Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Almighty God, you welcome you.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey there. If you're new to Restored Church, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. You're listening to a portion of our Sunday worship gathering. We believe the church is not an event, but a family you belong to. So we would love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please Visit our website, www.restoredtemecula.church and click on Contact. With all that said, we. We hope you enjoy the message.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Okay, grab your Bibles. This morning we're going to be jumping back into our series going through the Gospel of Matthew. We've entitled this series the King and His Kingdom. And we are exploring as much as we possibly can about what the kingdom of God is like and what the king of that kingdom, Jesus, is all about.
And so you can flip over to Matthew, chapter 19. We're going to be in verses one through 12.
Those should be familiar if you've been journeying with us because we went through these exact same verses last Sunday.
And if you're with us, I told you last Sunday, hey, we're gonna have to do. We're gonna have to do these verses over the course of two weeks. Cause there's so much here. So this is part two in this marriage, or this marriage in this passage. Because it covers some really hefty, kind of weighty, kind of sensitive topics and themes, one of which I just misspoke. But one of which is marriage.
It covers marriage, it covers singleness, it covers sexuality, it covers gender. It covers some really sensitive and important topics.
And I wanted to do this over the course of two weeks because I didn't want to move too quickly through this without addressing at least most of what I see God addressing here in this passage.
God cares about these things. And so what we're going to do is we're going to look back at these verses.
What does it look like when God gets his way in these areas of life? Because if you remember, the whole point of this series is we're exploring what the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is like. What does it look like when God gets His way, his rule, his reign. That's the kingdom. Right? And so that's what we're gonna continue to do this morning. For the sake of time. I'm just gonna jump in to our passage. But before I do, I wanna pray. And so I'll invite you to enjoy.
Holy Spirit, we thank you.
We thank you for your grace.
God, every single one of us in this room, whether you realize it or not, we are swimming in your grace.
It's all around us.
Your love, your presence, your purpose, your rule and reign, your invitation to join you in that space.
Would you help us to hear your voice through your word, God?
Would you show us more about the beauty and the glory of Jesus?
We love you. We thank you for this morning. And we say together, amen.
All right, let's read this together, friends. Verse 1, chapter 19 says this.
When Jesus had finished saying these things that. These things that he just finished saying. He's teaching on repentance, on forgiveness, on reconciliation. When he finished teaching on those things, he departed from Galilee. Think the Sea of Galilee, that region. And went to a different region. Went to the region of Judea, across the Jordan. So he's traveling south and east. Verse 2.
Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
Some Pharisees approached him to test him.
They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? Verse four. Haven't you read? Jesus replied, I touched on this last Sunday, but I want to touch on it again.
Jesus wasn't being polite here. When he replied to their question, haven't you read? This was offensive to these people. Because these were people who had spent their whole life studying the Scriptures. So people that have spent the whole life studying the Scriptures, it'd be like, if you're a super Harry Pot fan and someone's like, have you not read Harry Potter? You'd be, what? Like, that times a thousand, right? So these guys, they would have been offended by this.
And before we get going, I want to ask kind of the same question I did before. Like, does Jesus ever say anything that offends you?
Does he ever say anything that causes you to be like, ooh, I don't what? Does he ever say anything that ruffles your feathers if Jesus never says anything that offends you.
We talked about this. You're either sinless and perfect, or you're not reading your Bible, or you're not actually engaging with the real Jesus.
I'm gonna keep going, but I wanna say this. Like, the gospel itself is offensive, isn't it?
Like the good news of who God is and what he's done?
Yes, it's good news. It's the best news ever. But it's offensive. Cause it says that you and I are so bad that God himself had to die for us. Like. Like that. Our condition is that depraved. Our condition is that, like, man, oh, man, we do not have it all together.
And it's not just, like, kind of bad. It's, like, terrible.
But yet God, in his love, was willing and glad to do that because of his care for you and his commitment to you and his love for you and his faithfulness to you. Like, the gospel itself is offensive.
It's also really beautiful, I think. There's this thing that I think before I move on, like, we have to get to this space where we trust Jesus enough to go, like, he actually loves me enough to tell me the truth about myself.
Some of you, you don't have people in your life who love you enough to actually tell you the truth about yourself.
You talk to celebrities, you talk to people that have a lot of influence, some really wealthy people even. And one of the things that is, like, a marker of a person that's in that place in life is they're like, nobody really loves me enough to tell me the truth about myself.
It's, yes, what do you want? There's a loneliness in that space. And if that's you this morning, I just wanna, like, let you know, like, Jesus, I think, wants to meet you there.
