Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 301 - How to Honor God in Your Singleness

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Ep. 301 - How to Honor God in Your Singleness · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: When Jesus talked to the disciples in Matthew 19 about marriage, and he talked to them about divorce and how it's not God's will and it's not God's best, they said to him.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It says his disciples said to him in verse 10, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But he said to them all cannot accept the saying, but only those to whom it has been given.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: And so you know I mean in essence he's speaking to.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are those that you know God has caused to be that way, and then there are those who choose to be that way for God's kingdom, and so it's important to remember that.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And also I think it's important for us to highlight that not everybody is single, who just has never been married.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: There are those that are widowed.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: There are widows and widowers who find themselves never been married.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: There are those that are widowed, there are widows and widowers who find themselves in that situation and I'd like to read a quote from one who was a widower for a time, and that's Elizabeth Elliot.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: She said my most earnest of all pleas to singles is abandonment of the self, surrender to Christ of all unfulfilled longings, an unequivocal willingness to receive whatever God assigns and a determination to practice the sacrificial principle of Isaiah 58, 10-11,.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Life becomes not only far simpler, but surprisingly joyful and free.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I've always liked the name Nathan.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't necessarily my favorite name, but I've always liked the name Nathan.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't necessarily my favorite name, but I've always liked it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: But suddenly, friends, nathan has become one of my favorite names in the world and I now desire to destroy all wiener schnitzels because I ate for the first time in my life at Nathan's Hot Dogs In the airport.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: By the way, you guys eat at Nathan's's hot dogs in the airport, by the way you guys eat.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: That can't be good.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Wait, did you like the hot dog?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know oh, glorious, okay, so I ordered two chili cheese dog yuck hot dogs yuck, yuck, yuck, absolutely yeah, hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: No, I look, I hate chili what are you talking about?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I hate it.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: You're constantly talking about all your essentials is not chili that's not chili they call.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I hate it, you're constantly talking about all your chili cheese.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Wiener Schnitzel is not chili.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: That's not chili.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They call it chili, but it's certainly not chili because I've realized, since I hate every chili I've ever tasted.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: When you and you walked to that fire station where they gave us fireman chili.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yuck you didn't like it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yuck.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: He said, yeah, they call it chili.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you legally can call it chili, but they do, it's called.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Philly fake chili.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: It's like the fake cheese squares that you buy.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, I ordered two chili cheese dog hot dogs at the airport coming back from Ecuador.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: So I open it up and I pull out one, and I always order pickles on it, of course.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And there was no pickles, no pickles, no no, there was pickles, there was pickles, but I forgot.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I forgot to get ketchup and mustard.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Wait you would put ketchup.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: You know that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: You know that it's the only way to eat it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: The chili is.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I already sat down.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like you know, I'll just eat it without it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like you deserve that.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: So then I go and I get my mustard and ketchup.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, I can't wait.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I open the second one no pickles.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: This is what happens when you travel alone you were traveling alone, weren't you?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I was alone.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I need my hot dog assistant.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Full-time hot dog assistant.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Dude, can we just so, then I?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ordered a third one and this one yeah, pickles and ketchup and mustard.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ketchup and mustard on a chili cheese dog.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: That's wrong.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: You guys are joking, right?
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: You must be joking.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: No chance, dude.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: The taste buds sorted out.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: I would love for the listeners to send us a message.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: if you do ketchup and mustard with your chili cheese dog and I guarantee you it's going to be crickets there's no chance.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: this is reminding me of when we said that uh, what was it with you, ray?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That, um, nobody puts our ice cream in a microwave yeah, oh, we got like trillions of emails, not this.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So yes, friends, please tell us if you put ketchup and mustard on your chili cheese dogs, write us at podcastcom.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: We want to hear.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, but when I when I did the second time, because first I felt terrible that I didn't get ketchup and mustard- when I opened it and there were no pickles.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I really felt like I was going through persecution.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, the tribulation.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Trial and tribulation.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Did you tear your loincloths?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I brought my sackcloth with me, I take it with me wherever I go, and some ashes.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: But yeah, you got to try.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Nathan's, though Now I understand I'm like okay, yes.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: It's just mid no.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, You're trying to say, winter Central's superior to Nathan's.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Nothing comes close to Winter Central.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, whatever, ray, sorry you were saying no I was just saying, when you open a prayer before the podcast, we always prayer before the podcast.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: We always pray before the podcast because we don't want to do this in the flesh.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I wonder if there's any difference if we did Today.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: we avoided doing it in your flesh.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: So anyway, when you're praying Lord, thank you, our names are written in heaven.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: I was saying Lord, that's comfort Ray.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: C-O-M-P-R-A-T.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: You just checked the roster again, o-o-m.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: You just checked the roster again, o-r-t.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Please don't miss the vlog.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: I did an interview yesterday with some young guy.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: He's really nice.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: He loves the podcast Sutter Green.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's sweet young guy.
