Single men and women can easily be doubleminded, with hearts given over to all sorts of sinful pleasures and worldly pursuits. In this message, Jeff will discuss the dangers of doublemindedness, define what it means to be single-minded, and explore how young people can cultivate it.

You have your Bibles turned to 1st Corinthians chapter 7. It's a joy to be with you guys, and I get the privilege of preaching something you may not want to hear. You know, in one way, I want all of you to get married. Most of you probably want to get married. And maybe some of you are here because that's why, you know, you come to hear Jeff Johnson, you come to find someone, Maybe.

And it's what I'm going to preach to you, I don't know if I would have wanted to have heard because I'll just be honest, when I was felt called to preach at the age of 20, and then into 21, I was praying such fervent prayers, and my prayers were being answered left and right. It's like I would pray something and God would give it to me. It was amazing, the closeness I felt to the Lord when I was young and single. And then I come to the realization I wanted to be married. And so I did what I always did when I wanted something as a follower of the Lord, seeking to enter into the ministry.

I prayed for a wife. And I thought, okay, I prayed, where is she? And the next day, she didn't come around, the third day, I'm beginning to wonder. I thought God heard me. I thought God was going to answer me.

I was 20 years old when I prayed that prayer. I had this picture frame next to my bed. I lived by myself for many of those years. I was a college student and lived by myself. And I had this picture frame.

It had some Bible verses from Proverbs. I almost hate to admit this, but it was verses like, He who finds a wife finds a virtuous fane, and a virtuous woman is worth more than rubies and all kinds of verses like that. And I had those verses picked, and that was my future wife. That's the frame my wife is going to go into once we got married. So I would pray for my future wife.

And you know, I'm praying. And I remember just in all honesty, I remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I was so alone. And there's something, the hardness about the difficulty about being singleness is that loneliness, that deep-seated loneliness that you feel. And especially if you live alone, you're outside of your parents' house and you're by yourself and you feel alone. And that's a terrible feeling.

And I remember in a moment of frustration and of waking up and I don't say this with delight or I'm not proud of this moment but I got up and I punched the frame. I punched it out. I punched the, thankfully the glass did not break but I punched it and it just pushed the glass out of the frame and I began to kind of cry and weep like, Lord, I've been praying and where is your answer? Maybe some of you feel like that. I'd have people tell me, I'd have good meaning people tell me like, hey, you're not going to find a wife until you're content being single.

Anybody told you that? Somebody has told you that, yeah. You're never going to find someone. You're not going to find your spouse until you're content. Then when you're content, then God will see fit to bring you.

Well, maybe that's good advice. Maybe it is. It sounds good. I just never did find contentment in the truest sense. I was always lonely, and that didn't go away until I was married.

I didn't have the gift of singleness. Just to be honest, I never did. And I didn't get married until almost I was 27. And so that was a long span of six years in the desert, wandering around. And sadly, even as a pastor, I was pastoring in those years, many of those years I was already pastoring.

And I remember thinking, man, this would be helpful to have a spouse, you know, and it would have been. But I just remember the difficulties of feeling alone for all those years. And what I want to do is preach a sermon that I wish someone would have preached to me. I wish I would have heard this in those years. And so I really want you to listen and apply this because I don't want you, and probably I did this, I don't want you to make an idol out of marriage.

I don't want you to make an idol out of finding a spouse. I don't say this in the sense I don't want you to get married. I'm not saying this because I don't think marriage is not a good thing. In fact, I think overall scripture, the whole tenor of scriptures is putting such a wonderful blessing on marriage as marriage is God's design for the human race, that God designs us not to be alone. It's not good for man to be alone.

And you're not designed to be single. And there's a reason why you say, well, be content. Well, Adam was perfect and he was alone. And he felt alone. And he was without sin.

So it's not necessarily sinful to feel alone. It's not necessarily sinful to want to be married. God's put that desire in you. It's a good desire so that you'll get out and mingle a little bit more. Some of y'all need to learn to mingle.

I'm watching you, it's like, man, you gotta get out of your table and go meet some people. Anyway, don't make an idol out of finding a spouse. Don't make an idol out of marriage. Marriage won't solve your problems. In fact, I'm going to look at this passage, verses 25 through 40, and we'll work our way through this passage, but I'm going to give you the benefits of being single.

You know, how to be single-minded while you're single. How to keep your heart and your mind focused on the right things so that you don't allow this loneliness that you have to drive you. It's okay that you want to get married. It's okay that you feel alone, but don't let that control your passions and your desires and your pursuits. In fact, there's four things in this text that gives you a unique advantage over those who are married.

