Well, good morning. It's very good to be with you. We've just had a snowstorm in Houston.
We got two inches of snow. It happens about every four years, and it was gone within 24 hours.
Like George Strait says, here for a good time, not a long time.
But no, I've known of your church for a very long time. I was the planting pastor of the
Church of the Incarnation in 2010, and so we've been living kind of parallel lives in a lot of ways.
And we've been talking about this weekend in this seminar that over the course of centuries,
millennia, from the beginning, Christianity has always acknowledged two paths for being
sexually faithful, two routes for publicly declaring and displaying the faithfulness of God in our lives.
One is celibacy and singleness, and the other is faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman.
And this is a very broad subject, and it's very personal. And there's massive implications of this
and what it means for us to live as Christians with love in our world today.
Now, I want us to draw our attention to this passage that was read just a few minutes ago
from 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where Paul writes,
I wish that all were as I myself am, but each has his own.
And if you write in your Bible, this is the critical word.
Each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.
Now, what are these gifts of different kinds that he's referring to?
Verse 8, to the unmarried.
He's describing singleness as a gift from God, not an intermediate state,
not a thing that we should see as bad.
It's a calling.
Then down in verse 10, he says, to the married.
So here we have both marriage and singleness described as gifts of different kinds from God
and callings.
And this was just so radical in the first century Greco-Roman world.
This moment when Christianity burst onto the scene, in that environment, for example,
women were considered valuable as long as they were married and had lots of children.
The average lifespan at this time was 24 or 25 years.
As soon as a girl went through puberty, her job was to get married.
She had one decade to produce citizens and soldiers for the state.
So the marriages typically started around 12.
If you were from a very powerful class, you could maybe resist until your late teens.
Infertile women, especially widows or divorced women, were considered less valuable.
And then Christianity comes along and we hear the message that in God's kingdom, that's not the case.
And so suddenly, in the Greco-Roman empire, you find these remarkable single women.
Women who found the kingdom of God to be the source of their identity, not their citizenship in Rome.
And so to remain single and chaste, whether you were male or female, this was a radical act of declaration
that God and his kingdom was the source of your identity.
That God and his kingdom was everything.
So much so that despite the overwhelming statistics, you don't need to get married.
You don't need marriage and children to secure your worth and your place in society and your legacy.
God, not the empire, was the meaning, the source, the location of all meaning in your life.
Service in God's kingdom, God's kingdom of heaven, and not family or country was the measure of a life well lived.
Conversion through Jesus Christ, not salvation through birthing babies, was the way to everlasting life.
Holy virgins were a powerful testament in their bodies to who God is and to what God can do.
This is difficult for us today.
Many of us, especially those of us who grew up in the church, many of us have absorbed the idea
that marriage, and with it sex, represents the fullest life possible.
I frequently hear Christians saying to children, when you grow up and get married, as if that's the goal.
Instead of saying, when you grow up, there are two paths.
Instead of saying, as frequently as if you get married, saying, when you grow up, if you get to be a single.
The deal is sex is good, but sex is not everything.
And sex is not the most important expression of love.
Now, this brings us to marriage.
Let's think for a minute about the radical faithfulness of bearing witness to God through your body, through marriage.
This is another gift.
Three things about marriage that we definitely need to recognize in our society at this moment.
First of all, the Bible teaches that marriage is a gift, a calling, a vocation.
The call to marriage is a particular way of serving God and serving our neighbor.
When I was young, I got married when I was 20 years old.
And when I was 17 years old, or 18 years old, and I began dating the woman who became my wife,
I remember going to my dad one day.
He was in the garage building something.
He had a wood shop in the garage.
And I go in there and I say to dad, dad, I'm in love with you now.
I want to marry her.
How do I know?
And dad said, can you serve God better?
And can you serve this world better if you marry her?
And that was right at it.
That was the key question.
In that moment, he gave me this incredible gift of thinking about marriage in this profoundly Christian way.
We need to remember that the call to marriage is a call to serve God in a particular way.
Now, in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus is teaching about this, and his disciples are like, whoa.
It was so bizarre to them.
It was so out of left field.
And Jesus quickly looked at them and said, look, if you can't do this, then don't get married.
This is marriage.
This is what it's for.
Now, part of what this means is that marriage is more than a personal choice.
It's more than personal paradise.
It's a way of fulfilling a call.
It's more than your own personal dream.
It is a public vocation.
It is a public office.
Second, a second thing that comes out of Christianity with regard to marriage that's critical for us today is that the family created by marriage is not the most important relationship a person can have.