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: It's a very small podcast.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: He interviewed Mark earlier.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: He told me so I said I'd go and do his podcast.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: But one of his questions because he loves the podcast Says how many iPads have you broken?
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: He is an avid listener.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: How's your new doodad?
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: working out.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: It's perfect.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I can do it with my eyes closed.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: The other one, was just weird.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You couldn't go for black Ray and be masculine.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: You're talking about Yale's taste, because he purchased it for me.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's wonderful, I have to say you've had it a week and you've yet to add duct tape.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: That's impressive.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking of adding some right now it's coming soon.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: Cross the mouth.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Oh Ray, that's so funny Lord.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: R-a-y.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: C-O-M-O-R-T.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: Middle name Marshall.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I'm the guy with the beard 4'7", 4'7".
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: What he grew.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: No, this is six six six, six with a hairy chest.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh man, I'm dreaming of that hot dog right now.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, time for a cool, classy comment.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: This is from ohio, with no name, so we'll call you brother, ohio or sister.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I have spent the past two-ish years as a nominal Christian.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: In fact, I would call myself a false convert.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Recently, I was lit on fire for the Lord only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what prompted this change in my faith, but your podcast has been a fantastic resource in helping me grow in my faith.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: You guys provide such wisdom.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: When I'm at work, I plug in my earbuds and listen to you guys yammer and it brings me such comfort to know people like you exist, I hope you don't get fired for listening to us at work Can you imagine someone?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: just cracking up all day at work.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Listen to us yammer.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Yammer, I'm glad you finished that second sentence because you started with I was recently lit on fire and I was like, oh no for the Lord.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, I was recently lit on fire and I was like, oh, no for the Lord, oh, okay, oh man, oscar, you're getting close to that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got fires in my backyard right now.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Ray sent us a video.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Oscar sent us a video of how many fires were inside that picture.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: It seems like a lot huh.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: So you're in Orange County and there's fires in San Bernardino and thankfully the wind is blowing the opposite direction.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Correct yeah For Bernardino, and thankfully the wind is blowing the opposite direction.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Correct yeah For those who don't know.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: We all live in Southern California and it is fire season, which is, I know, an unusual statement for most of the world and over a hundred degrees, day after day after day.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we hit a heat wave, and so there's massive fires.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: There's one in Big Bear, there's one in San Bernardino.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: My house backs right up to the, to the mountainside, and so you can stand on my deck and you see, it's just like.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: It looks like a red army marching down are you nervous at all?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: not at all.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, there's so much between us and that and the firefighters are so great at what they do.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I actually learned from a firefighter friend that they let it all burn.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: They pick their spots to redirect the fire when it gets close to houses or whatever the case.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: So when you see 0% contained, it sounds like uncontrollable, but some of it is also.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: They're picking their.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: It's controlled burning.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: To a degree yeah.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: And that's the gospel.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I like that Controlled burning, spiritualize it again.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Write a book.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Well, they do, oscar I think they do, those things called the fire breaks, where they'll clear out a certain area so that it stops there and doesn't.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: That's intelligent, isn't it?
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: So they're purposely allowing it to burn, so there's not a future burn out of control it is, I know, to some degree.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Again, I'm not a firefighter.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Some degree, I get it Oscar.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: It was hot.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: From friends who are, yeah, it's better to allow certain parts of the mountainside to burn because you're getting rid of all that stuff.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: And then from just I mean, you've got 17,000 acres on fire.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: You know, you just can't.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: You're going to use all your resources to stop it over here when you can really stop it in the right spot before it hit home.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: So it's been going on for three or four days now and not a single house has burned down.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: No structures have been lost so far.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: Praise the Lord, thankful for the firefighters out there.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that was San Bernardino in the picture you sent us.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Actually it's Saddleback.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's not San Bernardino.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It's Saddleback Mountain, got it?
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, makes sense.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I saw that some seed for trees, but the fire causes the seeds to open up.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I think there's a book here, right, is that Redwoods?
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: It's California Redwoods.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I might be wrong.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Is that really yeah?
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: yeah.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: They've got those big cones.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: And those cones only open up in heat, and that's what crops the seed.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: So let's go up there and help.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: You had said, Oscar, that part about being lit on fire.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I worked for the Orange County Register, a paper boy, and one day I just was exhausted.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I did not want to do my route, and so I pretended that I got ink poisoning from the newspaper and I passed out on the paper Stop it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: My manager came and fired me.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So I go home.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So these two Vietnamese guys that live in my neighborhood because Westminster was so, they're taking me home.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I have my arms around there and I'm totally faking.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, so I get home and my dad goes, what's going on?