You have something about this time of your life that you don't want to fast forward. You shouldn't say, I just need to get this time over. How many of you, if you could push a little red easy button and go, I'm married, and you're there at the altar, you would just go ahead and push it if you knew. I would say this, if I knew that God picked out my wife and it was of the Lord, and if I can be certain that God says this is the one you should marry, I would go blindfolded to the altar if I could have the certainty that it was of God. And it would just, I don't have to look, I don't have to go do the awkward conversations, I don't have to feel worried about being rejected.

All the things could just be bypassed. I would just be at the altar, I'd be married, I'd be happy ever after. I'd push that button in a moment. And probably some of you would want to do that. But I'm going to tell you, don't push the button.

Don't push the button, because don't fast forward this time. Don't look at this time as just a time to get past. You know what it's like. You have a vacation. You have something you're looking forward to, it's three weeks until you go.

And this three weeks, you're just like, all it's for is to get over with. All it's for is just to bypass. It's just to get through this so that the real enjoyment and the real life can begin. And some of us look at singleness as just a time to run through and to get over with. And life begins at the altar.

And I'm going to encourage you that your life begins today. And while you're waiting and while you hold, as the Lord holds back that gift from you, Do these four things. These are four things, four benefits, if you would, for singleness. In fact, you could say, here's a case for singleness. Now, in this text, I have to deal with one touchy issue that makes the text difficult to understand, because you have even different versions that are translating this text differently, because it's hard to understand what is meant in the Greek for this word virgin.

And different translations look at this differently. Some look at it as a young girl who has been engaged or betrothed, so she's spoken for, that she's a young girl who's a virgin, never known a man, but she's betrothed or engaged. Others look at this as just a virgin girl who is not betrothed. But I, and therefore, different translations kind of use different words. The ESV uses the word betrothed, which is what I understand it to be.

And then some just translates it virgin and that's the actual Greek word. So if you want to just do a precise literal translation it would be virgin. But to understand the difficulty of that word and why it's difficult to translate is because we're living 2,000 years from the culture in which young girls at the age of 11, sometimes as early as 10, 11 and 12, before they hit the flower of their age or hit maturity, before they're able to bear children, they were already pre-engaged. The goal was to get your young daughters engaged or betrothed, spoken for, before they're able to have children. Now, they would be married maybe three, four years later.

So, the marriages typically didn't happen at 10, 11 years old for these young girls, but they would have a fiancé, if you would. They would have a husband, and the husbands were much older. I mean, the man that would be betrothed to the young woman would be much older. Likely, he would be in his late teens or early 20s. So, there would be a large age gap.

So imagine yourself living 2000 years ago in a Greek or Roman culture. Imagine you're 11 years old and you don't have to date, you don't have to look around because your husband's already been picked out for you by your parents. Now the man gets a voice in this. The young man has a say in it. And maybe the parents would look at the 12, 11-year-old girl and say, are you fine with this?

Maybe they would do that. But her voice was the least considered. He said, well, this is a problem, and aren't you glad you don't live in that day? By the time you're 10, 11, 12, 13, you already know who you're going to marry, and it wasn't someone you necessarily picked out for yourself. Though we look at this and go, man, I can't believe they did that.

Well, that was just a culture. That was just the way it was done. No one thought differently about it. And the part of the reason they did that is they wanted to secure the fact that the young girl would be in a virgin on her wedding day. How are you going to make sure that happened in a day when purity wasn't necessarily valued as it is in the Christian church?

Well, make sure you get them engaged early. Well, the men, it wasn't as important, you know, this is contradictory, but it wasn't as important for the men to be virgins. In fact, they didn't expect the men to be virgins, but they did expect the women to be virgins on their wedding day. So they would do this engagement early on, and so they would be virgins, but this is why a lot of translations translate it as betrothed, because it was assumed, we assumed that all these virgins would automatically be betrothed or engaged already. And if you understand that cultural context, it sure makes a lot more sense when you read this passage.

But in this passage, He's addressing those who are single, single young men, and single young women. And he calls these single young women virgins. But you've got to understand, most likely, the majority of them are already betrothed to a man. Four reasons to value your singleness. If you're single, it doesn't matter if you're...how old you are, no matter your age, if you're single, there's four things to value and to treasure about your singleness that make singleness something uniquely better than marriage.

