food4thought

Over the next few weeks we’re going to look at some personal issues that face us as believers in 21st Century London. We won’t all have these issues but some of us will have some of them. Hopefully no one will have all of them! We won’t be able to deal with them in any depth because time won’t allow. So please don’t imagine that I think we’ve given a comprehensive explanation of the issue. We’ll have barely scratched the surface. I’m aiming at a sufficient explanation but we may be lucky to get adequate. But it’s better than nothing.

It’s rightly pointed out that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In which case some of us are especially hazardous!

With those caveats in place let’s start with loneliness.

1. The definition of loneliness

In IVP’s New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology the contributor M Chave-Jones defines loneliness in the following way. He writes ‘It is the experience of failure to satisfy the basic human need for deep personal relationships with other people. It is an intensely painful sense of exclusion, of rejection, of not mattering to anyone, and of being worthless, and it is accompanied by feelings of distress, restlessness and heightened self-concentration. Simultaneously, there is a strong fantasy that everyone else is enjoying unclouded love and fun, which adds poignancy to the loneliness’ ‘Loneliness’ p556. Jayne Clark in the Journal of Biblical Counselling writes, ‘The circumstances vary but the feelings are similar. We feel isolated, vulnerable and alone. We want to talk and be heard. We want to be known and understood; we don’t want to feel invisible. We want to be included and cared about. We desire intimacy. We want to be connected to someone’ JBL Fall 2005.

What is meant by loneliness may be best demonstrated through comparison with solitude.

• Loneliness comes when we’re forced to be alone. Solitude is a decision to be alone.
• Loneliness sweeps over us and stays with us despite our best efforts to get rid of it. Solitude can be started and ended at will.
• Loneliness is painful, draining and unpleasant. Solitude is refreshing, rejuvenating and enjoyable. In essence loneliness is the experience of being alienated from relationships.

2. The extent of loneliness

It’s been described as the world’s most common mental health problem and one of the most universal sources of human suffering. It’s no respecter of age, race and gender, marital or economic status. It occurs most often in societies that emphasize individualism. And highly ambitious, upwardly mobile people are especially susceptible to it. And so we’re probably all familiar with the feelings of loneliness. It affects us all at one time or another. In 1973 a sociologist concluded that a quarter of the US population experienced feelings of loneliness in any given month. I suspect were that same study to be conducted today the results would be higher. But some people have an acute experience of loneliness that far outweighs what some of us may have experienced from time to time. It will be helpful to distinguish between transient-situational loneliness and chronic-persisting loneliness.

a. Transient-situational loneliness arises because of temporary social causes. A move away from home, the break up of a relationship, starting a new job, divorce or death are the kinds of things that initiate this type of loneliness. It lasts from a few minutes to a few months.

b. Chronic-persisting loneliness arises because of permanent psychological factors some of which we’ll consider in a moment.

3. The causes of loneliness

We’ll consider three of the causes identified by Psychologists; social, developmental and psychological.

a. Social Causes

This includes factors brought about by the rapid social changes in our era. Three current societal trends have exacerbated the experience of loneliness.

i. Urbanization. Increasingly we grow up in the anonymity of the big cities isolated from the people amongst whom they live. Perversely although one of the most hugely populated, London has to be one of the loneliest places on the planet. Daily we pass by hundreds of thousands of people but we don’t even know the names of our next door neighbours.

ii. Technology. Increasingly we interact with machines rather than people. The proliferation of useful technological tools has led many to withdraw from personal contact with friends in preference for the isolation of TV or internet.

iii. Mobility. Increasingly we live away from the family and friends we had when we were where we growing up. Then we rarely stay in one place long enough to put down roots. Is it any wonder we feel disconnected from our surroundings.

b. Developmental Causes

Three developmental needs must be met if loneliness is to be avoided. We need to experience attachment to others, acceptance by others and we need to acquire social skills.

i. Attachment to Others. We need to grow up experiencing close bonds with others. The separation from close family members brought about by divorce increasingly produces feelings of alienation among young people. These can persist into adulthood.

ii. Acceptance by Others. We communicate acceptance in a number of ways; time, listening, discipline and affection. If acceptance is withheld either people withdraw or force themselves on others in a way that brings more rejection. This leads to distrust of others and makes it harder to form relationships.

iii. Acquiring Skills. Learning how to form and maintain interpersonal relationships is something that we must all do. We’ve all come across social misfits who failed to learn these lessons. Sometimes people try and compensate for their lack of skills and try and force themselves on others but this is usually met with even further rejection. Childhood is usually the place to iron out the creases. People are less forgiving of peculiarity in adults.