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: And so I said they fired me.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But I translated it literally because I don't know how to say I got fired in Arabic.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: But the literal translation in Arabic is they lit me on fire.
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: My dad goes what?
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: I killed them, so it's going crazy.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: So you were fired because you had ink poisoning, because I faked it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: No, because you were licking the papers, that's what I was doing.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: How do you say it in Arabic?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: What did you say to your dad?
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: your dad had.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: I own it, yeah, which means they fired me, it's literally like I only knew that.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Something else.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, time for a radically revolutionary resource this podcast has brought you by the 10 commandments.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Coins, ray, do you still throw those at people?
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: I have found you love that sound right here.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: All those coins Are given out.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: This is serious.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Not one person has ripped them up.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: They're like the, the unterrible track.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, come try and tear that up.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: But I love those.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Do you remember?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: How the idea came about.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: For those.
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I found it On the left side of my head, it was on the inside.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: It was there, the other side.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But was it the pennies?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: We couldn't do the pennies anymore.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the pennies helped.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought we've got to have an alternative to the pennies because I was just tired of doing them with my teeth.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: The eyes were very difficult.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Remember our friend Rick, that poor guy.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Well, Daniel and I used to have the penny machine, that penny machine, was demonic.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: It was just awful.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: It would overheat and send out out this white smoke that I'm sure was poisonous.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: And we got it fixed many, many times because we couldn't fix it ourselves.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: I will say, those Ten Commandment coins are one of my favorite things to give to kids.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: They are obsessed with coins in general, so to give them one with the gospel on it is super fun.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: So do you like pull up in your white van with no windows?
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my riggity van hey kids, you want a coin.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You want some key coins?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, all right.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Friends, enough of the silliness.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Today we are talking about how to honor God.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: So you're not going to be part of this program.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: What's that?
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Enough of the silliness.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, I forgot.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, and don't forget that Living Waters 1-11, study Bible, all that, living Waterscom.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: All right, that's good how to honor God in your singleness.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mark, oscar, ray, go ahead, oscar and Mark.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I mean it's funny because there was a time when you guys were single.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Ray was born married somehow.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: How were you born?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Married.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: But look, my hand with a ring came out first.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I can imagine Ray was born married, but you know this is a topic that.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: This is a topic, this is true.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: You're here first.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You are doing well.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: This happens when we do podcasts on a topic.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: This is true.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: You're doing well.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: This happens when we do podcasts on a Wednesday.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah, but this is one that I know those even listening now is that they heard me share.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: What we're talking about just brings immediate pain to people's hearts.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, oscar, you asked me when we started the podcast how old I was when I got married.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I was 20.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And I know that for those listening who are in their 30s or maybe beyond, that's just hard to hear.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It's difficult to grapple with Mark.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: How old were you when you got married?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: 27.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, ray, you're 20.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: 20.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oscar, 27.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: 27.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, all the cool kids.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Late bloomers, late bloomers, but yeah, so oh, that's funny.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: 20, 20, 27, 27.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Hilarious yeah.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Let's bring some audience laughter.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: But you know there are those listening right now that are in that place where it's difficult, painful.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: We were all single at one point and we all had that desire to get married.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I did not.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Really, Oscar?
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: That's not a factual statement.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: I had no desire to get married.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Wait, are you serious?
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: I was totally satisfied being single.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, but your plan was to be single for the rest of your life.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I was totally okay with that.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: That was my desire as well, yeah, Didn't you guys think about?
