A Lie the World Tells Singles

A Lie the World Tells Singles

One of the lies that our culture tells singles is that a life without sexual expression is a tragedy. As Christians, we really need to fight against that. We’re living in a culture that has made sex an idol and is holding it out there: “If only you could have this, you would have joy and contentment and satisfaction in your life.” And yet you don’t have to look too far in our culture to realize that this isn’t working for people, that people actually aren’t finding the contentment promised to them.

And the truth is, we’re really only going to find contentment when we learn in deeper ways that God’s steadfast love is better than life, that what we were created for was relationship with him, intimacy with him, and with one another. So a life without sex isn’t a tragedy. In fact, we see in the New Testament a real encouragement and a high calling in singleness.

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul actually encourages believers to not marry. He tells them that if you marry, you’re going to be divided. You’re going to be worried about your spouse. You’re going to be worried about your family. But a single person can live with wholehearted devotion to Christ and his kingdom.

Five chapters later, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes the church as the body. He describes us all as individual body parts that are inextricably linked together, that none of us is independent. Instead, we’re all interdependent. We all desperately need relationship. We can’t exist without one another. And so God invites us to intimacy with himself, and he invites us to intimacy with others in his body. If you notice, that language is one-flesh kind of language.

So the reality is, there should be no lonely people in the church. To be a lonely Christian should be an oxymoron. God invites us into relationship with one another.

And what I want to encourage you to think about, if you’re a single person, is that your life is not a tragedy without sexual expression. In fact, it is a countercultural battle cry. You are testifying to the reality that a new King has come, that his kingdom is going forward, and there’s something greater to live for than the fleeting pleasures that we can experience, the fleeting bodily pleasures of life in this world. He’s inviting us to something deeper and richer and eternal.

And that’s why I love what the prophet writes in Isaiah 56. He’s talking to eunuchs, and he says that what God is offering eunuchs is a name better than sons and daughters: that a life that is spent living for him and for his kingdom is going to be richly rewarded in the world to come, and in this life still deeply satisfying and joyful and filled with contentment.

Over against the lies of this world that say, “You’ve got to have sex to be content,” God is saying, “If you live for me and for my kingdom, you will find joy and peace and contentment.”