c. Psychological Causes

Loneliness appears more often in people who demonstrate the following character traits

i. Low Self Esteem. It’s difficult to build friendships if we lack confidence. If we have low opinion of ourselves we underestimate our worth and tend to withdraw from others. This heightens our isolation from others and reinforces feelings of loneliness.

ii. Inability to Communicate. Communication is what generates relationships. When people are unwilling or unable to communicate the experience of alienation is perpetuated.

iii. Self Defeating Attitude. Rugged individualists who approach life as one big competition, who prize possessions over people and who have a tendency to demand their rights are preoccupied with themselves and may not find people warm to their company. These may well be an accurate depiction of the immediate causes of loneliness, but what of the ultimate cause? Where does it come from? After all, it’s not part of God’s original intent for His creation (Genesis 1). Loneliness is a consequence of the fall (Genesis 3). Adam was alone before the fall and God solved that by the creation of Eve. But he didn’t experience loneliness until his rejection of God’s authority over him and his subsequent alienation from his God and from his wife. Therefore sin separates us from God and from each other. That’s the ultimate cause of loneliness. If we can find a solution for sin then we’re onto something.

4. The remedy for loneliness

We need to be wary of seeking solutions that work like ibuprofen. It might dull our sensitivity to it but don’t really deal with the root causes of the pain. The following three steps are where to begin.

a. Admit the Problem

Though loneliness carries with it unattractive social baggage and unwelcome social connotations the first step to addressing the issue is to admit there’s an issue.

b. Consider the Cause

As we’ve seen, loneliness can arise from a number of sources. We need to identify the chief contributing factors and eliminate those that can be.

c. Change our Thinking

Some factors cannot be changed. The lonely divorcee usually cannot bring back her estranged husband. But many can. Even if they can’t we can change the way we think about our situation. We can repent of self pity, resentment and envy.

Rather obviously, the real remedy to loneliness is relationships. God intended humanity to enjoy interaction. He created humanity in His own image and God is a relational being. But given that sin disrupts those relationships what hope is there? Though the effects of sin will linger until the new creation, loneliness can be combated. The real solution lies in relationship with Christ and relationship with his people.

a. We need to concentrate on our relationship with Christ

In the first instance our loneliness is not merely a function of having too few or too superficial friendships. It’s fundamentally an issue of being alienated from God. It’s a symptom of our estrangement from our creator. But becoming a Christian won’t necessarily banish loneliness forever. But if we actively pursue our relationship with the Lord we have His promise that He will draw near to us (James 4:8). A relationship with the Lord will begin to transform our capacity to relate to others.

b. We need to concentrate on our relationship with church

We need to invest in friendships at church. A good place to start is our small group. It may be that one or two individuals there can form a prayer triplet with whom over time we feel increasingly comfortable opening up and giving ourselves in friendship. We’ll need to make ourselves vulnerable because being self protective will seem like an impenetrable barrier to others. But ultimately the solution to our loneliness will be found in the new community God is creating. There are however some warnings for us as a church. Gary Collins writes, ‘Regretfully not all church members are open to receiving new people. Some churches are cold, indifferent and cliquish. Regular attenders may fail to notice newcomers, may extend no welcome when visitors are noticed, or may embarrass non-members with well-meaning but insensitive expressions of welcome from the pulpit’ p102 Christian Counselling.

Conclusion

It may be that the group that most acutely experience loneliness in our congregation is our single adults. I don’t want to caricature our singles. We mustn’t think that because someone is single they’re automatically lonely. There’s not a direct correspondence. And we mustn’t be naïve. Marriage doesn’t necessarily solve all our problems. It’s not the relational idyll that some think that it is. Some of the loneliest people are those trapped in a bad marriage. But proportionally the bigger issue in our church is likely to be the loneliness caused by being unhappily unmarried. Those who would prefer not to be single need especially to remember the following three things.

a. If marriage were the answer to loneliness then it would mean that only one group would be exempt from the experience and this would leave the ‘non-married’, the ‘were married’ and the ‘too young to be married’ without a solution.

b. It was a married couple who first experienced loneliness and so it’s not the guarantee of the ‘happy ever after’ that we sometimes think it is .

c. There’s no marriage in heaven and yet we’ll not be lonely. And so in principal it’s possible to be unmarried and not suffer loneliness. It all has to do with our relationship with Christ and our relationship with his people.

