What Hope Does God Give Lonely Singles?

00:00:00.000 | One final time we're joined by Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Dallas.

00:00:10.160 | Matt is the author of the new book, The Mingling of Souls, God's Design for Love, Marriage,

00:00:15.360 | Sex and Redemption.

00:00:16.360 | I have a list of 10 questions on relationships queued up for Matt, and we've worked through

00:00:20.600 | all 10 of them.

00:00:22.080 | So Matt, we have time for one more question we receive all the time on the podcast.

00:00:25.640 | I'll throw it in as question number 11.

00:00:28.740 | Many Christian singles who do not find a spouse end up dating non-Christians and compromising

00:00:33.800 | themselves.

00:00:35.320 | What does Christ have to offer to a Christian who is tired of the weirdnesses of Christian

00:00:39.960 | dating, who longs to be married, who is sick of being lonely, who doesn't have any Christian

00:00:46.000 | prospects at the moment, and who isn't getting any younger?

00:00:49.960 | What would you say to this listener?

00:00:51.760 | Oh gosh.

00:00:52.760 | Well, a couple of things.

00:00:54.200 | I want to just, I want to totally affirm the desire to be married.

00:00:58.580 | I just don't, I don't want anybody to ever feel guilty about that desire, because I feel

00:01:02.460 | like so often, particularly single women, God bless them, I just feel like they can

00:01:08.900 | get, you know, find your contentment in Christ.

00:01:10.940 | Why, I mean, why is Christ not enough?

00:01:12.780 | And I just think that's such a terrible, terrible response, because the desire to get married

00:01:17.740 | is a good desire.

00:01:18.740 | It may be one that's been woven into them by the creator of the universe.

00:01:23.860 | If the Bible says, "He who finds a wife finds what is good," that's all I need for both

00:01:28.820 | the man and the woman to go, "This is a good thing to be desired."

00:01:31.980 | If to find it is good, then let's desire it.

00:01:35.820 | But like all desires, they have to be placed where they belong.

00:01:40.020 | And so I want to affirm this desire to be married.

00:01:43.460 | I want to warn against loneliness and this desire being a desire that's so far up in

00:01:52.820 | your list of desires that you would be willing to compromise and put yourself in a situation

00:01:58.660 | that would be far more horrific and far more lonely than you currently are.

00:02:03.420 | And so one of the things that I have unfortunately been able to watch on repeat the last 20 years

00:02:10.620 | of Christian ministry is godly women get to that place where the "weirdness" of Christian

00:02:16.900 | dating and the apathy of Christian men to actually pursue them has led them to marry—I

00:02:25.060 | won't even go as far as say just lost guys, but what I'll just call "neat Christian voice."

00:02:30.380 | So maybe they go to church a couple of times a month, or maybe they just have a Bible that

00:02:35.460 | they own, and oh yeah, they're Christian.

00:02:37.180 | So they justify getting into a relationship with a man who will not lead them, who doesn't

00:02:43.340 | really love the Lord, but does come to church.

00:02:46.460 | And this ends almost every time in heartbreak, where now they're in a covenant, they feel

00:02:52.660 | trapped in that covenant relationship, and so they try to fix their husbands.

00:02:57.860 | That's not working, so then they hope maybe having children will fix their husbands, and

00:03:01.780 | that's what will engage their husband's heart back towards the Lord and back towards them.

00:03:05.980 | And then they have children, and now the father is discipling their children, not towards

00:03:09.900 | the Lord, but from the Lord.

00:03:12.220 | And so in all of this, the way I've tried to counsel our single women here at the Village

00:03:18.540 | Church is, "Men, give yourself over to ministry and to serving the Lord."

00:03:25.260 | And I mean give yourself over.

00:03:26.540 | So there's a woman who lives with us, she's in her mid-30s, and she leads a ministry where

00:03:37.120 | she's running these discipleship groups of women all over the country.

00:03:42.820 | It's like in 11 or 12 states, and there's like 50 or 60 leaders that she's pouring herself

00:03:48.580 | into.

00:03:49.580 | She walked these dGroups through Grudem Systematic Theology, then she's walking them, I think,

00:03:56.420 | this semester through the Book of Genesis, and it's a very serious, robust study of God's

00:04:02.420 | Word.

00:04:03.420 | And she desires to be married, she would love to be married, but she's not waiting to be

00:04:08.920 | married for her life to matter, for her life to count.

00:04:12.260 | So she has moved in with us, she's very much a part of our family, and she's given herself

00:04:16.900 | over to Christian ministry.

00:04:18.760 | And even when I think of the young woman who helped shape some of these questions, she's

00:04:24.920 | given herself over to serve the Lord, to write and to teach and to disciple and to open up

00:04:30.920 | her home to care for other women and to encourage other women to grow in biblical literacy.

00:04:36.780 | And I think that that's what Christ has for them, fulfilling, soul-stirring, soul-satisfying

00:04:45.400 | gospel ministry.

00:04:46.920 | Amen.

00:04:47.920 | Thank you, Matt, for your example and for joining us in this podcast.

00:04:52.920 | We really appreciate it.

00:04:54.320 | It's my pleasure, brother.

00:04:56.480 | That was Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Dallas and the author

00:05:00.240 | of the new book, The Mingling of Souls, God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption.

00:05:05.960 | He joined us in episodes number 522 to 529 to answer some of the most pressing questions

00:05:10.920 | singles face in the church.

00:05:12.800 | And we are very grateful for his time and for his pastoral wisdom.

00:05:16.400 | Well, we are back with John Piper tomorrow.

00:05:19.120 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:05:20.360 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:05:22.560 | [music]

00:05:23.560 | [music]

00:05:28.560 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Hope Does God Give Lonely Singles?

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