Colossians: Singleness Advice from Paul
Pastor Fletcher preaches about Christian singleness from 1 Corinthians 7:8 & 17. Discussion points: Neither marriage nor singleness can fully satisfy the longings of our hearts, singleness points toward our future in heaven when we are united with Christ, single people need to be as valuable and integrated into church life as married people.
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Scripture reader: [1 Corinthians 7:8 & 17] To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him into which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: All right, good morning. My name is Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor here at the church. It's a joy to have you this morning. And, yeah, we're, we're coming around the corner, about to finish our series in Colossians, even though we just read a verse from or two verses from 1 Corinthians, and I'll explain why that is. The end of Colossians 3. So what we are doing right now, we've been going through Colossians all summer long, and, we actually finished Colossians like 3 weeks ago with the last passage in Colossians.
But one thing we did is we skipped this little section on family relationships. He has this little section where he does a lightning round where he goes through, well, husbands, treat your wives this way, wives, treat your husbands this way, servants, mothers, fathers, parents, kids, all these different people. He's giving them explicit teaching. And one thing that I want to point out that he does is when he writes this letter, this letter is meant to be read to entire churches. And when. The church reads the letter, it's not like he sends people out of the room for the section that's addressed to other people. So if you are not a parent, and he's not like, alright, if you're not a parent, get out of here. We're gonna have a section for parents. No, the instructions to individuals is written to the entire church. So it's really beneficial that all of us are here to hear God's instructions for what might not even be our life.
And so today, one topic that he does not cover in Colossians 3, and really I think largely that is because he is doing lightning round through these different these different groups. He only gives each one maybe half a verse or a verse each time. And so he just skips over the singles in the room. You guys, you singles, you ever feel skipped over in the room at church? It's not the first time. Paul, Paul did it himself, but there are other places where Paul talks about. Singles. And so that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to take a moment for us to pause and talk about singles.
And one thing that I realized as I was preparing the sermon is that I have about a dozen sermons on marriage, and this is my first sermon that I've preached here on singleness. And so that's kind of a public repentance of saying, hey, I should do better, like thinking through singleness and the importance of singleness and the practicalities of the scripture, what it teaches about singleness. As we cover singleness, everyone in the room needs to listen because we are called to be a body together, a family together.
And when we talk about singleness, we're talking about a really big category, and I recognize that because not all singles are the same. I'm talking about a huge group of people with wildly different stories. Some of you are 24 years old and you're dating. Everything looks happy, but some of you are 34 and you desperately want to be married. Some aren't sure that, some singles aren't sure that they want marriage. Others have expected to be married by now and carry a real grief about that. Some have been married and did not choose for their marriage to end. Some may have buried a spouse, and which is a reality, again, as I teach on singleness, you might not be single today, but the reality is that, and I know this is a grim reality that. Most couples don't die on the same day, and the reality is that you might be single again, even if Lord willing, you live for the entire length of your spouse's life, the day could come again. Some may remain single for the rest of life. There's just, some might be single just for one more week. There isn't one experience called singleness.
The most notable text in scripture where Paul dives into singleness is 1 Corinthians chapter 7. But Jesus also has teaching on singleness, and so there's plenty of resources to draw from. The basic premise is this, OK? I'm gonna lay out my basic argument for singleness, and then we're gonna walk through some of the practical things that are captured here. The basic argument is this both marriage and singleness are good. I know sometimes it doesn't feel like that, but both marriage and singleness are good, especially it doesn't feel like that in the church where we highlight the goodness of marriage so often.
But neither marriage nor singleness can bear the weight of our deepest longings. Neither marriage nor singleness can bear the weight of our deepest longings. So they're both good, but neither can bear the weight. Both marriage and singleness point toward an ultimate reality that Christ can only truly satisfy the longings of our heart. And so in the church, both married and singles find family that they will truly be embraced by. And so that's the basic premise of where we're going. We're gonna dive in.
I have a few resources that I'll share about singleness. I have 3 books that I'll suggest. the first is Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy. They have a whole chapter on singleness, Kathy Keller, sorry, first name basis with the Kellers. They have a whole chapter on singleness. I actually think it's a fantastic chapter written on singleness. The second is Seven Myths About Singleness by Sam Alberry, and the third is The Meaning of Singleness by Danielle Treweek, I believe that's how you pronounce it. She's an Australian Anglican priest who has written prolifically on this. That last one is like a little bit more academic. The, the first two are pretty, popular level. The last one is practical, but it's also pre-academic. Like I have to read it next to a, a dictionary, you know, like Kindle. I'm like pressing the button and like what's that word mean? And I'm fairly educated, so it's still, it's still kind of tough.
