The Sacredness of Singleness – Part 2
August 11, 2024
Introduction
This series is an invitation to embrace the high call of the single life—if you are single.
If you are married, it is to help you encourage, support and pray for the single people in your lives.
Review
Key Ideas from last week:
- Single life is as honorable as married life.
- Getting married and having children is not a mandate.
- People can be single or childless for multiple reasons (both practial and spirital), so don’t judge.
- You can choose to be a life-long single for the sake of the kingdom.
1 Corinthians 7:8–9 (ESV): 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. 9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
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God Can Also Ask Us “Why?”
God does not press you about marriage. He presses you about motives.
God is more interested in what drives your decisions than the decisions themselves.
The test of our loyalty to God hinges on our willingness to submit our beliefs to God’s scrutiny.
God Tests for Our Loyalty
What Jesus calls the greatest commandment is a loyalty test:
Mark 12:30 (ESV): 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
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Jim Brengenberg explains loving God with all your strength at Biblicalleadership.com: “I like to think of loving the Lord with all your strength as loving the Lord with all the things that make you strong or stable in life: your accomplishments, your influence, your paycheck, your talents, your time”
If we explained what Jesus is saying about the inner life in contemporary terms, we’d be talking about your psychology, your will, your emotions, your subconscious thinking, your self-esteem, your imagination, your reasoning, your philosophy, the ways you self-identify, how you see yourself in relationship to other people, how your perceive the world.
All of this must be constantly assessed.
Why?
The Heart is Not to be Trusted
When left to itself, your innermost being is not trustworthy. Its signals are not reliable sources of direction.
The Scriptrue communicates this emphatically:
- Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV): 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
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- Matthew 15:18–19 (ESV): 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
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The Power of God’s Scrutiny
Jeremiah 17:10 (ESV): 10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
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Hebrews 4:12–13 (ESV): 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
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God addresses the matters of the heart directly through His Word and Spirit.
He also addresses the heart indirectly through the counsel of other people.
The Power of Good Advice
Proverbs 11:14 (ESV): 14 Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.
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Proverbs 15:22 (ESV): 22 Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
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Proverbs 20:5 (ESV): 5 The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
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Giving Our Hearts Back to God
Psalm 51:6 (ESV): 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
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James 4:8 (ESV): 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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Psalm 119:10 (ESV): 10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!
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Psalm 139:23–24 (ESV): 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
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© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024