What might on the surface look offensive is so filled with grace and love.
It has the power to, like, actually change us and transform us. He loves us enough to tell us the truth. He also loves us enough to lay down his life for us. Ok, okay, so Jesus, he says something offensive quickly. Haven't you read? And he said that he who created them, verse four, in the beginning, made them male and female.
And he also said. He's quoting, for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate. Verse 7.
Why then these Pharisees asked him, why then did Moses command us to give divorce papers and send her away? Her would be the wife. Verse 8. He told them, moses permitted.
So there's a difference between a permit and a command.
Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. We talked about this last week. Underline that. We're gonna talk about it a little bit more today because of the hardness of your hearts. But it was not like that from the beginning. Jesus says, Verse 9, I tell you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery. Verse 10. His disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it's better not to marry.
Jesus responded, not everyone can Accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given.
For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.
There are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven.
The one who is able to accept it should accept it.
Alright, so that's the passage. What I'm going to do, I'm going to take a couple minutes and just kind of review what we talked about last week, because this kind of springboards into what we have for you today.
At the core of this passage is not the concept of divorce.
At the core of this, if you look at your title in your Bible, if you have a Bible, it'll say something about divorce on most of them. Like the kind of title before this passage, it addresses that it's important to talk about. It is. I'm not trying to downplay that. But the core of this passage is the concept of having a hard heart.
That's what's going on here primarily. And last week we talked about how your heart is not just your emotions.
In our culture, when we talk about heart, most people are talking about their emotions. Not a bad thing. But we gotta understand what these original authors, what their context was like, what their culture was like. So when the Bible, when it speaks about a heart, it's not just referring to the emotions, it's talking about the will, it's talking about your desires, it's talking about even your thoughts, your mind. All of that together is the heart. We talked about how the heart is like sitting in the driver's seat of your life.
So all the thoughts that you think, all the actions that you take, all the places that you go, all the things that you do, the things that you don't do, there's a reason for that. And what's driving all of those actions and thoughts and behaviors and words is your heart.
You guys with me in this, we gotta get this concept, okay?
Your heart sits in the driver's seat of your life. And we talked about how your heart biblically can be either hard or soft.
And do you remember the illustration that we used to kinda showcase this last Sunday, the Play DOH thing, right? When Play doh's soft, it's moldable.
When the Play DOH yield, it's soft, it yields to the maker's hands, right?
But when it's hard, you leave that cap off, it gets hardened. When it's hard, it's not.
It's not moldable in the maker's hands. It's stubborn, if you will. It's not yielding, it's resisting. That's the concept of having a hard heart. Biblically, that God wants to mold you.
He wants to affect you, he wants to guide you.
He wants to literally make you into a man or a woman in a certain regard. And we can resist that and be stubborn to that. It can be in big ways and it can be in small ways.
We talked about how a hard heart keeps you from the kingdom.
We talked about marriage last week. We talked about how marriage matters to God because he made it. It wasn't man's idea, it was God's idea. Right? And we talked about how marriage is not a. It's not a conditional relationship.
It's not a consumeristic relationship. It's what it starts with, a C.
A covenant. Well done. Marriage is a covenant.
And because it's a covenant, divorce is not what God intended from the beginning when he made marriage.
But nevertheless, it happens.
And we talked about how, I mean, many of you, you've felt the sting of that. You don't need me to preach on this too much. I just want to bring you up to speed.
We talked about how divorce happens when one or both parties stop treating marriage the way the designer designed it.
We also talked about sexuality last week.
Right? The whole. He references two becoming one. Yes, that's marriage, but that also involves sexuality. And we talked about how God designed sex exclusively for marriage. And all the young people got really uncomfortable when I started talking about it.
Right? How God designed sex exclusively for marriage between one man, a husband, and one woman, his wife.
Today we're going to talk about three more topics that show up in this passage.
And what I want to do is I want to address them in order. Okay? So look back at verse three.
Some Pharisees approached Jesus to test him.
They asked him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on any grounds? Right. They're tr. Divorcing. Husbands are divorcing their wives in this culture for trivial reasons. And in verse four, look what Jesus says. Haven't you read?
He replied that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female. And he also said, for this reason a man will leave his father and mother be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. Listen to this. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, not just like two consenting adults, what God has joined together, let no one separate.
If you're taking notes, my first point for you this morning is this God dignifies and defends women.
God dignifies and defends women in this culture, guys, these husbands were divorcing their wives for ridiculous reasons. I mentioned this last Sunday, but there's two examples that I gave that are actually like, recorded in history as something fairly common that, that men would divorce their wives over. One was burning dinner.
