Sick of Singleness and Satisfied in Christ

00:00:05.000 | David writes in to ask this, "Dear Pastor John, I'm a 22-year-old single Christian in Singapore.

00:00:11.000 | How does a Christian single see and savor Christ as his all and ultimate satisfaction, yet have desires to be married?

00:00:18.500 | How do I reconcile my desires for marriage with my satisfaction in Christ?"

00:00:24.000 | Right. The first thing I want to say to David is that the desire to be married, a good desire,

00:00:34.000 | is one of hundreds of desires that might compete with satisfaction in Christ.

00:00:42.000 | Desire to have a job, you don't have one. Desire to be free from cancer when you're sick.

00:00:48.000 | Desire no longer to be blind or disabled if you're disabled. Desire to have enough money to go to college when you don't.

00:00:57.000 | Desire to be tall instead of short. In other words, the desire for marriage is not unique.

00:01:06.000 | It's not a unique challenge. I just don't want David to feel isolated, like he's got a battle to fight that I don't have.

00:01:13.000 | We all have desires that put us in the same battle for how does contentment or satisfaction in Christ relate to the intensity of those desires from time to time.

00:01:29.000 | And the second thing I'd say is that we should probably remind ourselves that there are good desires and bad desires.

00:01:37.000 | The desire to be married is a good desire. The desire for adultery is a bad desire.

00:01:42.000 | The desire for food is a good desire. Gluttony is a bad desire.

00:01:49.000 | So David is not dealing with the conflict between evil desire and good contentment in Jesus.

00:01:58.000 | He knows that, but I'm just making it clear for all the rest of us.

00:02:02.000 | The question is how does contentment, satisfaction in Jesus relate to good desires that tug at us and make us feel some measure of discontent?

00:02:15.000 | Are we contradicting our desire for and our delight in Jesus?

00:02:21.000 | It might be good to put a text on this issue of contentment or satisfaction because he's just kind of assuming it and maybe not everybody even thinks in those categories.

00:02:31.000 | So here's Philippians 3.8, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

00:02:40.000 | So Paul seems to have such a sweet experience of knowing Jesus.

00:02:45.000 | Everything else pales by comparison. It's just loss. He's so happy in his fellowship with Jesus.

00:02:53.000 | Or another one would be at the end of Philippians in chapter 4, he says, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content or satisfied.

00:03:03.000 | I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in every and in any circumstance.

00:03:08.000 | I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

00:03:13.000 | I can do all things. I can be satisfied in all circumstances through him who strengthens me."

00:03:21.000 | So clearly, Jesus gave Paul an amazing contentment.

00:03:27.000 | Those are amazing verses. We all just long to be like that. I do.

00:03:32.000 | But here's something crucial.

00:03:35.000 | Paul's contentment in Jesus in every circumstance did not make him passive, as though there was nothing in the world to change or nothing to pursue.

00:03:51.000 | Remember his incredible passion to preach the gospel to every place and person that didn't have Christ named.

00:04:01.000 | "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named."

00:04:08.000 | He said, "I no longer have any room for work in these regions.

00:04:12.000 | I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and get help on my journey."

00:04:17.000 | So here's a man that seems driven. I mean, he wants to go to Spain.

00:04:22.000 | Why wouldn't we say, "Paul, you don't sound very, you know, content in Jesus."

00:04:28.000 | Why wouldn't we say that?

00:04:32.000 | Jesus doesn't make him passive in his satisfaction in Jesus.

00:04:38.000 | He doesn't say, "I have Jesus. I don't need to go to Spain.

00:04:42.000 | I don't need to risk my life to get the gospel to other people because I have Jesus.

00:04:46.000 | I have sweet fellowship. I'll sit under a tree, cross my legs like a Buddha and let the world go to hell in a handbasket, and I will be satisfied in Jesus."

00:04:56.000 | It simply doesn't—satisfaction in Jesus doesn't work that way.

00:05:02.000 | Contentment in Jesus is not paralyzing. It's energizing.

00:05:06.000 | A person who is so content in Jesus, they have no desires to change anything in the world or to extend that contentment to others.

00:05:16.000 | They're not content in Jesus. Not the Jesus of the Bible.

00:05:20.000 | The contentment Jesus gives is meant in this fallen world and probably for eternity to grow and grow and grow,

00:05:31.000 | to increase by expressing it in risk-taking acts of love and by drawing others into it.

00:05:40.000 | It's the sort of contentment that gets bigger when it expands to include other people.

00:05:47.000 | So, now back to marriage. What about marriage?

00:05:51.000 | So that's all kind of foundation.

00:05:54.000 | Here's my question. Do you want this for the sake of savoring and showing more of Christ?

00:06:04.000 | Will your enjoyment of a wife be an enlargement of your enjoyment of Christ?

00:06:13.000 | Will your enjoyment of Christ be enlarged by drawing a wife into it?

00:06:21.000 | Will her enjoyment of Christ be enlarged by drawing you into hers?

00:06:28.000 | Those are some of the ways that I would try to relate our contentment in Christ to, as a single person, to marriage.

00:06:40.000 | In reality, and this is where the rubber meets the road, I suppose, for him.

00:06:45.000 | In reality, the day-to-day experience will be a battle to rest in Christ and act for joy.

00:06:54.000 | Rest in Christ and act for joy.

00:06:58.000 | They feel intention often. There's no quantification for this.

00:07:03.000 | I don't know how to give a quantity, like how much do you rest and how much do you quest, you know?

00:07:09.000 | You discover it in actual walking with Christ and telling him all you feel, asking him for all his help, all his wisdom,

00:07:20.000 | about when to rest and when to act, and how to be restful in him even while acting.

00:07:27.000 | And so I think the last thing I could say is God's going to show you.

00:07:31.000 | If you embrace that kind of understanding of contentment in Jesus, he'll show you how to weigh out the longings you have for marriage

00:07:42.000 | and how appropriate they are in expressing your longings for Christ.

00:07:46.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:48.000 | And if you are not yet married, we have a couple of other episodes in the Ask Pastor John archive for you,

00:07:53.000 | including episode number 170, "How Singleness is Good," and episode number 262,

00:07:58.000 | "If My Church Lacks Available Singles, Should I Leave It?"

00:08:02.000 | Also check out the very popular blog post written by our very own Marshall Siegel at our blog and website DesiringGod.org.

00:08:10.000 | Tomorrow we will look at a very frequent question we get in the Ask Pastor John email inbox,

00:08:14.000 | "Do our loved ones in heaven look down on us?"

00:08:17.000 | We'll hear Pastor John's thoughts on that tomorrow.

00:08:19.000 | I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:08:23.000 | [end]

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Sick of Singleness and Satisfied in Christ

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