05.700 | Lord will surely separate me from his people.'

00:09:08.700 | And let not the eunuch say, 'Behold, I am a dry tree.'

00:09:15.860 | For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath, who choose the things that

00:09:22.040 | please me and hold fast to my covenant, 'I will give in my house and within my walls

00:09:30.740 | a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.'"

00:09:36.780 | Now pause there and let that sink in.

00:09:41.340 | Do you believe this, Ashley?

00:09:46.260 | That's the question.

00:09:48.260 | A monument and the name that will last and be more satisfying than husband's names and

00:09:58.580 | children's names and people surrounding you with family.

00:10:02.660 | And then he goes on, "I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off."

00:10:09.700 | Do you think your name or your identity will not be perpetuated because there are going

00:10:14.260 | to be no children bearing your name, no one carrying your DNA?

00:10:20.180 | There is something better, God says, something better that God has for you, an everlasting

00:10:27.460 | name.

00:10:29.060 | So Ashley, the way to turn—you're asking, "How can I turn from the world?"

00:10:37.020 | The way to turn from the world with its lies is to stop focusing on the world and its deceptive

00:10:47.540 | images of pleasure, but rather to focus on the infinitely superior promises of God.

00:10:55.900 | And this is one of those hundreds of promises.

00:10:59.260 | I don't know if God has marriage in your future.

00:11:02.940 | He might.

00:11:03.980 | You never know.

00:11:06.420 | But I do know this.

00:11:09.180 | He will give you in his house and within his walls a monument and a name better than sons

00:11:18.080 | and daughters, an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

00:11:22.180 | And don't miss the thing that you're most concerned about, namely that God has no place

00:11:27.340 | for you.

00:11:28.340 | It says, "I will give you this in my house."

00:11:34.860 | He does want you there.

00:11:38.060 | He wants you there.

00:11:40.480 | And to be wanted by God is better than being wanted by a thousand men.

00:11:47.180 | Thank you, Pastor John, for addressing this question, and thank you for the email, Ashley.

00:11:53.100 | We really appreciate these kinds of personal emails that ask for advice when it comes to

00:11:56.540 | the most sensitive areas of life in this fallen world.

00:12:00.180 | And as long as you have questions and as long as the Lord wills, we will continue to do

00:12:04.140 | our best to provide the answers.

00:12:06.300 | As we quickly approach episode number 1,000 now in the history of this podcast, and as

00:12:10.460 | our inbox is as full as ever, you can find our audio feeds to track along with new episodes

00:12:16.220 | at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:20.860 | We return on Wednesday.

00:12:22.340 | I'm your host, Tony Reike.

00:12:23.660 | Thanks for listening to year number 5 for us here on the Ask Pastor John podcast.

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Will I Be Single for the Rest of My Life?

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