One, According to verses 25 through 26, singleness is less stressful in distressing days. He starts off in verse 25, now concerning the betrothed, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. I think that in view of this present distress, it is good for a person to remain as he is." So he's addressing those who are virgins or those who are betrothed. These, I think, are young teenage girls who are already engaged. And he's basically saying, don't be in a hurry.

No, you may be engaged, you may be betrothed, and that betrothed period might last three, two, three, four years. Don't be in a hurry to fast forward to the wedding day. In other words, don't make an idol out of marriage. And he says this as inspired advice. Verse 25 says, I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.

He's riding under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, So this is the Word of God. But he, this is not something he learned directly from Jesus Christ. This is not part of his direct teaching. But it is something the Holy Spirit has inspired to him. And He's telling us in verse 26, it is best during these days to keep your focus on something other than just marriage.

Don't allow the desire to be married to dominate your focus. Don't allow it to control your thinking. You know, sometimes when you want something so bad, you wake up thinking about it, you go to bed thinking about it, and throughout the day it's on your mind. And it's really controlling, you're occupying your thoughts. And that's when it's on the verge of becoming an idol to you, something that's not pleasing to the Lord.

But because of the present distress, there's two ways of understanding this. One commentator, or some commentator says this present distress is some type of localized in the city of Corinth, some type of localized famine or some localized financial disaster. There's some trials going on in the city of Corinth. So because of that distress, this is not the time to be thinking about getting married. Others think that this is not talking about any localized distress of that time period and that location, but what Paul is doing is talking about the pending distress.

In fact, the word behind present distress could be translated and is translated in some versions as impending distress, a lot of the impending distress. And he's talking about, if it's impending distress, the distress of the reality that Christ is going to come back soon, and there's going to be trials and tribulations in the meanwhile between now and the Lord's return. That is, there's always going to be distress. I'm not for sure how to interpret that. I don't know which one, if it's a present localized distress or if it's some just normal distress that we're all going to face.

But we do learn from this that when trials come, and if the days are evil, that it's gonna be much easier to navigate those evil days as a single person than having to be worrying about a spouse during those days. In other words, if you're going through a crisis, it's not necessarily the best time to be thinking about getting married. So, it can be less stressful, Paul is saying, in distressing days. That's the first thing. Secondly, verses 27 through 28, singledness is much less troubling.

Look at verse 27. Are you bound to a wife? That is, are you engaged? Are you betrothed? Do not seek to be free.

Are you free from a wife? That is, are you among the rare young people in that day that might be 14, 15, 16 year old and your parents haven't found you a spouse yet, you're not betrothed, you're not spoken for? Do not seek a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned.

Now, again, these betrothed periods would last years. An Older man in his late teens, early 20s, maybe mid 20s, through the arrangements of the parents would be betrothed to a young girl. That girl had to wait till she was of age. So just because she's, they would, marriage wouldn't happen until at least 13 or 14. And so that takes some time.

And the man was to go and take care of his financial responsibilities, prepare a home. He had to get things prepared and ready, and he had to be independent from his parents, if you would, so he could come in and take this young woman to himself and provide for her. And so that took time. And so in this time, don't, if you're not actually married yet, but you're a patrol, don't rush and go get married. It's fine to stay in this state.

And the reason why we see in verse 28, those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I will spare you of that. The reality is marriage is much more difficult than you can imagine. Especially if you've never been married before. You're single and you're young and you say, I just want to get married. It's going to be great.

And always at the end of the movie or the book it says, and they lived. And it's probably better realistically said, they lived mostly happy ever after. You know, it's like, yeah, it is good to be married and I love my marriage and my marriage is awesome. And it's a good thing, so don't not seek it. It's not a sinful thing to want it's a good thing it's a blessing but it sure is hard it's extremely difficult marriages And it's not just difficult because you've got to learn to live with someone else and deny yourself and pick up your towels off the floor and things like that, things that are troubling.

It's not just those type of things that you have to worry about. You have to worry about your spouse. You have to worry about children. And there's nothing more concerning than having the weight of that on you. And if you're single, that weight, some of the greatest weights of life, can be removed from you and that frees you up to so much more service to the Lord.

If you do get married, it is going to be a weight. It is going to be a burden. It's going to be trials. It's going to be hard. And you're going to have marriage problems.

And you're going to have the vexation of all that comes with it. And these things can be avoided. You think, well, my life is hard as a single person. I will, I would reckon to you or I would submit to you, it's not as hard as being married. It's not.

