Relationships 101 - Marriage & Singleness
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We're heading into a relationship series. Tell me you're married without telling me you're married. when you show up to church in the same color. (audience member speaks off microphone) Generally unintended. We were getting dressed this morning, we're like, "Uh, this wasn't planned." That's okay, it's appropriate, 'cause we're talking about relationships today. We took a break from our Philippians series to have Palm Sunday and Easter. We will be heading back into that here in a few weeks, but we are doing our Relationships 101 series, as you've heard this morning, and we are just so excited about this. This has been something that's been on our hearts for a while and just something that we think is really valuable that we can all glean something from. We're all in relationships of some shape or form, right? So we can all grow in this area. So we're gonna be kicking off today talking about relationships in general and also I'm gonna be touching on marriage and singleness. And then Pastor Chris is gonna come in next week and hit on boundaries in relationships. Yes, believers can have boundaries, it's good. And then week three, as he mentioned, Corinne will be here on Sunday morning and then our workshop in the afternoon. But if you have questions about relationships or about anything pertaining to relationships, we would love for you to fill out one of the question cards in the back over the next few weeks and just drop it in there. And Corinne is gonna hit on those during the workshop. So we would love for you to leave your questions. We're gonna be covering a lot of different kinds of relationships and relationship situations, But relationships are as unique as the people in them. So there's no possible way in this three week series that we can cover every unique situation and scenario. So as things come up, as we're talking, as you're thinking, maybe you have some questions that are just kind of brought to mind. We would love for you to drop those questions in the back and Corinne will be able to get to those during our workshop.
Our goal with this series really is just to equip you. We want to equip you with biblical principles for all of your relationships to help you have strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships. That's the goal with this. We want them to be strong, healthy, and kingdom-minded. Now that doesn't mean that every relationship you're in will be with other believers, right? You can be in relationship with other believers and that naturally would be a kingdom-minded relationship because you're growing together in your faith. But when you're in relationship with a non-believer, who's someone who doesn't know Jesus, that can also be a kingdom-minded relationship in the way that you speak to them, act around them, respond to them. That can point them to Jesus. So we want all of our relationships to be kingdom-minded. So that's our goal for this series. So let me open us up in prayer. Jesus, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this topic. God, you created relationships. And so we pray that you will help us to have the best relationships that we can that are glorifying and honoring to you. Bless this time together in your name, amen. Well, ironically, we are on a break from our Philippians series, but our passage today is from Philippians. So we are going to actually just dive right into that here at the beginning. But this part that we're talking about is in chapter two. And it really, when we reference this verse, it's really about Christ as it should be. The Bible should be mostly about God, right? We see, we try to put ourselves in the Bible and really we should be looking for God in the Bible. And this is referencing the nature of Jesus. But something, a little shame to admit, that I had not caught before, like until very recently, like embarrassingly recently, is the first line of this verse, all right? So let's read it together. This is chapter two of Philippians. We're gonna start in verse five. It'll be on the screens. You can pull it up on your phone or in your Bible. The first verse, “In your relationships with one another,” that's the part I missed, okay? “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Y'all glad you showed up today? Y'all ready to be like Jesus in your relationships?
He is a prime example of how we should be in our relationships. It is not very likely that we will have to die for our relationships, but are we willing to be like Christ? The key things that I wanna pull out here are humility and obedience. He humbled himself. He took on humanness. He lowered himself to be like us. And then he was obedient to God's plan, to the point of death, to sacrifice for us. So in our relationships, we can be humble and have humility with others while having obedience to God. When we have humility and obedience in our relationships with God and others, it's gonna solve a lot of the problems just right off the bat. It'll just take care of a lot of things, right? So we want to practice humility and obedience in our relationships. It's interesting, statistically in the church, the number of single people is actually rising. People are getting married later. We have, you know, there's other circumstances such as divorce or death, but people are just staying single longer. And so we have, in our congregation, we have a lot of married people and we have a lot of single people. And then we have a lot of unique situations within that. Maybe you've been married for a long time, maybe it's just been a short time. Maybe you are divorced, maybe you're widowed, maybe you're on your second marriage. For singles, maybe you are single out of choice, or maybe you're single not by choice. Maybe you are, again, widowed or divorced. Maybe you just haven't found the right person yet. Lots of different scenarios. but both are so valuable. And that's, I want you to hear me on that. Both are valuable in the church and in the kingdom of God. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. Okay, we all have something to bring to the table. Both are good and both are hard. Each of them has their own things that are hard about them. We're not gonna play the hard Olympics to see who has it harder. But we understand that there is hard parts of marriage and there's hard parts of singleness, just like there is goodness and joy in marriage and there's goodness and joy in singleness.