But the Christian view on singleness, one thing that I've learned this week, I've learned a lot this week as I've dove into this, text more than I do most weeks. I got married when I was really young. I was 24 years old when I got married most. At this point, my life is starting to reach towards like, hey, I've been married almost as long as I was single, and when I was single, I was a kid for a lot of it. I had a very brief singleness experience, but I remember there were aspects of being single that were really difficult when I was single, even just in my early twenties. And so this has been a really good learning, opportunity for me to like maybe step into some shoes that I don't normally step into.
And the first thing that I wanna point out that I've learned this week is that the Christian view of singleness is unique. The Christian view of singleness is quite unique, historically and also in modern times, quite unique. Historically, there's this Duke theologian named Stanley Hauerwas, and he has this thing to say about singles. He says that Christianity was the very first religion that held up. Adult singlehood as a viable way of life. And what he says is one clear difference between Christianity and Judaism and other traditional religions is the former's entertainment of the idea of singleness as the paradigm way of life for its followers.
As I mentioned last week, marriage in ancient society was quite different than it is in today's society. In ancient society, you, you rarely married for love, although that was also always a bonus if you did marry for love. Instead, you usually married to get heirs for financial reasons, for family reasons. Ancient societies viewed having children as the primary way that you leave a legacy and that your family has a future. And so here comes Christianity, and with this really unique view in the ancient world. Christianity says that you no longer leave a legacy through your physical children, but through, but you can leave a legacy through your spiritual children. That you, that the family of God no longer is propagated through just physical birth but through spiritual birth.
And so therefore with Christianity comes along this we have this, this religion that values singleness. And not only do we value it, but literally we worship a man who was single his entire life. We don't look at marriage anymore as something that might complete us, as if we were incomplete before we were married, but rather we know that the Messiah that we worship was the most complete human being who ever walked the face of the earth and yet was never married. And so as Christians, we approach this topic of marriage from a unique standpoint historically. And some of our greatest heroes of the faith, Paul himself, as he wrote these letters, as he's starting churches, as he's giving instruction to fathers, as he's giving instruction to pastors, as he's starting all of these different churches, is a single man.
And so our view of singleness is unique from the ancient world, but even in the modern world, it's unique. Now I know some of y'all are getting, the, that side eye from Aunt Becky at Thanksgiving, you know, like if you've made it to your 30s and you're not married yet, you're, you're starting to get some looks from, some of your grandparents, you know, Granny's saying awkward things that because she doesn't care anymore, you know, she's just lost all of her cares and she's saying whatever comes to her mind, and that's, that's where we're at. I know that it's awkward for some of us, especially those of us who may have grown up in the South or the Midwest. There's a huge societal pressure on, people to get married, and we might feel some of that.
But if you're maybe from around here or maybe you've just let Boston, the Camberville area into the bloodstream, you know, you're not looking to get married before your mid-thirties, OK? That's, that's the way we do it here. Singleness is almost celebrated in our society. Our culture values independence above all things, and so. Our view though, it still is unique because here's how it's different than the way that the world views singleness, which kind of views singleness as like freedom, but the Christian view is a little bit different because for Christians we believe that sex is reserved for marriage and so therefore this type of singleness that also embraces celibacy, super weird to our neighbors. Like if you ever have that conversation with a neighbor, you know that it's weird.
Our society is a hookup culture. And that it does not, it is not a society that celebrates singleness, but our society, it, it like loves the idea of being single and independent, but it doesn't love this idea of celibacy. That is an old truth. That's something that's true even in more traditional societies.
Also, like where I grew up, I grew up in the deep South, in one of the most southern places on the planet, in the Mississippi Delta, also one of the most impoverished places on the planet, and one of the places with the highest teenage pregnancy rate on the planet. And for some reason, the, the form of teaching of sex education that they chose in Mississippi when I was growing up was abstinence. I don't think that it was working necessarily, because the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the country, but that was what we went into schools and taught.