And so you have less troubles and less concerns to have to consider. It really does free you up to serve the Lord in such a way that married people can't serve the Lord. It frees up a lot of time. You have a lot of time, extra time, and this needs to be dedicated to serving the Lord. I'll get to that in a minute in the application section, but the third benefit of singleness is that life, this life, marriage or singleness is only temporary.

Look at verse 29 through 31. This is what I mean, brothers. The point of time has grown very short, and I mean, we don't think of it this way, especially if you're single. It's like, man, this is dragging on forever. The point of time has grown very short.

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as those that had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. This life is coming to an end. It's passing away. Everything about it.

And we know that marriage is not permanent. It may be permanent in this life, but this life is not permanent. Death will separate marriage. Death does its part. We've learned from the Lord Jesus Christ that in heaven, the eternal state, there's not marriage.

Marriage doesn't go on indefinitely for all eternity. It's only in this life. And this life is passing away. This life is short. Everything in this world is going to pass away, and marriage is a part of this world's economy, and it's going to pass away along with everything else.

So, what does it mean when Paul says, let those who are married act like they're not married or live as if they're not married? Let those who have wives live as though they have no. I have a wife. How am I supposed to live if I don't have one? How's my wife going to feel about that?

You know, hey, I'm sorry I've been told not to act like I have you. You know, what's that mean? Well, it means this. I don't need to treat my wife as she is my permanent state of life. Or if I buy something, if this what I buy is going to go with me forever.

Or if I'm rejoicing, the things that make me rejoice are typically the things of this world. Or if I'm sad or in some type of upset mold, Why am I upset? Most of the time it's because of something of this world. All that's in this world is coming and going, is passing away, and we don't need to be fixated and fixed upon this world. Don't live as if this world is all that we have.

In other words, this is a command for us to live for eternity, to live for the world to come. Don't live for this life. And if you're making marriage the purpose for living, then you're making this life the purpose for your life, and you're going to be very upset. And you're making an idol out of marriage. Marriage is just temporary.

And that puts things in perspective if we're single. Life is coming to an end. And most of you are thinking, well, I know I'm getting older, I'm getting older, I'm gonna pass me by and you're getting stressed. Because you can see that, hey, I wish I was married when I was 18 or 19 or 21, 22. I mean, when I was 20, I was ready to get married and here I'm about to turn 27.

It's like I'm still not married. It's like you feel the weight and the stress of life slipping by. Well you're still too short-minded. You're gonna be 80 soon. Seriously.

In fact, go a little step further, you're going to be in the grave soon. And it doesn't matter if you're married or not married at that day. It's not going to matter if you're rich or poor. It's not going to matter what you had in this particular life. All that's going to matter is if you had a relationship with Christ.

That's the only thing that really matters. And what Jason has already told us is right on, is that don't live for marriage. Live to know Jesus Christ. And you don't have to wait till you're married to know Christ. You can have the best of life now.

Life doesn't begin when you're married. It begins today. And you can have all the things that bring life and joy and enrichment to your life in the person of Jesus Christ, and your spouse will not provide that for you. You're not going to be satisfied with a spouse. The emptiness you feel is bigger and deeper than what a spouse can satisfy.

It has to be the Lord Jesus Christ. Live for eternity, not for this world. The reason singles are often overly concerned about marriage is because they are overly concerned about this present life. Verse 29 says, but I say, brethren, this time is short, so that from now on, even those who have wives should be as those that had none. Now, Paul is not seeking to make us stoics or to keep us from marrying or buying possessions.

He didn't say, don't go buy anything. He said, but when you buy something, buy as if you don't own anything. He's not telling us not to get married. But he explains how we should view everything of this world in verse 31. And those who use this world, you can use it, you can enjoy it, but not misusing it.

It's when you make this world and the things of this world, even marriage, if you're making this your focus, you're misusing it. These are temporal blessings that God has given us for our enjoyment and for our good. But do not misuse these things, for the form of this world is passing away. You should encourage yourself with the brevity of life. The brevity of life should encourage you not get you upset.

If you're thinking your life is passing you by and you're getting nervous about it because you want to accomplish some great things or you want to be married, you want to have kids, and you don't know if that's going to happen, I don't want to be 45 or 50 when this happens, I'm ready for that now. If that's the way you're thinking, No, you're still short-sighted. Think this way. I don't want to make my life about this life. I don't want to make my life.

My life is too short to make it about what I can get in this world. I want to store up treasures in heaven. I want to live for eternity. I want my life to count. It's so short.