We saw this in our gospel.
Right?
Here is Jesus taking a radical step for a first century Jew.
He is redefining family in terms of loyalty to himself.
Now, in a culture in which tithes of blood had become everything, Jesus said there is a set of relationships that are more important and more basic and more fundamental.
They are not based on blood.
They are based on the obedience of faith.
Now, Paul picks up on this and in his letters, he uses this remarkable language about the church.
He calls the church the household of faith.
And he calls other Christians his brothers and his sister.
Where did he get this way of thinking about the church from?
He got it from Jesus.
Now, in the Old Testament, the structure of Israel, it was family-centered.
The family was the most important, the most basic unit of society.
And there were reasons for this.
But in the New Testament, Jesus shifts that.
He's often shooting arrows at this family-centric, this idolatry of the family that had grown up in his culture.
Think about it, when some people come to Jesus and they say, we want to follow you, and he says, hey, you have to love me more than mother, brother, father, sister.
Some people follow him and say, hey, let me first go take care of some family obligations.
And Jesus said, hey, you got to pick.
And what is Jesus doing in all of these moments?
He's deconstructing an idolatry of the family.
Now, this in no way is to jeopardize the fact that God still considers the family very important.
The New Testament is filled with instructions about family life.
And they need to be studied and obeyed.
The New Testament praises marriage and child-rearing as honorable and critical vocations.
But the point that needs to be understood is that the family is no longer the center.
The church is.
The church is the primary school of love.
The place where we learn how best to receive and to give love.
Now, unfortunately, we know that the church has fallen very short of this.
And too often, followers of Christ are not able to experience the true intimacy that we all need within the church.
But this is our charge.
And the church's success in reflecting this, this love and intimacy, makes a world of difference when it comes to talking about two vocations, singleness and marriage.
Both equal.
Now, let's circle back to the vocation of singleness in light of what we've seen about marriage.
Thank you so much.
About marriage and family.
I want to say, if you're single and you're lonely and you're longing for a human relationship, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with your desire.
God isn't capricious.
He doesn't want for you to be lonely.
He doesn't delight in broken hearts.
It's okay to long for human companionship.
But we've been led to believe that a romantic relationship is God's answer to loneliness.
But in the Bible, loneliness is consistently addressed through friendship.
Not marriage.
Think of the many places in the New Testament where intimate fellowship is envisioned.
Like 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 to 21.
Or 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 6 to 8.
Or Paul's famous love poem, 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Or Jesus' farewell discourse to his friends in John, chapter 13 through 16.
In none of these passages does marriage come up.
We can find real answers to loneliness apart from marriage within the church.
This is hands down one of the most important issues for us to come face to face with as we think about sex and sexuality today,
especially as we think about our gay brothers and sisters.
Here, there's a remarkable gay celibate Christian man by the name of Greg Johnson.
He's a Presbyterian pastor.
And he's written this wonderful book called Still Time to Care.
And the subtitle is What We Can Learn from the Church's Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality.
He writes, Alongside shame, the soul-crushing reality of loneliness is the largest challenge faced by many gay people.
And he said the fact is it is a challenge that becomes too often worse when they join the church.
And then he writes this heartbreaking paragraph.
I'm going to read the whole thing.
He says, Imagine what it's like for a teenager in the church who realizes she's gay.
The thought of being alone for an entire lifetime crashes upon her.
Think about older women in your church as it dawns slowly on them over the years that they will probably never marry.
Think of all the pain and the sorrow and despair that might fill the heart of a woman who feels the clock ticking and marriage has not happened.
Think about it.
And then he said, Take the couple in our church who are trying to conceive a child only to realize that every promise ends in failure and every new hope becomes a dead end.
Think of how hard it is for that couple to watch the baptism of a child or a Christmas program or to pass by the nursery at church.
Think of how hard it is for them to come to church on Mother's Day.
Think of the heartache they experience when they attempt genuinely to be happy every time a friend announces they're expecting a baby.
Enter into the pain of realizing God is denying you something for which your body was made.
Now take all of the pain, the woman or man growing older, not getting married.