And when I was in college, I was actually recruited to teach the abstinence program to a group of 6th graders. So I walked into the school and I walked into the school and I almost everybody in the school was impoverished. It, it's a, it's a rough place and I'm giving my spiel, I'm talking about it and I'm, I'm sharing with the kids and trying to be as engaging as I can and, one of the kids about halfway through my talk raised his hand and was like, hold up, let me get this right. You got a girlfriend? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I, I have a girl. At that point, I was dating someone in college and, and I was like, yeah, yeah, and he said, And y'all ain't having sex. And I was like, no, we've, we've chosen to wait until we're married. And he didn't raise his hand. The last time he said, she's getting it from somewhere else. The expectation, I lost control, full control of the class at that moment. It just, it was over. I asked the teacher to leave. I was like, I'm gonna speak some words of the gospel here. We're gonna be preaching in the public school system now. The teacher was like, I'll just stay here and let you do that.
Sex is expected when we're in our singleness. So the Christian view, unique historically unique in modern day society as well. We face mirror temptations in regard to singleness. The temptation is either to overvalue marriage and to devalue singleness, which is kind of the default and the churches, or the temptation is to overvalue singleness and to devalue marriage.
But the reality is that there's a third way. The Christian view says that both marriage and singleness are good. And I'm not saying like good, like singleness is good. Until you get married, I'm saying it's just good. Like it can be for some people. It is good, marriage is good, but neither are ultimate.
So let's get to our text. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul says this, to the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. And later he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. The Christian position is that whether you're married or single, we're all called to be faithful in our current position. Wherever you are, you're called to be faithful there. This doesn't mean that you cannot desire or seek out marriage if you are single, but if you find yourself single, God has a purpose for you in that singleness.
Oftentimes singles in the church are treated as if they're merely not yet married. The assumption of the church is that you will get married, and, but friends, there is no promise of marriage, nor is marriage a higher calling, so to speak, than singleness. Singleness is not a barrier to purpose. Singleness is not exclusive to being useful for the kingdom. Singleness is not a barrier to happiness. Singleness is not merely a holding pattern. You don't have to change your marital status to be complete.
And so the question for us should not be, when I preach this sermon, I can't, I can't be preaching this sermon as if what I have to say is just, here's how you survive being single until you can Lord willing, get married one day. we've heard too many sermons like that, I do believe. I think that the purpose of this sermon is not how do you survive singleness, but really what is the purpose of singleness. And why is it something that we should all value for people? Danny Treweek, this Anglican Australian, she says that, she argues that singleness isn't merely an incomplete version of marriage, but rather singleness is not, is or is it a temporary condition that Christians find themselves in before real life begins. Rather, she says that single Christians can offer the church a foretaste of what we will all enjoy in the kingdom to come.
You see, Jesus teaches that marriage is not permanent. No marriage between two humans will last into eternity. And so the reality is that while marriage is a picture of the kingdom and that it is a vision of what we will experience in heaven. When we're in heaven, we will experience it in full. Marriage is a picture of the intimate relationship that we will have with God Himself when we get to heaven or to the new heavens and the new earth. But for you to be married in the new heavens and the new earth, that would be to take the picture and to be focusing on the picture instead of what it's pointing toward. Marriage is meant to point you towards something that is so much more satisfying, so much more, amazing, great, which is this relationship that we will enjoy with God. It would be like taking a picture of the Grand Canyon to the Grand Canyon, and then walking around and looking at the picture of the Grand Canyon the entire time. The purposefulness of marriage is gone once you're in heaven cause you have the real thing.
And so, we will all again be somewhat single. Just to bring receipts for that, Matthew chapter 22 verse 30, Jesus says, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And so single people have an opportunity to offer the church a foretaste of this future reality. Now I'm gonna give this quote from Dr Treweek here, and she's, there's some words that are tough, but we'll make it. She says this, the unmarried form of life is not a foreshadow of eternity, but an actual, albeit partial, foretaste of it. Because singles are even now, because singles are even now brother or sister and not husband or wife, to all others within the church, their form of life is a literal proleptic participation in the inhuman relational bounds of siblinghood that will actually be continued into eternity.
And so what she's saying is that marriage is a picture of what we will experience in heaven, but what singleness is, is it's just a different angle of the same picture. We preach that marriage is this wonderful thing that reflects our, our relationship with God, but singleness is also a wonderful thing that will reflect the reality that we all experience in the new heavens and earth when we are brothers and sisters with one another. And so we have an opportunity to reflect that both single people and married people need to learn to rest in and rejoice in our relationship slash marriage with Jesus. Because these are the things that will last into eternity. That's where we're all heading.