Everything's passing away. So don't live for this world. This is counsel for all of us, for married or not married. Remember not to place your happiness in your spouse or in this world or anything other than Christ. Let us not give ourselves to our profession.

Let us not get wrapped up in the concerns of this world. Let us make sure God is our God. That's one thing. Maybe you'll never get perfectly content in the sense that you're satisfied in being single because you're alone and it's not good for man or woman to be alone. You may always have that empty feeling.

So maybe you can't rid yourself of that. But you can do this. I am satisfied with Christ. And I count all things but rubbish. Marriage, children, the American dream, all my dreams of this life, I count that as rub.

I don't need that. I don't need anything in this life to be happy. I'm living for the life to come. I'm living for eternity. I'm setting my eyes on the Lord.

I'm pursuing that, And I'm using my singleness not to master Xbox. I'm using my singleness not to give my time to social media. I'm giving my singleness not to waste it on just silly things. And that's the reason why you may want marriage so bad, is because you're wasting your time on stuff that doesn't matter, and marriage is way more important than the things you're wasting your time on. So replace the silliness of what you're spending your time on, replace that with pursuing the Lord, serving the church, giving your life for eternal matters, then marriage, when it comes, you'll be thankful for it, but you don't have to have it.

Yes, I believe marriage is one of the best gifts God gives us in this temporal life, but it's still one of the blessings of the temporal life, not of the eternal life. Fourth, singleness is much less distracting. This is found in verses 32-35. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.

And the unmarried and betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. When I was in college, I was at Bible College and my professor was going over this verse and I objected. I said, no, I think I could be more productive to the Lord because as a married person, I wouldn't worry about all these other things and I could have the burnings taken care of and I can have my loneliness taken care of and then I wouldn't be just so Distracted and I can really focus on the Lord if I had all these and he goes no brother Yet married you got to worry about buying dishwashers and fridgerators Taking out the track, you know he listed all the things that he had to be focused on as a married man.

And I disregarded that. I was like, ah, you don't know what you're talking about. And it is true what Paul is saying is true. I've been married for 21 years. Wonderful marriage.

I love my wife. She loves me. But it takes a lot of time and effort. There is a lot of things that I have to do to be a good husband. And that does take my affections and my time and my energy.

And I know I can serve the Lord in these things, right? I know that by loving my wife and going out to Lowe's and buying the appliances that are needed for the house and doing yard work and extra things that my wife would want to be taken care of that I could live without. I know that that could be a way of serving the Lord and glorifying God in these things. But I don't believe this idea that serving God in serving this world is as the same as serving God directly. You'll hear people say that.

And I want to be careful because I do believe we serve God in sweeping the floor. Do all that you do for the glory of God, not as man's pleasing, but do everything. You know, if you're sweeping the floor, doing dishes, you can bring God glory in the way you do that, and you bring God glory in everything you do. Amen, amen, we need to hear that. But there is more glory to be brought in sharing their gospel than sweeping floors.

Not that we shouldn't sweep floors with the glory of God, but they're not on the same plane. Or Paul wouldn't have divided this. He wouldn't have said, hey, if you're single, you can have more time not sweeping floors and doing these other things that are glorifying to God, you can give yourself to a greater level of service, to direct service to the ministry, to God, to devotion, to time praying. You can worship God talking to your spouse, amen, and talking to friends about all kinds of things, even joking around. You're going to mingle and have fun.

Glorify God in the mundane things of life. Yes, that brings God glory, But it's not on the same plane as being in your prayer closet by yourself praying. It's not. We can say, well, I'm walking with God and I'm praying all the time and I'm just, no, serve the Lord directly, not just indirectly in all that you do. And you're being single, you have a way of serving, your nights are opened up, Your evenings are open.

You know what you can do with your evenings? You could go to your pastoral staff and say, hey, listen, someone needs to be picked up the airport. Call me. I don't have kids to watch. I don't have a wife to feed.

I don't have a husband to prepare a meal for? I'm available. I'm free. I have a vehicle. I can drive.

I can be at your service because I don't have a lot of responsibilities on me. And married people don't have that freedom as much. Marriage requires time and attention, it adds additional anxieties, and it divides our devotion as this text has. So if you're single, you can be more fully devoted to Christ you can your prayer life should be better you have more time to pray First Timothy 513 says besides that talking about women widows they need to get remarried because of this they learn to be idols going about from house to house not only idolers but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households and give their adversary no occasion for slander. So yes, you need to get married if you're wasting your time doing things that are not helpful.