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: having the rapture.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, oscar was an atheist, he wasn't being spiritual.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Mark was your whole thing.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: As a Christian, I also wanted to be single.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: Seriously, yeah, absolutely Didn't you want to have children.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: I had my sisters, and they were 13 years younger.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Wait, your mother had your sisters.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: My mother had my sisters but I felt like all of the joy that I got from helping raise my sisters and I had a great time being present in my friend's kid's life.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: I was good, I will say, having kids.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: I look back and I can't imagine life without kids Totally.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: But in my 20s I was totally happy being single, did not have a desire for children, was even leery of the idea of getting married.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Some of that wasn't healthy, some of that was, I think, to the glory of God.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I was.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Matter of fact.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Kelly has this distinct memory before we were, you know, ever interested in each other.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: We were going to church and the pastor did something on singleness and she recalls everybody kept looking over at me like oh, yeah, because he mentioned like, oh, you know, some of us may be called to be single for their entire lives and I was like that sounds pretty cool.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Were you dressed like a monk.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: No I was not dressed like a monk Did the little shaving.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: That'd keep you single.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, mark, I've never understood that hairdo for mugs.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: They shave it in the middle, so slowly Wow, I was going to get one.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: That's going to happen in time anyway.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: They're just advancing it yeah.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was just to keep the sweat off their eyes.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Somewhere for flies to land, yeah.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Mark, um, for you, was it a spirituality thing, like I just want to say, yeah, I wanted to just seek complete devotion to God, right Bachelor to the rapture.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: No, in fact, when Trent Pastor Trent had told the congregation on a Thursday this was a church that you and I went to that he was now engaged to Debbie, I, like my jaw, hit the ground why.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: That's an exaggeration, isn't it?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hyperbole Justified exaggeration.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I thought that there was like a group of us that were just bachelors to the rapture, and I was super excited.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I've never heard that phrase before it never, works, all these guys that do these, yeah, brother.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: I was just super excited, yeah, just to be single and to serve the Lord, and that was it.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: And then when you saw Laura, everything changed yeah.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: When Laura saw him Served.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: The Lord and Laura yeah.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So, mark, yeah, that is crazy.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get married from the time I was three, at least, At least three.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But no, I mean, even as a teenager, I would dream of being married, dream of having kids, like it was definitely something that was.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It wasn't even like a question will I, will I not?
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: When you talk about getting married as an Arab, were you talking about dozens of wives, or what?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Do you go concubine first, then wife, or how does it work?
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we usually do.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: My harems, yeah, but no, I just I had that desire, but I think a part of me too, because my dad was 51 when he got married there was that sense like no, it's not gonna happen till later on.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: We should be interviewing him for this podcast.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be nice.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, but then, yeah, I got married at 20.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Ray, you were 20.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Did you have that desire, ray, for marriage?
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, like as a young guy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, always wanted to have a wife.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: They're a good idea.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: They're a good idea.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: It's not good for a man to be alone Talking about having kids.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: I didn't want kids for the first six months of my life, but then I saw a couple of kids so I thought, oh, I could make those.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: So we made some.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: We made three.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, wonderful, one of each.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Which is your favorite?
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Hmm?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Hmm, huh, yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: I've got three favorites.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, the same podcast.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: That young guy said who's your favorite host on the podcast?
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: And I said two of them are.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So, Oscar, to those out there that are pondering what does the Word say about this?
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: What is God's ideal for His people?
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Obviously, God created marriage.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: He made man and woman.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Ray cited it in a moment ago.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It's not good for a man to be alone, but there are those that that was very sensitive.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Mark oh, Mark Spence, that was very sensitive.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Mark oh, Mark Spence, that was very sensitive.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry I destroyed the podcast, but there are those out there who do say but could it be that I'm called to be single?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I haven't been married for a long time.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling with this, Others wrestling with does God have someone for me?
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really want to get married, but why isn't anyone coming into my life?
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: What do you say to them?
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: One singleness and marriage are both gifts from the Lord to you.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: And what it's really important to think about what we mean by they're both gifts Singleness when people talk about singleness being a gift, often they talk about it as though God is gifting you with the patience to wait while you're single, which is really weird.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: It's like it's like someone you know cause.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Then someone might stop and go.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't feel like I'm gifted to be single, which is it's almost like that's as silly as a married person saying I don't feel gifted to be married.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: If you are single, that is a gift from the Lord to you.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: This season of life, or this life for that matter, is a gift from the Lord to you.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: But let me say this a part of the tension and the difficulty of being single today is sort of coming from the church.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: I think the church often puts an overemphasis on marriage and it makes single people feel like they're only half Christians.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so glad you're bringing this up Most churches are focused on families, which gives, like the single person, that feeling that they're partially included.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: They're only half.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: And you hear it when people talk about their adult children.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Often you hear someone say, hey, how are the kids?
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Immediately they go into the status of their relationship.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, this one's married, this one's engaged, this one's still single.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: We're still.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: It's almost like we treat single adults like untied loose ends that we got to figure out and that's not biblical.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: The Lord intends that singleness would testify to a culture that's obsessed with sexuality and romanticism that Jesus is enough.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: And when the church goes along and says, actually, you're an untied loose end, we are taking away from the testimony that Christ is enough for us in our singleness.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: So before we get into the practicality of what it means to be single, I think the first thing we have to say is that singleness is a gift from the Lord to you.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let me add to that.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that Oscar's bringing this out, because unmarried people, single people, are looked at as second-class citizens.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Right, singleness is not a waiting room for marriage.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: It is a season of hope.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: It is a season of teaching that the Lord is doing inside of you.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Like if I could go back in time, I would read books on how to be a better husband, how to be a better father.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I would start really, really early.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I would do those things.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: But listen to this the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, 7, I wish that all were as myself.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Right, he's talking about being single, but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: 1 Corinthians 7, 8,.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am Now.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Bear in mind this is the Apostle Paul saying that it's good to be single, and God said it's not good for man to be alone.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: But the point that he's making is that when you are single, you have your mind and your heart set on the kingdom, but when you're married, you are concerned and carried about with how do I provide for my wife?