The second one was bushy eyebrows.
It's laughable, but it's so ridiculous.
Now, you gotta understand, though, it's not just like the devastation of a marriage breaking up. It's not just like, you know, all that stuff.
Again, the context is so important here. For women, especially at that time, marriage was.
It was a matter of survival.
It was a matter of survival.
You see, women, they relied on men for most things, especially, like economically, okay? So whether it was their father if they're unmarried, or whether it was their husband if they were married, or whether it was their sons, their grown sons, if they'd been either widowed or whatever, like women in that time, they relied on men economically. Cause there's no respectable paying jobs for women.
It wasn't like, okay, I don't need a man. Like, no, you could get a job. So therefore you're in danger, okay? And we wondered, hence why prostitution was so common.
Not only did women rely on men economically, but they relied on men for physical safety.
Very vulnerable.
And so what I want you to see here is you have the people of Israel, right? These are God's chosen people.
And part of God's covenant with Israel is that they would be his people and he would be their God. And that God would what, bless the whole world through those chosen people. In other words, they would be the people that modeled and promoted what the true, the one and true God was really like.
Dare I say? They were the people that were supposed to showcase what his rule and reign, his kingdom was all about, what it was like.
And that people would be blessed through that. So you have these people, God's chosen people. They're supposed to show the world what God is like. Instead, they're very clearly degrading women.
Like their own women too. They're degrading women. They're treating women as objects. They're treating women as property, as like a disposable accessory.
If you read the commentators, there's so much here about how in the first century, the value of a woman depended on her performance, the value of a woman depended on her appearance, and the value of a woman depended on her utility. How useful was she?
Is it just me or does that not Sound like just a first century issue.
I don't know if you know this. I'm not a woman.
But, ladies, thanks. It's all good.
When I read that or when I say that.
That a woman's value comes from her performance, her appearance, or her utility.
Real talk. Any ladies in the room ever felt that way?
How about you young ladies in the room?
In.
A couple few years ago, my family and I, we were sent on sabbatical.
And it was.
It was really. It was really healthy for us. It was really good.
And because of the generosity of some wonderful people, we got to spend a week on Maui.
If you've ever been to Hawaii, there's something about that place that just. I don't know, it just promotes soul rest in a way that. I don't know. Few places that I've ever been to have.
And so my family and I. Me and EB and the girls were at dinner, and it was just. It was a good evening together. But we're at dinner, and it was the kind of restaurant where they'd bring in, like, a local musician. And he was on his guitar, and he's just singing kind of like background music. And this guy starts singing. He's good, he's fine, whatever.
And he starts playing this song.
And as he starts playing it, do you know when you have that moment where you're like, oh, I know this song. Like, you recognize a song, but you can't place what it is?
It's sort of like, have you ever seen that game show, Name that tune? When they play the tune, you're like, oh, I know what this tune is. But I couldn't quite. What is it, though? Like, I know it, but what is it that happens in me?
And then he starts singing, and I instantly know what song it is the moment he starts singing.
And then something happened to me, Guys.
Something like what I'm about to share with you has only happened to me a couple few times in my whole life.
But I'm in this packed restaurant with my family, and the only way I can think to describe it is God downloaded his heart for me to get a taste of his heart.
So this guy is singing this song, and the song that he's singing is that Bob Marley song, no Woman, no Cry.
Have you heard this song?
And I know this sounds weird.
I know it probably sounds cheesy, but I'm sitting there in this restaurant, and God is, like, downloading his heart for women, and I can't. I'm fighting back tears.
We haven't even got Our food yet. And I'm sitting in this space, and I feel, like, the weight of heaven. I feel God's presence in a way that is like a handful of times my whole life.
And I'm literally hearing this guy sing these lyrics. You know, no woman, no cry. Like.
And I felt like God was sharing his heart with me about how it grieves him when certain people, namely, in this case, women, are mistreated or degraded.
And, guys, it affected me. I didn't ask for it. I didn't see it coming, but it became very clear. Like, I think one of the things that God's teaching me in this season of my life, guys, is, like, actually what it means to be his friend.
Not to just, you know, go to him when I need things.
Not to just go to him for, you know, excitement, entertainment, direction, wisdom. But actually to, like, be his friend.