Take all of that sorrow and heartache and loss which is slowly spread out for them over decades.
take it all
combine it all
and front load it
onto a 16 year old girl
this is earth shattering
this is her reality
in the church
and weep with her
and make sure we have churches
where she can be in friendships
where that becomes known
before it destroys her
now how can we do that
how can we address the beast of loneliness
that so many
LGBTQ people in our church
in our communities
in our families
in leadership
how can we address this beast of loneliness
and here we turn to Jesus
like this song that we sang
we turn to Jesus
and imagine Jesus on the cross
there's his mother
his brothers
Jesus in this moment
takes his best friend
and says here's your mom
and he says to this
to Mary
here's your son
think about this moment
when Jesus is teaching
and his mother and brothers
are wanting a word with him
and somebody comes into the room
and says hey Jesus
your family's outside
and Jesus points at his disciples
and says
here are my mothers
and brothers
for whoever does the will
of the father in heaven
is my brother
and sister
and mother
Jesus redefined family
for his followers
the church
is family
with all of those
obligations
and duties
church as worship service
is not enough
church as worship service
cannot sustain
the vocation
of singleness
we do not need
to get married
in order
to overcome loneliness
I've sat with too many couples
who went into marriage
thinking that was going to happen
our true family
is the church
the good news of the gospel
is that in Christ
Democrats and Republicans
can become family
and the rich and the poor
and strangers
and people
from different
ethnic groups
marriage might even
hinder
our life together
in the church
because it can distract
from the primary goal
of becoming a faithful
disciple of Jesus Christ
we need to be
the kind of churches
where singles
experience this reality
we need to be
the kind of churches
where if you're single
we are a safe
and healthy place
for you
regardless of your orientation
we need to be
the kind of place
where you don't feel
like a second class citizen
where your vocation
your calling
is just as valuable
just as equal
where you are given
honor and dignity
and being a person
who is single
is just as important
as being married
it's just as serious
and just as challenging
and just as rewarding
and beneficial
to this world
and to God's kingdom
and all of us
married people
and single people
we need to raise
the children of our churches
with a deep sense
that God
has a calling for them
and it may be marriage
or they might get
to be single
and we may
may we be the kind
of churches
that no matter
the calling
the children
in our midst
know
that loneliness
will be met
with deep friendship
because when we look
at scripture
we see
that water
is thicker
than blood
that the waters
of baptism
are thicker
than the blood
of relatives
and so for all
believers
single and married
gay and straight
the most fundamental
issue
about our lives
is that
that we live
our lives
faithfully
to God
committing ourselves
to him
and growing
through the Holy Spirit's
work in our lives
to greater Christ-likeness
we do this
in the context
of our daily struggles
becoming better stewards
of our sexuality
trusting God
and growing in faith
recognizing
that we can see
our lives
in the context
of God's sovereign
and redemptive plan
and let's remember
that when it comes
to sex
the will of God
is chastity
for all of us
by chastity
I mean the integrity
the harmony
between flesh
and spirit
that we receive
when by God's grace
we obey
Christian
sexual discipline
this is God's will
for teenagers
for men
and women
who are married
or unmarried
for men
and women
who are attracted
to the opposite sex
or the same sex
we are all given
the hard
and high
and ultimately
infinitely
valuable calling
and challenge
of chastity
chastity means
far more
than controlling
your appetites
if that were the case
then there would be
no need for it
in the new heavens
and the new earth
where we no longer
fill the pool
of these appetites
the call to chastity
means that all of us
gay and straight
single and married
teenager and widow
all of us
are called
to offer
our sexual life
back to God
presenting our bodies
as a living sacrifice
holy
and acceptable
to God
chastity means
being not
conformed
to the world
but being transformed
by the renewal
of our mind
right thinking
leads to right living
being transformed
by the renewal
of our mind
so that we can prove
demonstrate
what the will of God
is
what is good
and acceptable
and perfect
of course
this means discipline
and control
and self-mastery
all of us
must restrain
our sinful
sexual impulses
you do not have
to enter
into a sexual
relationship
you can either
by choice
or necessity
bypass that
and seek to devote
your body
directly to God
as members
of Christ's bride
the church
and if you do
give yourself
sexually
then it must be done
in accord
with the order
God establishes
in creation
as a church
we've got to celebrate
both
marriage
and singleness
we have to
help one another
sustain
celibacy
and chastity
we have to learn
to counsel
and comfort
those who
in either state
find themselves
overwhelmed
with conflicting
and contrary desires
and remember
the hero
of our faith
our champion
our savior
and redeemer
was fully human
and fully God
and he was single
let's pray
Lord Jesus Christ
thank you so much
for your good
scriptures
that you give to us
that are reliable
and trustworthy
thank you for the
comfort
and empowering
presence
of your Holy Spirit
thank you Father
for sending
your own son
to die for us
to make us
your own
in his name
I pray
Amen