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: How do I provide for my kids?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: 1 Corinthians 7, 32 to 34, it says I want you to be free from anxieties.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord how to please the Lord but the married man is anxious about worldly things how to please his wife and his interests are divided.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: So somebody that might be caught in the midst of hey, I want to get married, what do I do in the midst of this?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I think that Scripture has some really great things to say about just serve the Lord.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: You are freed up right now to not miss right now.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Right, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Remember, no good thing will be withhold from those who walk uprightly.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So, if it's good for you to be married, no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So, if it's good for you to be married, he's going to bring you a spouse in his time, because he makes all things beautiful in his time.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, you seek the Lord because there's things that you're able to do single that you just simply can't do when you're married.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: So, no, you are not a second-class citizen if you're single.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: This is a season of hope and a season of teaching.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: God is instilling inside of you.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: And listen.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: You do not want to be married right now.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: If you're not married right now, you're going to miss what the Lord has for you at this very moment.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Don't miss it.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: That's so good, and I think it goes back to 1 Timothy 6, 6, that godliness with contentment is great gain.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I think goes out the window.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And it's one of those areas that's, I think, easy to isolate and not really see the seriousness of violating our call to be contentment.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And because I think part of it has to do with what you referred to, oscar, and that is that sense of being a second-class citizen.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: So, you're walking around thinking look at me.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you take Paul's words that you just cited, mark, he's saying like man, there is that great advantage to being single.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It's almost like he's looking at the married and saying, oh well, you don't have it the way I do, because he's being eternally minded and eternally focused.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: And as an encouragement real quick.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I mean think about like the most complete person, the most satisfied person, the most joy-filled person who ever lived was never married, and that's Jesus.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: I love the way Sam Alberry says it.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: He says if marriage shows the shape of the gospel, singleness shows its sufficiency.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Good work, that's really good, yeah, ray.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: What would you say to the person who's listening now and saying, okay, this encourages me, because I was just extremely discouraged.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: In fact, today I was feeling miserable about this.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: I feel this renewed sense of like wow, okay, god has allowed me to be here.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that single people can do to maximize their singleness?
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Study the life of John Wesley.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: He was single until he was 48, and he didn't wait for God to direct him.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: He saw a rich widow and, after knowing her for a week, married her and that was an absolute nightmare.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: I surmise that, and Wesley is one of my heroes.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: I've read John Wesley's journal and it absolutely thrilled me every page, because his zeal for the gospel was just unprecedented.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: I surmise that he thought that his new wife would be understanding that he had an itinerant ministry.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: She wasn't.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: She was an absolute nightmare for him.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: And who's trying to call me on my iPad Squirrel?
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: Anyway, it's an absolute nightmare.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: It's a blessed man who finds a wife who is content to be left alone while he itinerates.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Because that's what happened with me for 40 years I left Sue alone.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: But I learned something very, very important early on in my ministry and I've touched on it before.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: I remember saying some guy says hey, we want you to come for meetings.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: We'll have you preach on friday night, saturday morning, then saturday afternoon you do a seminar, we'll do a saturday night youth meeting, and sunday morning sunday night, I'll come for sunday morning.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: he's, that's fine and I learned how you do it.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, I said I'll come sunday morning, arrive saturday night, maybe do a meeting when I arrive, have a good night's sleep, do the Sunday morning service and come back to my wife on Sunday afternoon.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: And he was just thrilled.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Same thing happened just recently, just this week.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: I'm speaking to 100 Gideons and I love the Gideons in New Zealand.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: They contacted me a year ago and said well, you come to New Zealand and speak to 100 Gideons just by your hometown.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: I said no, but I'll do a Zoom, that's fine.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Wow, so I save myself 24 hours travel and save them about $3,000 just by doing a Zoom.