And part of that is he starts sharing his heart with me. He wants to do that with you, too? He wants to. He calls us friend. Jesus says, but I'm sitting there in this restaurant, and I'm literally overcome. Like, I'm fighting it back. Like, people. I'm sure that people were looking at me like, this guy's crazy. He. He's weird. This is Hawaii. Go somewhere else if you're gonna cry. Like, But I felt God's heart, guys. Like, I felt it specifically for women. It was. Honestly, it was overwhelming when women are dismissed, when women are devalued, when women are degraded. And it grieves the heart of God. Ladies, listen to me. I know I'm not a woman, but I have to say this. Cause I feel like it's connected to God's word and what he wants for our church. Ladies, at times the world will degrade you.
They will place value on you based on your performance, based on your appearance, based on your utility. At times, the world will degrade you, but God dignifies and defends you.
And we see that happen in this passage.
Jesus, he tells these men who were promoting that women be divorced for ridiculous reasons, that they are wrong.
And he does it in kind of an offensive way, right? He goes, haven't you guys read God made marriage?
It's a covenant that means two become one.
And then he says what? He goes, what God put together, let nobody separate.
He refuses to allow women to be discarded through trivial divorce.
Ladies, I hate this, but it's true. You don't need me to tell you this.
There will be times when the world degrades you, but God never will. He dignifies and he defends you.
And it's not just in this passage. He does this all over the Scriptures, okay? All over the Scriptures.
Can I talk to just the young guys in the room, the young men in the room for just a second?
Young men in the room, whether you're married or not, whether you desire to be married or not, you have relationship with ladies.
You have relationships, whether it's friends or family or whatever, romance, even, hear me, living as a godly man. It means dignifying women and when necessary, defending them.
That means whenever you see a woman being degraded, you do what Jesus does. You stand up against it or you repent.
If you participate and just candid, real talk.
Every guy in this room has blown it in that department.
Every guy has blown it in this department. No shame. Nobody's perfect. All have fallen short of the glory of God. There's not a man in this room who has not blown it in this department, okay? We all fall short. But when we fall short as men, we rise up, we repent, and we embrace the way of Jesus. Once again.
I think it's really important to say this, guys. I think it's really important to say this. I believe that this is a big part of what it means to be a godly man.
Why? Because Jesus is our model for manliness.
Not Joe Rogan, not whoever your favorite manly influencer is. Although there can be helpful worldly wisdom that you can glean from some of these guys.
Jesus is our model for manliness.
There's lots of opinions out there about how a man should and shouldn't operate, but Jesus is our model for manliness. And one of the many ways that Jesus uses his masculine strength and power is to dignify and to defend women.
You hear me, men in the room?
I think our church is really, really special in this.
Oftentimes I see the men in our church do just this.
And not just with the older ladies, but with the younger ladies.
Young men, I need you to hear me say part of what it means to be a godly man is to dignify women and to defend them when necessary, okay?
Because God dignifies and defends women.
Before I move on, ladies, really quickly, you're not the only one that this culture degrades.
The culture also degrades men all over the place.
Teaches men, especially young men, that they're masculine and he's toxic.
Part of what it means to be a godly woman is to dignify and when necessary, defend godly masculinity.
So, ladies, may I challenge you in the same way, when you see men being degraded, Stand up against it, ladies. Especially when you see young men dignifying and defending women as they should.
Praise them for it.
Your encouragement.
You won't believe the power of the encouragement of a lady to a younger man in appropriate ways.
Alright, this leads me to my next point. If you're taking notes, my next point is this the next thing we see here. Birth, gender matters to God because God assigned it.
This isn't a hot button topic at all. I'm not drifting into deep waters at all this, hence the water.
Birth, gender matters to God because God assigned it. Look back at verse four.
I'm going to start saying this, I think more often. Haven't you read this is what Jesus said. Haven't you read. He replied that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female.
Okay, What Jesus is doing there is he's quoting Genesis 1:27, the first page of the Bible. I'm gonna read you Genesis 1:27.
This is what Jesus is getting at.
This is the creation narrative. This is God creating all things. Then we come to verse 27. So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female.
We're living in a really wild time in history, and I'm sure that every generation has said this to some regard, right? But we're living in a really wild time in history when something as clear as gender has become like a debate.
And I want to be clear, gender dysphoria is a very real condition.
If you're not familiar with gender dysphoria, let me give you what Google defined gender dysphoria as.
I think I have this quote for you. Gender dysphoria is a condition where there is a significant and persistent incongruence between a person's experienced or expressed gender and the sex assigned to them at birth.
End quote.
Man, if I think about this, like, I honestly, I'm like, man, my heart genuinely hurts for anybody who's suffering in such a traumatic way.
And no doubt many of you in the room, there's somebody you love, somebody you know, who may be suffering in this way.