Further Resources

• Peter Hicks, What Could I Say? IVP
• Gary Collins, Christian Counselling, Word
• Geoff Baker, Friends, IVP
• Biblical Counsel for Concerned Singles, J.S. Forrey, Spring 1996 The Journal of Biblical Counselling, Christian Counselling and Education Foundation
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  Loneliness: God’s Remedy, J.V. Clarke, Fall 2005, The Journal of Biblical Counselling, Christian Counselling and Education Foundation

The last talk in a series of four entitled, ‘God, Sex and Relationships’. Philip Jensens’ talks, Not Even a Hint by Josh Harris and several other articles, books and sermons will, no doubt, have found their way into this material.  

In CS Lewis’ book the Great Divorce he tells a fictitious story about a ghost of a man afflicted by lust. Lust is incarnated in the form of a red lizard that sits on his shoulder and whispers seductively in his ear. When the man despairs about the lizard, an angel offers to kill it for him. But the ghost is torn between loving his lust and wanting it to die. He fears that the death of the lust will kill him. He makes excuse after excuse to the angle, trying to keep the lizard he says he doesn’t want. Finally the man agrees to let the angel seize and kill the lizard. The angel grasps the reptile, breaks its neck, and throws it to the ground. Once the spell of lust is broken, the ghostly man is gloriously remade into a real and solid being. And the lizard, rather than dying, is transformed into a breathtaking stallion. Weeping tears of joy and gratitude, the man gets on the horse and they soar into the heavens.

My hope for us all after this series is that lust’s grip on our life is considerably weakened and instead we begin to experience developing into men and women of substance. Whether we soar into the heavens in our sexual lives remains to be seen!

In the last few weeks we’ve been thinking about the subject of God, sex and relationships. In the first week we thought about God’s good gift of sex, which he invented for the purposes of bonding a man and a woman in a relationship of intimacy. In the second week we thought about the context that God has provided for such a powerfully bonding activity, the permanent exclusive relationship known as marriage. In particular we thought about the responsibilities that God has laid upon each partner in that relationship. The man is required to exercise his authority in loving sacrifice for the good of his wife and the woman is required to submit to his rule. Last week we thought about a situation about which both Jesus and Paul were very enthusiastic, the state of singleness. This week we’re going to think a little about the way in which our sinful nature twists God’s good gift of sexuality. We’re going to think about lust. There are three principles that I’ve highlighted to which others could be added to help us think about this issue.

1. we’ll always be sinners

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

This principle is not intended to let us off the hook. It is intended however to help us understand why we do the things that we do. In our better moments, away from the provocation of sexual temptation, we desire to live obediently for Christ. But under the right circumstances with a little nudge we find that it doesn’t take much to lessen that desire. The reason for that is our indwelling sinful nature. It’s like a power in us that controls us constantly working to press us into its evil mould. It’s just like gravity. So long as we live in this world it’s there. It’s constant and we can’t escape from its influence. Our sexual appetite is a good thing created by God but it’s also something that our sinful nature is inclined to corrupt and distort.

Lust is the internal inclination we feel that seeks to undermine our holiness and distort an otherwise wholesome sexual drive.

Lust is to want what we don’t have and what we’re not meant to have. It’s absolutely resolved to go beyond God’s loving limitations for the exercise of sexual activity to find satisfaction. It’s an insatiable desire that rejects God’s rule and seeks satisfaction apart from him.

Lust is a desire that can never be quenched. It’s like a monster that grows the more we feed it and to conquer it we need to starve it to death.

Lust is not to be attracted to someone or notice that they are attractive. It’s not the first look but the second lingering look.

Lust is not to have a strong desire to have sex. God has created us with a sex drive and presumably that drive is meant to take us somewhere.

Lust is not to anticipate having sex within marriage.

Lust is not to become sexually aroused without any conscious decision to do so.

Lust is not to experience sexual temptation. There appear to be gender differences in our temptation to lust. These are generalisations and inevitably they’ll need to be qualified. But they broadly appear to be representative. It would be a mistake to think that men are necessarily more sinful than women it’s just that their sins are perhaps more obvious.

A man’s sexual desire is often physical. This is perhaps why a man’s lust often seeks physical activity for fulfilment. A woman’s desire is more often rooted in emotional longings. This is perhaps why romantic films or period dramas and the kind of novels written by Danielle Steele can stimulate women’s lust.