Romans 12 talks about how we're all part of the body. It says, "For just as each of us has one body with many members and these members do not all have the same function, So in Christ, we though many form one body and each member belongs to all the others.” We're all part of the body of Christ. It is not about our relationship status. It's about the status of our relationships. How healthy are our relationships? Our romantic ones, our friendships, our familial relationships, even coworkers and neighbors, how healthy are our relationships? So talking to the married people here for a minute. Married people have certain obligations to their spouse, to their family, if they have children, that often means priorities look different with work and finances. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel. You know, the church is called the bride of Christ. So it's this beautiful image of marriage, of how the church is married to Christ.
Paul talks about this in Ephesians, talks about marriage, says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord." He goes on to say, "Husbands, loves your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy." He quotes back to the Old Testament, says, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ in the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband." He's laying out here what a marriage relationship looks like. It takes humility or mutual submission and obedience to God for the way the marriage should be. Marriage is good. Marriage is God ordained. The Bible basically starts off with God creating marriage with Adam and Eve. He says, "Adam, it's not good for him to be alone. I'm gonna give him a helper. I'm gonna give him a mate." And so he creates Eve. It is good. There is value in that. But for the single people, it is good and there is value in singleness. I don't know if you know, but Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament was single. There's a lot of single people in the Bible. Most of the disciples were single. People in the Old Testament, Rahab who helped the spies, the Israelite spies, she was single at the time. She ended up getting married because we know she was in the lineage of Jesus, but she was living in her parents' house when she helped the spies. God can use you regardless of your relationship status. Jesus was single. Let's not forget, There is nothing lesser than or greater than marriage or singleness. They're just different, but they both have strengths.
Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians. He says, "I wish that all of you were as I am," being single, "but each of you has your own gifts from God. One has this gift, another has that," meaning marriage or singleness. "Now to the unmarried and the widows, I say it is good for them to stay unmarried as I do." Did you catch that though? He called it a gift. Both marriage and singleness are a gift from God. Those who are single have different obligations and responsibilities. A lot of you have more resources that are just available because it's just you. Maybe not finances, yes, but even just your time and your energy, You're able to live differently, to give differently, to meet people's needs differently. If there's someone in the church who needs a meal or needs a ride or needs help, you very likely may have more availability than a young mom with a million kids who just can't. Hi, I'm that mom with a million kids. But you just have a different availability And that is beautiful. And that contributes to the kingdom of God. Both though, the singleness is also a picture of the gospel. Because it is this image of being complete in Christ. Marriage, you don't get married to be complete. You get married to compliment each other. But in singleness, you get to live out being fully complete in Christ and being that picture that you are whole and complete in Jesus. Your identity is in Christ, whether you're married or single, it should be in Christ. It is not in your marriage, it is not in your singleness, it is not in your divorce, it is not in your past, it is not in any of your relationships, it is in Jesus. Both are good, both are hard, both require humility and obedience and selflessness.
Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians chapter seven, verse 17, says, "Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them." He's called you to your relationship status. Now that doesn't mean it can't change. Single people get married, and unfortunately, sometimes married people become single again. It happens. So he's not saying your identity is in your relationship status, but he's saying that you should live as a believer in whatever situation God has called you to be in. In this season of life, you can do it so well in whatever season you're in. We're called to steward our lives well and point people to Jesus in all of our relationships. but strong relationships require that humility and obedience. For married people, there's a selflessness that comes with living with somebody else, with considering your spouse's needs and desires, thinking of others in that way, of those that are in your home, and what is he maybe making sacrifices of what you want to provide for your family. For single people, there's a selflessness in the sense that you could very easily do whatever you wanted. You have less to other people to consider in your home. It's just you. But you don't live on an island. You can choose selflessness by how you interact with the people around you, by how you choose to spend your time, by getting out of your home and into the community or into your church. That still requires selflessness.