And there's, I mean, you turn on the news, you listen to different people, you read different things. There's so many opinions about what to do about this.
There's been this massive rise in gender dysphoria, a massive rise in this generation, like off the charts.
And there's a lot of opinions about what to do about it.
In light of God's word.
Here's what I'm convinced of.
The remedy again, real condition, People really suffering.
The remedy is not to deny or redefine gender based on personal preference.
The remedy is not prescribing puberty blockers.
The remedy is not performing gender reassignment surgery. That's like a sex change.
The remedy is not de Sterilizing precious people made in God's image.
The remedy to gender dysphoria is not. Hear me, it's not a hardened heart.
I'd be willing to say that the remedy for anything broken is not a hardened heart.
The remedy to gender dysphoria is a softened heart that is moldable in the hands of the maker. Because hear me, God didn't make a mistake when he made anybody.
He didn't make a mistake when he assigned all people their gender at birth.
And yet a generation has been lied to.
They've been told that their assigned gender is a mistake that needs to be corrected.
In the spirit of Jesus, I say, have you not read all people were created in God's image. All people were made by God and for God.
While an ungodly culture degrades God's creation, God dignifies and defends his workmanship.
There's never been a human being alive that wasn't made in his image. Friends, we see it from the very beginning.
Birth gender matters to God because God assigned it.
So then what is the proper response?
The proper response to the trans movement, if I can call it that.
Here's what it is.
It's prayer.
It's prayer like it's interceding in prayer for people.
Precious people made in God's image with eternal value.
Right? Who happen to be victims of the lies and the schemes of Satan, who seek to degrade what God has fearfully and wonderfully made in their person.
Do you know what that means? We talk about this all the time. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. Do you know what that means?
It's not like God made you and he was afraid while he made you. Like, no, it's so much more beautiful than that, guys. Fearfully and wonderfully made. It means awe inspiring skill and care.
That doesn't mean, oh, he made a mistake with that one.
He blew it with that one. Oh, let's just set that one as. No. It means awe inspiring skill and care. It means intricate and unique design.
There's no two humans that are the same, even the twins. Herrick Berger is a twin, but he's a fully unique individual.
At the chance that anyone in the trans community ever hears this message.
You were fearfully and wonderfully made. Don't believe the lie that you weren't.
Birth gender matters to God because God assigned it. He made them male.
All right, my last point. Look back at verse 10.
You guys still with me? You're quiet now.
All right, verse 10.
Jesus disciples said to him, if the relationship of a man with his wife is like this, it's better not to marry. They're like, this covenant thing. Sounds intense, man. If it gets hard, I can't throw her to the curb. I don't. What, I shouldn't even get married.
Verse 11, he responded, not everyone can accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been what given. Underline that one.
For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb. There are eunuchs who were made by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way because of the kingdom of heaven.
The one who is able to accept it should accept it. My third point for you is this. Jesus endorses celibacy and singleness.
Jesus endorses celibacy and singleness. D.A. carson, brilliant scholar. He summarizes what Jesus is saying here. He says this quote, there are literal eunuchs either born deformed or castrated at some point in their lives.
Castrated means literally having their private parts removed, guys.
So they're either born deformed or castrated at some point in their lives. And metaphoric eunuchs, those who voluntarily adopt, the celibate. That means they don't have sex.
The celibate, single life. Why? For the sake of the kingdom. Jesus, in the back half of this passage, is clearly endorsing celibacy and singleness. Okay? He says it's something given that means it's a gift.
Sam Albery, he says this quote, the Bible does not present singleness as a problem to be solved, but as a gift to be stewarded.
Really?
Like, really, dude? Over the course of the last couple decades of pastoring, I have walked with so many people who are in singleness and don't want to be there.
They're like, I'm single and I wanna get married, and I haven't found the right person or it's not working out or whatever. And they're in that space. And I've just, like, so many times, guys.
And whenever the gift of singleness gets brought up, there's this, like, recoil, like, no way.
Cool. You can say it's a gift all you want, but it Certainly doesn't feel like a gift.
I've said this before, and it's going to sound.
It's going to sound kind of rough, but I promise you, it's not.
In.
In 2016, Ebony and I were.
We had just.
We had planted a couple churches in San Diego with the Restored Family of Churches.
And we were in a season where we knew God was stirring our hearts again to plant again, to lead the effort.
And we're just trying to discern God.
You're doing something. What are you up to? How can we be a part of it?
And in the process, it was like, yes, okay, God's saying to plant. And then at that point, it's like, okay, we bring our colleagues in. Everyone starts discerning in prayer. What is God up to? We know he's calling us to plant. What does this look like? Where is he calling us?