A man is generally wired to be the sexual initiator and is stimulated visually. Therefore, the women can help the men greatly by being careful how they dress, particularly at this time of year. The problem is with the men and their lust but you can help them. Girls you don’t need to fear that your femininity won’t be noticed. You could be wearing a hessian sack and every man would spot it. Someone has said that there’s a difference between dressing to attract and dressing attractively and it would be great to think about that. Josh Harris in his book says, ‘when you wear clothing that accentuates, draws attention to or highlights the feminine parts of your body it’s like wearing a neon sign pointing to the very thing he’s trying not to be consumed with’. A woman is usually wired to be a sexual responder and is stimulated by touch. Therefore the men need to refrain from extended periods of touching their girlfriends. It’s not at all helpful. A man is created to pursue and even finds the pursuit stimulating and that’s perhaps why so many men are poor at committing. A woman is made to want to be pursued and finds being pursued stimulating. This is why it’s vital that our women say no to non-Christian suitors early on in the peace. Your sinful nature will like the attention but the longer you let it go on the more you’re feeding your lust and the stronger it’s becoming.

2. we’ll be weaker on our own

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The writer to the Hebrews realised that in order to keep going in the Christian life we need one another’s encouragement. It’s very hard to encourage yourself particularly perhaps when things are tough. Satan will go after people who isolate themselves from church relationships. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen those war films when a troop or platoons go off into the jungle looking for the enemy. It’s always the straggler, the one who falls behind the pace and gets separated from everyone else who gets picked off. This is never more the case than when tackling sexual temptation. The nature of the sin means we would prefer to be isolated because it’s embarrassing and humiliating. So if you’ve come to us don’t just attend but immerse yourself in the life of the church. Throw yourself into our membership course, ‘Joining In’. Get involved in a small group. Pray that God will provide you with a soul mate to whom over time you can increasingly entrust yourself to. Look to be a part of an accountability relationship with one or two other people. The purpose of a group like this is to give one another believer of the same gender permission to delve into our life for the purpose of questioning, correcting, advising and encouraging someone in their Christian life. It can be quite painful at times but it can also be hugely significant in our Christian growth. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m in a group like this with a couple of good Christian friends who also happen to be in ministry. Our wives know each other well and know the level of questioning that we’ve exposed each other to. We have a set list of questions that we ask each other and allow supplementary questions to be asked. We’re only able to get together once a term but we make a priority of keeping in touch at other times. It could be that a prayer triplet might provide something like this but I don’t want to force you into this. The point is don’t try and battle alone you’ll get picked off. Come and have a word with me if your male or Phoebe if you’re female. Take the first step to deal with it. We won’t be surprised or shocked by anything, we’re familiar with the depravity of the human heart and we’re here to help.

It’s perhaps in this context that we ought to talk about pornography and masturbation, which by their nature are usually lone activities. It’s characteristic to think of these as exclusively male struggles but there’s increasing evidence that this is not always the case.

Pornography

Pornography is anonymous visual or verbal communication intended to excite us sexually.

Pornography provokes lust.

The intention can be the deliberate intent of the producer of pornography or the deliberate intent of a viewer. Therefore a much more innocent picture can be used by the viewer intent pornographically if their intent is sexual excitement. So pictures of attractive women wearing the latest styles in a Sunday supplement whilst we wouldn’t normally classify them as pornography can become that if the viewer has excitement on his mind.

Pornography is escapism.

That’s perhaps its appeal. It lies to us. It’s often defended by the free speech lobby but it’s perhaps the most censored activity in the media. Most women don’t look like the women who appear in magazines, on films and on the Internet. And most women in porn don’t look like the women in porn because they’ve been so acutely altered by surgery, make up, lighting and editing. But we’re complicit in this scandal because we’re happy for it to lie to us. But it’s not only the more graphic images but we get it all the time in advertising. I read this week that the ASA have told a drinks company that they’re not allowed to use attractive hunky men to market their drinks but fat balding men instead. But we’re being lied to and we believe it. We’ve allowed beauty to be redefined and in fact limited to physical appearance alone. But as we all know beauty is multi-dimensional. A woman is beautiful if she’s charming, vivacious, witty intelligent warm and so much more.

Pornography is damaging.

It’s damaging to relationships especially because no woman can compete with our tastes if that’s what excites us. It means that those of us who are single will become overly picky and choosy and unhelpfully prioritise physical appearance and so we may miss out on an otherwise brilliant choice of wife because we’re too stupid to see that beauty is multi-factoral. It means that women become objects of our gaze for our arousal. It means also that those of us who are married are defrauding our wives of sexual intimacy that they deserve.

Pornography is addictive.

