All the Single Ladies (and men)

This morning I went to Hillsong church again and was so blessed and encouraged by the sermon, I just had to share it. There was a guest speaker today named Mark Gundor who is doing a series this week called “Laughing your way through marriage”. He presents biblical truth about marriage in a comedic way, and from what we saw today, it’s going to be hilarious. His sermon today though was for all the single people, so I was all ears.

He opened with “It’s great to be single” and he read Romans 12:2 which says, “Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what the will of God is for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” I don’t want to recount the whole sermon, but I just want to recap some of his great points, and I hope that wherever you are in the marriage process, whether single, dating, or even married, this can be encouraging to you.

1- The dating process is about discovering character.

-You want someone you can do life with so you need to look at how they act, but also how they react, (to things like stress, pressure, etc.); “You date the act, but you marry the react”.

-Look at everything when you are dating them- their family, their relationship with the Lord, if they give money joyfully, etc. 

2- When it comes to marriage, the Bible says “find”.

-It’s all about finding and being found, not divine intervention. There isn’t a place in the Bible where God told someone to specifically marry another person. The angel told Joseph to marry Mary, but they were already engaged. Hosea was told to marry a prostitute, but not which one specifically. With Ruth and Boaz, Naomi made sure that Ruth was found. 

3- “Marriage was never designed to make you happy”.

-As Christians, we are born again so we should be happy anyway. Other people cannot make us happy, especially if they aren’t happy to begin with. Therefore, we should marry someone with faith and character. 

4- When dating, don’t trust your feelings, use your brain.

-If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it. An example he gave was that some days his wife might think she is so blessed to be married to him. Other days she might feel like she is married to the spawn of Satan, and he would rather not hear how she is feeling on those days. Another example he gave was if you don’t feel like going to work, you can’t just call your boss and say “Hey, I don’t really feel like coming to work today”.

-Listen to friends and family when dating someone always

5- Don’t get physical when dating.

-Sex will make you stupid in dating.

-Girls are always clear headed before having sex in a relationship and guys are always stupid. After introducing it into a relationship, the roles reverse and guys become clear headed and girls get stupid and beg for guys to stick around. His comment to us, “let guys stay stupid”.

To wrap it up, he pointed out that God wants to kill the selfish me because we need to die to ourselves, and “the best way to kill that selfish in me is through marriage”. This was said with a lot of humor, but there was some truth to it. We have to die to ourselves and learn to let go and let God lead.

It was such a great message, and so encouraging. I loved the way the speaker used the Bible to back up his points and drive home his message. It made his sermon that much more real to me, and I appreciated it. Being the super single girl that I am, I am content to not just wait around but “find”, all in God’s timing.