And.
I see some new faces. I think many of you guys don't know our story.
Me and Ebony grew up in this area.
In 2012, we moved to San Diego. I pastored for eight years prior to moving to San Diego in 2012, and then began the journey of joining forces with Restored and seeing the first church turn into multiple churches. Amazing. God's story.
And Fast forward to 2016. We know God's calling us to plant again. And now it's like identifying where.
This was my last. This was the last place I wanted to go.
Like, really?
I had my mindset internationally. God said no.
Then I thought, okay, just strategically, just strategically, if it's going to be in the States, it's got to be one of a few cities.
God's like, that's not what I'm doing.
You can go there if you want, but that's not what I'm doing.
And God made it abundantly clear, like, abundantly clear. He was calling us to come back here.
And my first reaction, if I'm honest, three words, Please, God knows.
And then things changed.
The more we prayed, the more he began to share his heart and his desires and the things that he wants to do.
And as he did that, it began to affect my heart. This is primarily me, not so much her, although she was part of, you know, a little bit of the reluctance. But at the same time, she was way ahead of me in this.
That's my way of saying my wife is more mature than me. Okay.
But I just remember. I remember, guys, before moving here, before we're in that discerning season with the other pastors and other leaders, and God started to really change my heart.
He began to show me, even though it wasn't what I first thought I wanted to.
It wasn't a curse, it was actually a blessing. It wasn't a problem.
It was a gift that he was giving. Not just other people, but us as well. God was doing something that I didn't see at the time, that I can look back now and go, I'm so glad we're here.
So you might hear me say, like, duh, I didn't want to be here. Da, da, da, da, no, no, no. Like, I was ignorant to the goodness and the glory of God in ways that he wanted to demonstrate and reveal that not just to a congregation that he was bringing to Himself, but to me and my household too.
What at first wasn't something that I wanted. I can look back and go, holy smokes, what a gift.
Jesus says that singleness is a gift.
The apostle Paul says the same thing.
Can you guys throw up? First Corinthians, chapter 7, starting in verse 32. Great.
He says, I want you to be without concerns. He says, the unmarried. Listen to what he says. The unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But the married man is concerned about the things of the world and how he may please his wife.
And his interests are divided.
The unmarried woman, or virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But the married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
This is what Paul says. I'm saying this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is proper and so that you may be devoted to the Lord without distraction. Skip down to verse 38.
So then he who. Listen to this. He who marries his fiance does well. Everybody say, does well.
Good thing. Thumbs up, way to go. But he who does not marry will do what?
Verse 39. A wife is bound as long as her husband is living, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to anyone she wants, only in the Lord. So Christian wedding, verse 40. But she is what?
Happier if she remains as she is, unmarried. In my opinion. And this is what Paul says. And I think that I also have the spirit of God.
Paul's a single guy.
He's like.
I got like. There's different opinions. I think Paul's being cheeky here. I think he's like.
And I have the spirit of God too, guys.
The Bible says that singleness is a gift.
That's what it says.
What's the gift.
Undivided devotion to Christ.
It doesn't mean that you giving devotion to other things is bad.
You do well, cool. Great.
Undivided devotion to Christ.
Paul goes as far as to say it's better.
You ever been to a Laker game?
Dorian has no. Rustler has.
God bless you, my friend.
If you've ever been to a Laker game or any, like, professional. Just think professional sports. You ever been to a professional sports game? You'll know what I'm talking about. There's something about being in the stadium. You know, when you're, like, walking from the parking lot into the stadium, you can kind of feel like, oh, this is. Even if you're not into sports, you're like, this is cool. Like, this is cool. I can smell the food. I can see all the people. There's lights, there's action, there's all this stuff, right?
I remember when I was in college, some friends of mine, good friends of mine, I'm still pretty bitter that I wasn't included on this trip, but I'm in college. My friends, they win second row tickets to the Lakers, like, free of charge. They win this, like, thing.
They get to go to this game, and they're texting me. This is like when you had to push the button. You had to push four, like, four times to get to the letter you wanted. When you're texting, it's not like iPhones, but they're texting me while they're at the Laker game. And like, dude, this is incredible. We're so close. Holy smokes. They're stoked. They're enjoying it, right?
And then halftime comes. They're loving the game.
And then one of them calls me, and I'm like, why is he calling me? He's enjoying the game. He goes, dude, you will not believe what just happened.
He goes, this guy walked up to us, said, hey, I've gotta go. Do you want my tickets?