It’s the food that feeds the monster of lust so that lust simply gets more demanding. And so we need to starve it to death and put things in place to prevent it from happening. It’s like craving a drink but only drinking salt water. We end up craving more. If we leave this craving unchecked it can spiral downwards into obsession and like all obsessions it sucks the life from our passion for other things. Pornography is progressive. It walks people down a path towards further perversity and can create in the mind the longing to act out in reality what’s been experienced visually. If the figures are to be believed then over the last 25 years the relaxation in censorship standards has resulted in a tenfold increase in indecent assault and rape. Now perhaps there are other things that we would want to say to that issue but nevertheless we need to be warned where an infatuation could led us. Of course the problem has been around for as long as human kind. We tend to think that it was invented with the Internet. That’s not the case but the Internet has made an old problem so much more readily accessible. The drop in advertising standards in which almost everything is marketed with the toned body of a man or the voluptuous appeal of a woman doesn’t help us. And the material available on terrestrial TV after 10pm means that even trying to locate the News at Ten can feel like running the gauntlet. We need to do what we can to minimise our exposure to this type of material. There is much to help us in this struggle. There are web packages that we can use to protect the material we can see. There are also accountability programmes that can be fitted that send a record of the web sites we visit to one or two accountability partners. We can borrow DVD box sets rather than risk watching the TV – I’ve got 5 series of the West Wing is anyone’s interested.

Masturbation

There may be some for whom this is a complete mystery because you have no idea what it is. That’s fine but there will be others for whom this is acutely relevant.

Masturbation is an activity cloaked in secrecy and guilt.

Because no one ever talks about it the assumption is that it’s shameful, embarrassing and dirty. All surveys suggest that this is an activity more prevalent among men than among women. There are therefore men who masturbate who may be suffering under the unnecessary burden of shame. They’ve been made to feel that they’re in a constant state of sin as a result of their failure to control their behaviour by will power. This can be hugely damaging in their relationship with God because their whole Christian faith is reduced to this one issue.

Masturbation is an activity that the Bible does not condemn.

The Bible has every opportunity to condemn the practice but nowhere does it do so. That’s especially significant since almost every other form of sexual activity that’s deemed inappropriate is described as sexual immorality.

Masturbation is an activity that can control sexual behaviour.

Masturbation is not a replacement for sex even though Woody Allen described it as ’sex with someone I love’. It doesn’t fulfil the twin intentions of sexual activity, which are creating children and forming relationship. Therefore it cannot be the ultimate solution to our sexual drive. Before marriage and indeed during marriage it can be used as a way of controlling sexual behaviour by offering an avenue of release for sexual tension that doesn’t involve sex outside marriage. This can be especially useful within marriage where there’s a discrepancy between the sex drives of the couple or when sex is not possible for whatever reason.

Masturbation is an activity that can be lustful.

The big problem with masturbation is what’s going on in our heads. With his words about adultery and lust Jesus condemned many of the sinful fantasies that may accompany the activity of masturbation. So what are we to do? One senior Christian leader suggests that we’re not to think of nothing since it’s not simply functional like eating. We’re not to think of immorality so we mustn’t think about or visualise real people. We’re not to think of ungodly or illegal practices. Instead we’re to train ourselves to think about normal sexual activity in terms of our marriage partner if we’re married or an ideal marriage partner if we’re single.

3. we’ll reap what we sow

7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

God is not to be fooled and we should not be deceived. There are no short cuts to spiritual maturity. The difference between the person who grows in holiness and the one who doesn’t is not a matter of personality as though they’re temperamentally wired to being godly. Neither is holiness the fruit of upbringing as though class was significant and neither do we require great gifting to be holy. It’s simply a matter of agriculture. We all know that there’s an unbreakable link between what we put in the ground and what we take out of it later. What we see in our spiritual life today is the direct result of what we’ve put into it in the past. If there’s to be deep and lasting transformation in our Christian life then we need to start sowing to the Spirit. And that’s something that we can start doing today. However, far back we feel that we are, however many mistakes we’ve made in the past we can begin today to start sowing to the Spirit. We need to start cultivating ways of behaving that are conducive to Christian growth. This principle is true in terms of our sexual sin. If we’ve fed our lust then at one level that sin is no worse than any other is. All sin is anti God. But Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 6 that at another level sexual sin is worse. It’s profoundly anti-self.

18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

When we sin sexually we sin with our own body and we sin against our own body. Therefore sexual sins are different in their nature from other sins. They affect us more than other sins because what we do with our body is what we do with ourselves. We’re not just a thinking entity as though what we do with our body is separate to us. But we’re an integrated whole of body, mind and heart. There are therefore repercussions on us if we sin sexually that we’ll carry around with us. We’re never quite the same person again. When I lie I’m doing something sinful but it’s as though my wrong words leave me. When I sin sexually it’s me that’s involved intimately. Therefore sexual sins have a more damaging effect on people than lying. Now of course we can be forgiven for our sexual mistakes but we mustn’t be fooled into thinking that there aren’t ongoing consequences. No we reap what we sow.