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: So there is a compromise that can be had.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: What about the meat pies that you're not going to get, I'll make pie.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: So don't waste your singleness.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: That's what I'd say.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: This is a very blessed time, as Mark and Oscar were saying.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: And you were saying, yeah, seek first, as Mark and Oscar were saying.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: And you were saying, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you and the way to use your time rightly and I say this not guardedly, but people are going to hell.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: I was single-mindedness, for I had single-mindedness for 50 years as a married man.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Single-mindedness.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: I was able to serve the Lord because I had a wife that understood the importance of the gospel.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: People are going to hell and if you're single, use your time to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: So leave the mate in the hands of God.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: This is exactly what your son Luke did yesterday with my son Ethan, and then Jack and Ryan.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: They went to Cal State, fullerton, and they preached the gospel at the university, which none of them attend this university, but they went to preach the gospel and they go every Wednesday to do that.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I love seeing young men maximize their singleness and again, you know, I got saved a month before I turned 16, and I got married at 20, so I had those four years and they were glorious.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I look back and I think that's the thing that I want to encourage the single people listening to us now Look, in all likelihood, you're probably going to get married.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I'm speaking generally to the majority of you out there.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Right, it's probably going to happen.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I remember talking to someone once who was really grieving being single and I said look, you got to look at the likelihood, right?
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: It's a statistical kind of a thing Like here's who you are, here's your qualities.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Here is what we typically see happen.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: So in all likelihood, you're going to get married, don we typically see happen.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: So in all likelihood, you're going to get married.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Don't waste your time fretting so that once God does bring you that spouse, you look back and say, man, I wasted those single years doing things that are more challenging to do once I'm married, you know.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: And, on that note, actually, as we talk about singleness, everything we've applied to that young person who is who, who you know, in their mind has marriage ahead of them.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: It's actually true for everybody because, speaking of statistics, statistically speaking, every single person who's married 50 of them are going to be single again, either through divorce, sadly, or death, and the same thing is true in death.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Don't waste your singleness the lord still has work for you to do in and through the church Just carrying on with what I was saying.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: I was just too humble to keep talking and talking, so I let you guys break into what I was saying about Wesley.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: But if you're a single man or single woman, you don't want to end up with a bad husband or a bad wife who fights against the gospel.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Many a knight in shining armor has proven to be dull when the armor's removed, and many a beauty queen has turned out to be a Jezebel.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Who said that?
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I just said it, I like it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: I haven't finished yet.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: The grass on the other side of the fence goes brown very quickly.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, and mortgages quickly end honeymoons Mortgage, morg death gage grip.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: But really you have your honeymoon and then suddenly you've got these bills to pay, and then kids come along.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Instead of having two wages, you've got one.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: And you've got extra mouths to feed and kids to close and you've got pressures on you.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: So enjoy your singleness and realize what you don't have and the complications of marriage, that's good.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, mark, our pastor has quoted this a few times, and that is you'd rather not have what you want than to have what you don't want.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: You'd rather not have what you want For those that are single.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Most of them, they want to be married, but they would rather have that than to have what they don't want.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: What you don't want is a nightmare marriage.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Mark, we've seen some of those in our time, haven't we?
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: I've officiated some of those over the course of my life, and in fact I just officiated a wedding.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: I said are you sure you want to get married?
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: Because you want to marry this guy, this guy.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And listen.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I almost always.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: This is the first time I haven't done it, but I officiated a wedding between Matthias and Lauren Suckum.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I usually will say Shouldn't you say this?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, they're beautiful, oh good, I usually ask the groom.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I say, listen, if you want to go to Hawaii right now, this is the day of the wedding, I go, I will take you to Hawaii, let's take off for a week.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: But I didn't do it with them.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah Right, because I don't have a good track record with officiating weddings.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I mean whether it's ending in divorce or whether the husband has murdered his wife.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I have a terrible track record in doing this.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Did you tell this couple that before you did the wedding?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I did, you did, but singleness.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: right, it isn't a curse, it is a blessing from the Lord and David Brainerd.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Once again, I recommend his journal.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Blessing from the Lord and David Brainerd.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Once again, I recommend his journal.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It is the book, the only book that Hudson Taylor took with him on the mission field besides the Bible.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: He was single for his whole life.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: He said let me not.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: What's that?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: David Brainerd was single for his whole life.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, he died really young, 29.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: His whole life, his whole life.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, corrie ten Boom was single her whole life, his whole life, yeah, corrie Ten Boom was single her whole life.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's good.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's right, I didn't think about that.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because she was in a concentration camp, couldn't find anyone.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, mark, you're fine.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I was trying to think I was good.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Anyway, it's good, Mark Carry on.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: He said let me forget the world and be swallowed up in a desire to glorify God in every moment.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: Listen, as a single person you are able to do this.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: Maximize your singleness for the glory of God.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: If I had the ability, if we all had the ability to go back in time and to kind of speak some sense into a 17-year old or an 18-year old, there's many things that I would do differently.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Right, and I wrote a couple of those things down.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: I would learn the guitar.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: I would take voice lessons.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I would encourage EZ and Oscar to take voice lessons if they're not effeminate.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I would study apologetics.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I would make sure the gospel just became such a part of me, a second nature to me, so that I would be ready more in my 20s than in my 30s, 40s and 50s.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I would learn how to budget, like I said, I would read books on marriage and parenting.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: I would seek out a mentor and I would be mentored by them and I would mentor other people.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Easier things to do when you're single than when you get older and trying to design the will as you're moving.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: This is kind of tongue-in-cheek, but we should make a movie called Rotten Marriages, called rotten marriages, starting with the with the experience of wesley because I read this morning.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Some of the details.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: They were terrible she used to pull his hair.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, attack him while he's preaching.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, does it seem like tozer?