And he's like. He's like. My first thought was like, why would I want your tickets? I'm in the second row, bro.
Guy hands him his floor seats, like, courtside.
So they watched the first half of the game from the second row. Like, if you're not familiar with the way it works is you have courtside, which is on the floor.
Then you have, like, an aisle of people can walk through. Then you have the first row seats and the second row seats. They're in the second row, okay? Guy hands them his tickets, goes, you can have the second half. I gotta go.
So they call me. They go down there. I'm watching the game. I can see them. They're doing the thing where they're, like, waving and I can see them, and they're on the court and they're just stoked. Like, they're out of their minds. And I remember talking to them afterwards, like. And I was like, dude, what was that like? And they were like, dude, it was crazy. We had the best seats. It was amazing. And they were like. And the words that came out of his mouth were like, these seats were good.
Those seats were better.
As good and amazing as these seats are, those seats are better.
If you're single in the room or you're single and you can hear me, I know sometimes it can feel like you're, like, the outsider.
Especially in Temecula, so many young families, right? You feel like you're kind of the outsider. Like, the game, like it's going on inside the stadium and you kind of peeking in, whatever. You're on the outside looking in. But hear me, according to God's word, you're not an outsider.
According to God's word, you have some of the best seats in the house.
Paul, he's saying, you know, those seats in the marriage section, those are good seats.
But those seats in the single section, they're even better.
Do you believe him?
I know I'm talking to primarily married folks. Actually, no, I'm not. I'd say it's probably 60, 40 in this room, married versus unmarried.
Here's my theory as to why we struggle to believe him.
I think it's because at times we struggle to believe that God is as glorious as he claims to be, that he's as all satisfying as he claims to be, that his glory and his goodness and his grace and his presence as more real than a spouse.
You with me?
So whether you are single by choice or not, you need to hear me say marriage is not the pinnacle of the Christian life according to Jesus.
So unmarrieds in the room just want to affirm you you are in a good place.
If marriage is in your future, yes, awesome. If it's not, yes, awesome.
Those seats are really good.
These seats are better.
And I just want to say this, too.
This church would suffer greatly if the unmarrieds who are members of this church were not here.
Like, it would not be the same.
Jesus endorses celibacy, singleness. Okay, I'm gonna call the band up. I'll close with this prayer team. Get ready. You don't have to come up yet, but get ready.
So what's the point.
I want to read you a quote.
I read this quote and it stopped me dead in my tracks. It is? Yes. It's by this guy Douglas. Sean o'. Donnell.
This is what he says.
Hear me. He says this quote, jesus point is grander than esteem and embrace the gift of singleness.
His point is this.
The kingdom of heaven is so important that it should seem perfectly normal if someone would want to give up marriage for it. You catch that?
I'm gonna say it again. Cause it's fire.
His point. He's saying, jesus point is grander than esteem and embrace the gift of singleness. His point is this. The kingdom of heaven is so important that it should seem perfectly normal if someone would wanna give up marriage for it.
He continues, the context here is so important.
Jesus teaches that you can't have too high a view of marriage.
It is so high that the disciples are taken aback by it.
But then he adds that however high your view of marriage is, your view of the kingdom ought to be far higher.
Listen to this. The church misses the point. When we make marriage the point, our first focus is always to be on the gospel.
It is not as though Jesus is against focusing on the family.
Listen to this. But he is against focusing on the family or marriage or work or money or house or land or anything else ahead of the kingdom.
Gospel first, everything else second.
That's his motto and that's his model.
That's how he lived.
He did. Oh, this is so good. He denied himself marriage and the pleasures of marriage, companionship, physical intimacy, children, for the spread of the kingdom of heaven on the earth.
He was a eunuch for the kingdom. And he calls those who can to do the same.
And he calls those who can't do the same to want the same.
To want to give everything for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Because you believe that it is the Christian's highest calling to seek first the kingdom of God. End quote.
Yes, 100%. Dude. This is fire. Some of you parents are uncomfortable right now. You're like, tom, shut up. I want grandkids. Stop it.
I want grandkids too. Okay?
Do you know what I want more than grandkids?
The kingdom of God. Like, that's what I want.
I want the kingdom of God for every person in this room. I want the kingdom of God for a whole valley. I want the kingdom of God for this whole nation, for this whole planet. Because guess what? Every other kingdom doesn't work.
Every other kingdom doesn't work. Every other kingdom reinforces. Hey, harden Your heart to the true and real kingdom.
Harden your heart to the kingdom you were made for. Get to the kingdom that you'll thrive in and embrace a foe phony lesser than kingdom where you actually won't be satisfied. The desires of your heart will go unmet.