Conclusion

We can’t leave a subject like this without reflecting on the cross of Christ and the forgiveness he offers. We’re all sexual sinners to one degree or another. But Christ died for our sexual sins so that we could be forgiven and start again in repentance and faith. Let’s read Psalm 51 and pray and with our hearts and our lips resolve to use our bodies for sacrificial service of Christ rather than selfish desire.

The third talk in a series of four entitled ‘God, Sex and Relationships’. I was greatly helped by a series of tapes by Philip Jensen, Richard Coekin and the book the Single Issue by Al Hsu. There are probably others whose material I’ve used in order to try and benefit others. Thank you!

The last two weeks might have been hard for some of us. Hearing about the nature and exercise of Christian marriage last week and the purpose of sexual union the week before may have left many of us thinking, ‘that sounds good, I’d like some of that’. That’s hard if you’re single and would prefer not to be. It’s perhaps harder if you’re married and your relationship doesn’t look anything like what’s been described. But at least they have the chance to do something about it.

Our culture and perhaps even the Christian church are not easy situations in which to be without a partner. The common view of the single person is that they are in some sense incomplete, immature, that they are failures and ought to receive our pity. Our family and friends can reinforce that view in the way that they pressure us to start seeing people and apologise for our single status when we’re with others. Our parents would love to be Grandparents at some stage and they know it won’t happen whilst we’re alone. But if we join with the world in despising singleness we’re thinking of Jesus Christ as a pitiable, incomplete, inferior, unfulfilled individual. And that’s blasphemous. I very much hope that CCB will be different to the world around us and will provide what single Christian men and women need to live for Christ.

I think the situation is especially hard for single Christian women. Some reasons for that are more light-hearted than others. On the lighter side of things, think about the names attached to single people. The single man is a bachelor, which conjures up the image of the roguish playboy. The single woman is known as a spinster, which conjures up the image of a bitter old hag. Think about the media treatment of the single man and the single woman. The single man’s role model is James Bond. The single woman’s is Bridget Jones. One is an adventurous lothario and the other everyone assumes has been consigned to an existence stuck at home listening to SAD FM, thinking that her only major relationship has been with a bottle of 92 Chardonnay, comforted only by a group of bitter and twisted friends wondering whether the man who’s just walked into your life is your Mark Darcy who likes you just the way that you are. At worst the long term single Christian man might be assumed to be socially inept or homosexual but he’s under no massive obligation to marry. One of the reasons for the situation being harder for the Christian woman is that the church is empty of Christian men and so the opportunities for marriage to a Christian are limited.

Can I repeat what I said last week? Do not contemplate beginning a relationship with an unbelieving husband because by your 20s you’re in marriage territory and by our 30s we’re deep into it. There’s nothing in the Bible prohibiting us from dating a non-Christian because there’s nothing in the bible about dating. But it’s completely foolish. We’ll be bonding and the split up when it ought to come will be all the more painful. If however, we marry there are three options

i. They’ll get converted and we’ve all heard of it happen so that the myth is kept alive. But it’s very unlikely and extraordinarily risky. If they’re serious about Christian things they’ll do Christianity Explored. So wait and see but don’t go down the bonding route.

ii. We take our love for Christ seriously and they don’t. Initially we’ll be able to cope with it and they’ll be understanding. But the intrusion of Christ into the relationship will mean their opposition to Christ and church will stiffen. It’ll become a vast chasm will open up in our relationship because it’s women who fall for this more often than men and they’ll feel the emotional distance opening up much more acutely they’ll deal with the one thing that’s causing the problem and

iii. They’ll drift from Christ. In truth it’s the usual way for XN girls out of XNTY. So the thing to do is never go on the first date because the first no is the easiest one. This way is the way of disaster. There may be a lingering suspicion that I’ve forfeited my rights to speak on this subject since I’ve been married for 8 years. Let me say that I remember what it’s like to be single, I now know what it’s like to be married and I anticipate that there’s a 50-50 chance I’ll be single again some day. Though given the statistics it’s more than likely that Rosslyn will outlive me and she’ll have to cope without me.

But you’ll be pleased to know that I don’t intend to speak from personal experience that’d be too uncomfortable for us both. I want to speak from the Bible so that we might hear some wise advice from our loving heavenly Father on a subject he understands inside out. I think the Bible has 4 main emphases to interpret singleness.