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, not the same?
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyway, starting with wesley, starting with wesley's story, and we wouldn't have trouble finding material to show why marriages have gone wrong yeah, yeah, look, I've done a lot of marriage counseling over the years and I can't tell you how many, especially women and I think that a lot of women because they find themselves in the place of being the ones waiting for the man to initiate, there's this desperation that begins to arise in them, and there are some that have that testimony of you know what.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I was desperate and this guy came along and I knew either he wasn't a believer or he wasn't really on fire for the Lord.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: He was just kind of weak in his faith and I compromised and I did it and the regret I mean.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: These women are saying, oh, how I wish I did not get married.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: They're looking back and longing to be single and to serve the Lord, because it's a constant misery to be married to someone that doesn't fully love Christ or isn't going hard after the Lord.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: Is the initiation of the male.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: Cultural.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's biblical too.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: I was thinking of Ruth and Boaz.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that was kind of a rare, unique exception Don't go uncovering men's feet ladies while they're sleeping Ray starts a trend.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Oscar, yeah, you know, just reflecting back on my singleness and as an encouragement on what you can be doing with your time, you guys already talked about it First like every single person, every single person.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I see what.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I did there.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Let's start off with all you single ladies, all you single ladies man, to be active participants in your church community is a great way to spend your time, and that's the thing is that often churches separate the singles from the married, but those are relationships that the Lord means to bring together.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: To be a single person and to invest in your church and the lives of your married friends and their children, to be involved in that kind of a way.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: One of the things that my wife and I love is to invite young single people over for dinner and just hang out with them to blend those two life experiences together.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Do we have like two?
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Two single people over for dinner and just hang out with them.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: You know, to blend those two life experiences together Like two, two single Candle lit, oscars, matchmaking, and then we just leave the lights dim.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: I'm a matchmaker, oops.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: We got to go do something, and then also, outside of that, finding ways to spend your time serving either the church or other ministries.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: I can remember when I was single in those mid 20 years, I had a great career and my spare time on weekends was spent snowboarding, and during the week I would show up at the church and just volunteer my time.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: What do you guys need?
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it was filing paperwork back in the day when people still had paper.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it was getting chairs ready for that Wednesday night service or whatever the case was.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it was sitting in the study of my pastor and hearing about his prep process during the sermons you know, for the sermons.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: And so, in other words, to find ways to utilize your time for the glory of God.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I love the idea that singleness can be a powerful witness of sufficiency of Christ, and one of the most important ways for us to do that is to ask ourselves if you do have the desire to get married.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: One important question to ask yourself is what can I be doing with my time right now?
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: That will be more difficult to do when I'm married and I have kids.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Good, Mark, I can't remember the exact saying, but the idea is run with all you have in serving the Lord and one day someone will be running at that same pace.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was something Lecrae had shared with me one time.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: He had said that he wanted to be single.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to be distracted by women.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: So he said I'm gonna run as hard as I possibly can after the Lord.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: And then, when he was ready to get married, he said he looked to the left and looked to the right to see who stood with him, who was still with him at that pace.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: He said I married that woman but I was not caught up with women.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be caught up with the Lord and that's where that came from.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again back to the words of Jesus that Ray cited earlier seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: And I love the attitude of unconditional service to the Lord.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Like Lord, I'm not going to serve you any harder if I'm married.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to serve you any less if I'm not.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to serve you with my whole heart for the rest of my life.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Now you are my everything and I'm yours.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, I have found that this area in particular is segregated as one of those of like, yeah, but not this.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: It's like God, if I don't get married, I don't know if I'm going to still believe in you.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: It's like God, if I don't get married, I don't know if I'm going to still believe in you.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: It's an idol.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it is idolatry and it's important to understand that.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: And I know those of you listening are saying but you guys don't understand.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: You weren't single into your late 30s or 40s.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: You're right, but God understands and God still calls you to be fully given over to him.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: There's no other option for us as believers.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Either Christ is our everything or we're becoming idolaters and making something else our everything.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: Question Were all the disciples single during the three years of ministry?