Idols always let you down. It's only a matter of time. Am I anti grandkids? Absolutely not. I want them.
But I want the kingdom of God more.
And listen, I don't always want the kingdom of God more.
Sometimes I just want to ski.
Sometimes I just want to fish.
Sometimes I just want to chill. Sometimes I don't want the warfare associated with pastoring and leading. It sucks.
But do you know what I want more than that?
I want the kingdom.
Jesus lived and he bled and he died and he rose for the kingdom so the kingdom of God could be embraced by you and by me and not resisted by us. And we do it all the time, in all sorts of ways. I'm not throwing stones at anybody in the room. We all fall short. No shame.
The point of this passage is if we make marriage or singleness or sex or gender the point, we've actually missed the point.
The point is the kingdom of God.
It's the point of your life. It's literally the point of your life. It's the purpose of your life.
All the other stuff, all of it is auxiliary, supplemental, all of it. But so oftentimes we flip that we treat the kingdom like it's supplemental.
When we do that, we reject the king.
My question to you, simply same question I've been asking myself all week and battling feeling shame about it.
But the gospel frees me from shame. It can free you from shame too. But the question is this. Are you living for his kingdom?
Are you living for his kingdom?
Are you living for his kingdom in your marriage?
Is it about what you get or is it about what he gets?
Are you living for the kingdom in your singleness?
About how you feel or about how he feels?
Are you living for his kingdom and your sexuality and the ways that you use your body? Some of you, you're not glorifying God with your body.
You can.
He died to set you free, to be able to do that. It's beautiful. It's good. Everybody in this room at times has been guilty of not glorifying God with their body. So you're in good company.
Are you living for his kingdom and your gender?
Again, a lot of opinions on what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman.
So maybe you're Here. And if you're honest, you've missed the point.
I've been thinking about my marriage. In a way, I missed the point. I've been thinking about my singleness. In a way, I missed the point.
My job, I missed the point. My parenting, I missed the point.
My responsibilities, my relationships. Maybe you're here. And if you're honest, you've missed the point. Can I just tell you something, man? There's so much grace for you.
It's not a kingdom of religion.
It's not a kingdom of try harder, do better.
It's a kingdom of the blood of Christ making you clean.
It's a kingdom of grace and of mercy and of forgiveness and of invitation. Come with me.
I got something for you. Come with me.
It's gonna require that you trust him. It's gonna require that you lay some things down that you really think are important. It might even require God tells you something you don't want to do.
Go back to Temecula. No. God, no. Oh, you know what you're doing. This is great. Thank you.
What is it for you?
There's stuff, man. There's stuff that he has for you that's off the charts spectacular.
And his invitation is.
Come, have it.
Come on.
Come on.
Embrace my kingdom.
It's what's best for you.
So maybe you're here and you just need grace, man. You just need forgiveness. Because you know you've missed the point in these areas. Maybe the last two years, you've been on fire. In the last few months, you've been like, nope, there's grace for you. There's forgiveness. Come to him. Receive his mercy. Receive his forgiveness. Receive his grace. He bled. He died. He rose.
Embrace it. He wants to be your king.
That's his agenda.
And it's when he's your king that you experience the satisfaction, the deep. The deep satisfaction that your soul is hungry for.
Stand with me if you're able. I want to pray for us.
Prayer team. Would you. Would you make your way to the front so people can see you?
Thank you so much.
I'm going to pray over you, and then I'm going to release you to receive prayer and praise God. Okay, let's pray.
Simple prayer, Father. Soften our hearts.
Soften my heart.
Not like worldly weakness. Soften my heart.
Kingdom strength. Soften my heart.
Real strength. Soften my heart.
I pray for my brothers and my sisters in this space and anybody that can hear my voice. I pray, Father, that you would soften our hearts, that we might be moldable in your hands for your kingdom, for your kingdom.
I can't imagine. I just. I want the stories.
I want the celebrations 20 years from now of a small group of people that were really committed to having soft hearts and saying yes to your kingdom and not in the flashy ways that you get credit for, in the ways that only the eyes of heaven see.
The things that are going to last for eternity.
Oh, Jesus, have your way among us. I pray.
Amen.
We have plenty of time. We're going to take the next 15, 18 minutes and we're just going to give you an opportunity to respond, respond to God's word for you. If you want to receive prayer, you can come up at any time. There's trusted men and women who would love to put pray for you.
We're going to fill the room with praise, soften your heart, see what God does. Okay? I love you guys very much.