1. singleness is a good gift from God (1 Corinthians 7:7)

A friend said to me today that, ‘it may be a gift, but there are gifts and gifts. There’s gifts that you get on your birthday that are just what you’re after and then there’s gifts that you hope they include the receipt because you’d like to exchange it’. ‘Singleness’, she said, ‘feels like that’.

The word ‘gift’ here refers to a state rather than a special ability to be married or single. All who are single have the gift of singleness. All who are married have the gift of marriage. Some will exchange the gift of singleness for marriage others will have it for life. Either way each state is a good gift from our loving heavenly Father in accordance with his purpose for our lives. In accordance with his overall ambition to fashion in us the likeness of his Son He determines exactly what we need at a specific time to help us in that. Therefore He thinks that our marital state is what we most need at this time to make us more like Christ and we need to trust him in that. If God thinks that we need to be married in order to advance in holiness then he’ll provide us with someone to marry. We need to think with this perspective and not complain. After all we have no reason to doubt his goodness. As Paige Benton a single Christ writer said, ‘Can God be any less good to me on the average Tuesday morning than he was on that monumental Friday afternoon when he hung on a cross in my place? The answer is a resounding no.’

The idea that God is being tight fisted in not giving us a marriage partner at the moment is preposterous nonsense, he loves us the same today as he did when Christ died. In Matthew 19 Jesus said it was actually better for not to be married although not everyone would accept it. He said that there might be many reasons for being single.

some will remain single because of their condition: they were born unable to marry, although it’s unlikely, they might be physically or emotionally unable to have a sexual relationship in marriage

some will remain single because of their circumstances: they’ve been forced into that by the actions of others, that may be a shortage of marriage partners

some will remain single because of their choice: they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God.  

2. singleness is not for all of us (1 Corinthians 7:8&9)

Although singleness is good we should pursue marriage if can’t control ourselves sexually. Whether we’re single or not matters less than whether we’re godly. And so Paul advised the widowers and widows to stay unmarried if they could for reasons that he’ll outline later. But if they found that they couldn’t control themselves they ought to marry. Perhaps they were holding back because they thought that celibacy was more spiritual but they were struggling to stay pure in their thoughts and practices. I’ve known a handful of men who have expressed their determination to renounce the Kingdom of God but have tied themselves in knots trying to cope with a situation they couldn’t cope with. Paul is not saying get married as soon as we feel sexual passion or are tempted by it otherwise blokes would be getting married at the age of 13 to their school teacher or their best friend’s mother. Nor is he saying get married as soon as you feel any sexual excitement in a relationship because there are other factors to consider. And most men don’t find that sexual excitement is hard to come by. It’s better to avoid the situations that cause us to burn with passion than plunge into an inappropriate marriage because we lack self-discipline. And we’ll think a little more about that next week. But passion is one of a number of reasons to get married. It’s a good reason to get married though it’s not the only one. Marriage does help in the battle against sexual temptation because we can have sex. It also frees us up from the lifestyle of constantly travelling around the country or the city attending various social functions in the hope that we’ll meet Miss Right. It frees us from a life of flirtation and chasing after the opposite sex. It’s a great thing to be married because the day after I got married I knew that I’d married God’s choice for me. The matter was sorted and freed up time and anxiety. At this point some might legitimately point out that this is all very well to say but I can’t get anyone to marry me. I’m sympathetic to that situation and it may well be the case in a small church like us for a few years.

How should we respond to that?

It could be that we leave CCB and join another church but the Bible takes a dim view of church hopping

It could be that we’ve decided that we don’t know anyone to marry at the moment and we need to wait, pray and trust the Lord

It could be that we’ve been too choosy and applied unrealistically high standards so that we’ve ruled out people who’d make potential marriage partners.

I do think that the Christian men have a responsibility to our Christian sisters at this point. Some of us may decide to marry one of them and that would be terrific. Some Christian men remain single for too long and form all sorts of unhelpful self-centred habits but because they’re in the numerical ascendancy they’re not particularly panicked about finding someone to marry. That’s not particularly admirable. We certainly need to go on prioritising men’s evangelism and encouraging our male friends to do it for this reason. It’s not the only reason to explain the gospel to men, it’s not even the best reason but it’s a reason nonetheless. We need to try and give our women the opportunity to consider marriage rather than be consigned to it by male inactivity. It’s a wonderfully manly thing to do to protect our women from the huge temptation to marry an unbeliever.