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Peter wasn't, peter wasn't.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the scripture Peter, peter's mother, laura, and then again his wife could have died, but then he would have had to get married again, because traveling they took their wives with them as does Peter, as he says, I think in Corinthians.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: But there's another tongue-in-cheek movie All the disciples were married.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: And think of the complications of the kids and the wives still coming along when they're feeding 5,000.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Oh boy.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Who's going to give out who and what.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Imagine making a movie with those scenes.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: But you know, look, when Jesus talked to the disciples in Matthew 19 about marriage, and he talked to them about divorce and how it's not God's will and it's not God's best, they said to him it says his disciples said to him in verse 10, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: But he said to them all cannot accept the saying, but only those to whom it has been given.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And so you know, I mean in essence he's speaking to yeah, there are those that you know God has caused to be that way, and then there are those who choose to be that way for God's kingdom, and so it's important to remember that.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: And also I think it's important for us to highlight that not everybody is single, who just has never been married.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: There are those that are widowed, there are widows and widowers who find themselves in that situation, and I'd like to read a quote from one who was a widower for a time, and that's Elizabeth Elliot.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: She said is abandonment of the self surrender to Christ of all unfulfilled longings, an unequivocal willingness to receive whatever God assigns, and a determination to practice the sacrificial principle of Isaiah 58, 10-11, life becomes not only far simpler but surprisingly joyful and free.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And I mean this is not just a lady who was widowed, but her husband was brutally murdered.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: She goes back and takes the gospel, Baptizes one of the murderers.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: And I mean this is not just a lady who was widowed, but her husband was brutally murdered.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: She goes back and takes the gospel, baptizes one of the murderers Of her husband.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I mean that's crazy.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And so it is important for us to remember that, and I love this quote too as well, by William Smith.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: He said God made us to be in relationship with others, but your most important relationship is with Him.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: In human relationships, you get a taste of the happiness, meaning and fulfillment that, ultimately, are only to be found in their fullest form in Him.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: So don't let yourself be fooled into believing that a romantic relationship will be the most satisfying experience of your life.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Instead, thank God for the tastes that you have had that remind you of what His love is like, and ask Him to give you a desire for a deeper and more intimate relationship with Him.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Trust Him with your hopes for a relationship and ask for His wisdom and guidance when you enter into one.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Most of all, ask Him to fill you with his spirit so you can continue growing in your ability to love others.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: Going back to the idea of single Christians, often making the idea of being married idolatrous.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: I love the way Paul Tripp puts it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: He points out one think about the amount of pressure you put on your potential future spouse because essentially, you're turning them into a functional savior.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: By no means are you saying when I get married I'm going to be saved for my sins.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: But what you are saying in a functional savior senses is I, this future spouse is going to save me from loneliness, is going to save me from a loss of identity, is going to provide for me the next steps, the purposes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And so what you do is you turn this future potential spouse into a functional savior by putting the condition of your happiness on them.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: And when you do that, you are 100% of the time setting your future spouse up for failure, because nobody can fulfill the shoes of savior, uh, other than your capital S savior, jesus Christ.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: And so the more you begin to understand the gift of singleness, the better prepared you are for marriage, if that is in fact in God's cards for you.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: Amen.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: And when you marry, mr and Mrs Wright, make sure you meet the family, because you marry the whole family and easy.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: You were blessed.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: The jury is still out on that one, I actually married Miss Wright.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, you did.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Literally.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Her maiden name was Wright, that's right.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Ah, that's right, I changed it.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It's no longer right Suspense.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, poor lady.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Anyway, friends, yeah, be encouraged today.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Be encouraged and know that there is fullness for you in the Lord.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Jesus is your all.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Make him the source of supply for your every need, because, as you've heard us intimate here in many different ways, the bottom line is that if you're seeking satisfaction from anything else besides the Lord, you are going to be severely disappointed.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: As I've shared before right, god can use different things as mediums through which he supplies our needs, but he is the source.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: You must look to Him, or you're going to be looking to something that's not going to satisfy, and so we encourage you in that.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And just know, too, in all that we shared, we have sympathy and compassion for those of you that are single.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: And look, don't forget the call to pray right.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Cry out to God, ask him to bless you with a spouse, ask him to satisfy the desire that you have, but ultimately, follow the example of Jesus and say, lord, not my will, but yours be done.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And if you want me to be single, then I will be that, and in eternity I'm not going to look back and regret it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I'm going to see that you used my singleness in a particular way to fulfill your purposes in my life.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: There you have it, friends.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: As always, don't forget the Ten Commandments coins, the Living Waters mug and the Evidence Study Bible, all at livingwaterscom Podcast, at livingwaterscom, with your thoughts and ideas and input.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: We love hearing from you.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast, where we have no idea what we're doing.