Humility and obedience are required for relationship within Christian community. So Christian community is this, it is the church. It's coming on Sunday mornings, it's being in relationship with other believers. This is Christian community. And we're all broken human beings who bring our own stuff to the table. And so it requires us to choose humility and obedience to God. We were created for community though. God is a communal God. He is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is in relationship within himself. And so our communal triune God created us for community with Him and with others. When we are pursuing holiness, or sorry, pursuing humility, it allows us to pursue holiness in a much better way. Holiness is the process of becoming more like Christ. It is growing in our behavior, in our heart posture, and allowing Jesus to transform us to be more like Him. And the best way to do that is in community. Some ways that we do this through discipleship, small group, midweek small group, diving into the word, Bible study, practicing spiritual disciplines, accountability relationships, to hold each other accountable to the things that we say we're gonna do or not do. coming to church, being here, serving on a Sunday morning or in the community.
All of this is you growing in holiness. But all of these things outside of a few spiritual disciplines you do in community. When we invite Jesus into our relationships, Those relationships become more fruitful. They're thriving. They can be more intimate. We can be more authentic with each other and they build the kingdom. 'Cause when we're in relationship that has Jesus at the center of it, we're gonna build each other up. We're gonna be encouraging. We're gonna pray for each other. We're gonna be honest with each other and hold each other accountable. We're gonna allow people to speak into our lives as we speak into their lives. But it only works if we have the mindset of Christ. If we choose humility, if we put on the nature of a servant, he became like us, but in order to have healthy relationships, we have to become like him. and becoming obedient to God, in whatever that looks like.
I was listening to a podcast this week, specifically it was about singleness, but there was some really good stuff for everyone. And he wrapped up the podcast episode with this analogy. And he talked about, some of you may even have heard a similar analogy before, but he talks about who is on the throne of your heart. Right, so if you imagine you have your heart and it's Jesus' or someone is on the throne, it should be Jesus, spoiler alert, but someone is going to always be on the throne. Is it you? Is it another person in your life? Is it something you love very much? Perhaps it's a goal or something that seems good, but it's become higher than God in your heart. Is it a sin? If it's anything other than Jesus, you're gonna have problems. He said, when we are on the throne, we play defense because everything is about protecting your own little kingdom. When Jesus is on the throne, we learn to play offense. We get to be on offense when Jesus is on the throne of our heart, because we're not trying to defend our own little kingdom. We're not worried about other people being a threat to us and a threat to this kingdom we have set up. Because when we're on the throne, everyone is a threat to that. Can't really have real, authentic, kingdom-minded relationships when you see everyone else is a threat to your own personal kingdom. But when Jesus is on the throne, He can defend Himself. You get to go on offense. You get to go into relationships and love people. Out of His love for you, you get to love people. You get to walk confidently into those relationships to have the strong, healthy, kingdom-minded relationships that we're after. Because your identity is in Him, not in anything you can do, not in the relationship itself, it's in him. He is on the throne. So you get to be confident in those relationships and you get to continually choose humility and obedience and Christ likeness. So that together, either on your own, if they're not a believer or with that person, you get to grow in holiness. You get to be more like Jesus. And those relationships can help you grow as well. So who's on the throne of your heart? The beautiful thing of it is it can change. If it's not Jesus right now, you get to pick, you get to decide. You get to put him on the throne. And you're gonna be able to enter into relationships in such a healthier way. and a healthier mindset and more like Jesus.
Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this topic. We thank you that you created us for community, for relationships, for marriage and singleness. We thank you that you created the body to work together, that everyone brings something to the table that is everyone is valuable. God, we thank you for the relationships you've given us. We pray for the ones that are struggling. God, help us as far as it depends on us to live at peace with everyone. God, that you will just change our hearts so that we can infuse love and kingdom mindedness into our relationships, God. And the ones that are doing well, God, continue those relationships, build them up, grow them, help us to grow in holiness because of the relationships you've given us. We thank you. We thank you for Christian community. We thank you for community with you, that you, the God of the universe, want to have a relationship with us. Help us to walk in this truth this week as we head into our relationships. Help us to bring peace and your love into our relationships this week. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.