The women of course need to be careful at this point not to blame the men if we’re not winning men for Christian and perhaps they need to be wary of becoming bitter and resentful towards God if things don’t turn out as we hope. It’s again perhaps hardest for the single women who don’t want to take the initiative but I think it has to be possible to approach a man about a relationship and remain submissive. I don’t know how but you can work that out. If we’re cultivating an atmosphere in which we’re not assuming a relationship is marriage that ought to be easier.

3. singleness has advantages over marriage (1 Corinthians 7:25-35)

As surprising as it sounds to our ears Paul considers singleness a better condition than marriage. Both marriage and singleness are morally right and spiritually mature but practically speaking in merely pragmatic terms then singleness is better for serving the Lord. This is shocking and politically incorrect but right because singleness delivers us in 3 ways.

a. it delivers us from worldly troubles (25-28).

Single people need to hear this. Marriage and a sexual relationship will not solve all our problems. In marriage we simply exchange one set of problems for another. It doesn’t mean that you’re never lonely or that you don’t have sexual frustrations or have a happy family. It will bring extra problems tiredness, worry, administration, arguments, responsibilities, disappointment and frustration. Christian marrieds are not very good at letting you know it’s part of the conspiracy of silence I mentioned last week! Many Christian marriages, perhaps usually those longer than ours are in misery but they are all smiles on a Sunday. Don’t believe the lie that it’s all-blissful. The lies of the media are pervasive and persuasive.

b. it delivers us from passing priorities (29-31).

Remember that this life is not all that there is, the future is hurtling towards us and we must live in the light of it. Paul’s being rhetorical in (29) because he expects them to have these things but to sit loose to them but he doesn’t want them to be engrossed by them. Given that the time is short and Christ could be returning imminently we’re free to be busy helping people be saved from hell for heaven. That’s true whether we’re single or married.

c. it delivers us from restrictions on ministry (32-35).

Remember that marriage is a hindrance to serving the Lord, we can’t do as much in church when we’re married because we ought to be looking after our wives or husbands. We don’t have the time. When you’re married, you have twice the relatives and when you have children you have the additional implications of looking after your own small group. This is greatly undervalued in the Reformed tradition that has rejected the Catholic vow of celibacy. Probably rightly because Paul says forbidding marriage is the doctrine of demons! But Jesus, the Apostle Paul, John Stott, Dick Lucas, Jonathan Fletcher, John Chapman, Rico Tice, Vaughan Roberts and Andrew Pearson are all single! It’s no accident that lots of church ministry is done by single people. It’s why this evening congregation can be so used by God. We can do so much evangelism, training in ministry and serve the am congregation in crèche and Sunday school. But (35) don’t forget that you’re free to choose what you want but go into it with an open mind. It’s perhaps the case that some Christian women assume that life starts when they get married. We must encourage them not to waste the opportunities that God is giving them for useful service. We mustn’t spend our lives looking to change our circumstances paralysed from doing ministry because we’re too busy cruising the London church scene, booking up dates in the diary for speed dating when we could be involved in Christian ministry.

4. singleness will not last forever (Ephesians 5 & Revelation 19)

I tried to explain last week that the relationship between a man and a wife were not the original template for human marriages because they’re patterned on the relationship between Christ and His church. One day Christ’s bride, the church, will be united in eternal marriage with their bridegroom. The intimacy that’s known by a few in marriage today will be the experience of all Christ’s lovers. The requirement for us all as Christ’s bride is to pursue holiness, which means that we must not let our marital status become a reason for ungodliness. The girls, perhaps particularly, can help one another not to foster disappointment or encourage it by their conversations with one another. The struggles of singleness will pass away when we meet Christ at the marriage of the lamb and are married to Christ forever they’ll seem relatively insignificant. But whilst we remain single let’s be practical about putting things in place to make the lifestyle sustainable and enjoyable. We’ll need to think about strategies for coping with being single. That’s perhaps easier in your 20s when lots of people are and choosing who to go on holiday with is fairly straightforward. But it can be harder when you’re 40 and lots of your married friends go away on their own or with their families.

Conclusion

If you could be single then do it. Don’t get pushed into getting married. It’s great to be single. It’s great to be married, each has problems and we’re free to choose. If we do need to get married then we need to trust God that he will provide what we need. It may be that we don’t think need it as much as we do and he’s providing a way out of our temptation if only we were more self controlled. We can serve God better as a single so let’s stop claiming that marriage will solve all our problems. The transformation that could be wrought in the singles of CCB who struggle with this issue by the godly example and open acknowledgement of struggles with temptation in this area could be hugely beneficial. We ought to pray that God either gives us or grows amongst us mature Christian singles to help our other singles flourish in the situation God has called them to.