Right? If you're, you know, get up, tell these widows to get married because they're just busybodies. They have all this free time and they're using it unwisely. But Paul says in this passage, if you're single, don't use your singleness to be busybodies. Don't use your singleness to master Xbox and to carry yourself constantly on social media.

Don't use your time unwisely. You have extra time. Use it for the glory of God. In fact, this is my counsel to you. This is my personal, if you just come talk to me, Jeff Johnson on the side, I said, Jeff, I'm a single person, I want to get married, what do you advise me?

I said, this is what I would tell you. I've told several young men and young women to do the same thing. If you would seek first the kingdom of God with all your heart, mind and soul. Devote yourself to serving the Lord, knowing Christ, knowing the Scriptures, memorizing Scriptures. Just give yourself to Scriptures.

Give yourself to the Word of God. Give yourself to serving. And run as fast as you can to the Lord. And when you see some young pretty lady running next to you, because she's doing the same thing you're doing, you know, you're just running to the Lord with all your heart. And He's your focus.

It's not these girls are your focus or these boys are your focus. Christ is your focus. And when you're running as fast as you can to the Lord, and you see a young lady next to you, just say hi to her. God will provide you these things. The Bible says seek first the kingdom of God.

You don't have to be anxious about who you're going to marry or when you're going to get married. Your time is freed up to seek Christ. Seek the Lord. You know that would be my exhortation to you today. I, leaving this Singles Conference, yes, no, did you find your spouse at the Singles?

No, I didn't find anyone. But don't be depressed about that. Say, I've left with this. I have found Christ. I have found the Lord, and I'm going to seek Him with all my heart, mind, and soul.

I'm going to devote myself in knowing Him and taking my free time and spare time to serve the church, sure Christ, more directly. And then the Bible says, if you do this, seek first kingdom, all these other things that the Gentiles worry about will be added to you. You see, you have freedom to marry. Verse 36 tells us this. If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed, if his passions are strong and it has to be, let him do as he wishes.

Let them marry, it's not a sin. This is why I think it's important. This particular passage here is why it's important to understand this as a young virgin girl who is betrothed to a man. So if you are engaged and you realize, hey, I don't have the gift of singleness and this is so distracting, then go ahead and get married. You're not sinning.

But you also need to see in verse 37, you're free to remain single. But whoever is firmly established in his heart being under no necessity but having his desire under control and has determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well and he who refrains from marriage will do even better You're free to get married. Don't don't hear me say in the sermon that Oh Jeff's discouraging marriage No, I'm not discouraging marriage marriage is wonderful But if you can if you can say I can use this time My singleness to serve the Lord single-mindedly, then you do better. Use your time wisely.

In conclusion, our condition, if we're married or single, does not prohibit us from serving God. There's never a position in this life that you cannot glorify God in. You don't have to go, I got to get past this in order to serve the Lord. No, you can serve the Lord right where you're at in the state that you're in. Second, serving God must be our chief objective.

Marriage is not and should not be our chief objective. Third, in my concluding word, young ladies, young men, take advantage of your singleness. Take advantage of it. Don't, don't wish it away. Don't just push it away.

Take advantage of it. It's a precious time that you have. And it's a valuable time that you have. I remember just a closing testimony about myself. For 21, I was called to be a pastor and I was 20 when I felt called to preach.

I didn't get married until I was 27. I was spoiled because I was able to study the Bible eight to 12 hours a day. Because I would get up really early in the morning before I went to work, and I would study my languages. I would go to work, and I would take a book with me for my lunch period and I come home and I would study one book of the Bible for one hour then I would study a systematic theology for another hour and then I would study I would read a book for and I would really and I just I did that every night and I didn't have a life I was a nerd I guess but I studied and studied and studied, and everybody said, hey, let's go do this or this. Like, no, I'm more interested in this.

I wasn't, I can't do that now. There's no way I could do that now. I got kids that need to play basketball. I have kids that need me. I got a wife that needs to go on a date once a week.

I like that too. You know, but I can't do what I did when I was single and I don't know if I could be pastoring without that preparation that I had when I was single. I'm still utilizing that time in today's ministry. Don't waste your singleness. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, we do want to be single-minded in our singleness. Lord, we want our time to be used wisely. If we're married or if we're single, we want to seek you first and not the things of this world that are passing away. Lord, you're too, as we heard earlier, the surpassing worth of knowing you is too great to give our life to the things that are just passing away. It'll soon be gone.

Lord, help us not to make an idol out of marriage. That too will pass away. But you and you alone last forever. This we pray in your son's name, amen.