Christians have the internal resources to be satisfied as a single person or a married person, because we know that our union with Jesus is actually the only thing that can and will fulfill our ultimate longings. All our desires for relational intimacy in this life actually point forward toward the intimacy that we will enjoy with God and eternity.
Now, I'm not trying to downplay the reality that is like a difficulty with singleness. The reality, I'm not trying to say, well, look, you get to, you have this ultimate purpose, so therefore you shouldn't regret the fact that you're in it. Many of us struggle, especially with loneliness. I think that that's a real issue. I'm not trying to downplay the difficulties of loneliness that may come with singleness, but we do have a God who loves us. Who was with us in the lonely moments, and he surrounded us with church family. And so more than anything, I'm trying to cast a vision for what it looks like to live in a family where all people are valued and loved. Where married welcome singles into their lives and vice versa. Singles welcome married into their life.
Church, do we value singleness and singles? I hope that the answer is yes, but I think that there are ways that we can improve. And I think when you look at lowercase c, you know, or maybe uppercase C, church, the church universal, maybe the reality is not enough, not enough. And so here's some questions that we can ask ourselves as a church family. Are singles genuinely woven into family life? Are they invited into homes? Are they expected to contribute to the church as full members? Do we make space for singles to be aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, and friends to the children in our congregation? Friends, I can't tell you how much my kids and my family have benefited from welcoming single people into our lives. Are our community groups implicitly structured around couples and families? Do our social events assume that everyone goes home to a spouse? Do we treat marriage as the primary marker of adult maturity?
These are, are tough questions, and I hope that you can check off some of these and be like, I think we do a good job with that. But church, it's a call. We are family. And that we have to be family. We're not a collection of families, but we are family. We are brothers and sisters.
In Mark chapter 3, Jesus is hanging out with his disciples and then his mom and his brothers show up and they're like, hey Jesus, rabbi, hey, your mom and your brothers are here, and Jesus in typical Jesus fashion says, Where? I don't, I'm surrounded by brothers and sisters, and they're probably like, come on Jesus, like. You know what I'm trying to say. And he's like, yep, I got an important thing to teach here, that you are my real brothers and sisters. Mark 3:35, for whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.
And so in the church, we can have this vision for marriage, but we can also have this vision for singleness that's profound. To my single brothers and sisters, don't act as if your life is on hold. You have a church family, and we need you here. Love people, serve people, open your home, disciple others, become a spiritual mother or father, form deep friendships that will last a lifetime. To my married brothers and sisters, open your family.
My family's been so blessed. I'll just briefly tell you about my friend Luke, who was single until he was about 34, I believe. And so that's not that old, I recognize, but for the 10 years that we knew him in Boston, he was single, and we would invite him to. To park his VW bus that he had a bed in, in our driveway and come use our bathroom, you know, could have opened up our home more. We did invite him to use the bedroom, also, the spare bedroom, but he had a VW bus that he liked to sleep in. but he was at our house all the time as a true brother to me. So many stories that have been just a blessing.
Church, we have to be family. Welcoming each other into our homes, considering people around the holidays. And I'm really trying to push, as you can tell throughout this whole sermon, I'm really trying to push back on this idea that single people can be considered as lesser. I really want a culture in our church where that is not the case. I want to have a culture where single people thrive, where we welcome ourselves to single people. I think it's great.
At the same time, I recognize that some of you are like, that's nice, pastor, I want to get married, how about a little bit of teaching there? What do I do? How do I? How do I, what do I do if I want to get married? And so I'm just gonna end this sermon, with a few words of advice maybe for those who are single, if you want to be married. Although, as I said, you don't have to desire such a thing. And so four principles for those who might want to get married, OK? And here we go.
Number 1: Marry in the Lord. Marry in the Lord. The reality is that the Bible assumes Christians will marry each other. Back to our text in First Corinthians, this is what he says, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord. And so this is explicitly saying that Christians should be marrying Christians. And this is assumed throughout all of the scriptures that Christians are going to be marrying one another. But it's also just a practical thing.
I'll make a practical argument for this. If you are a Christian, you believe that marriage is about so much more than loving someone else. It is this picture of this eternal reality that you will enjoy with Christ in heaven. And if you are marrying someone who does not even believe the same thing, that marriage is, believing that marriage is something completely different than what you believe it is, I don't see how that makes sense. Practically, you're entering into two different contracts at the same time. You're doing something very different from one another. Your priorities are going to be different throughout your life. What happens when you want to do something crazy, like you give a lot of money away or something like that? What, what happens when you have a different value of how you spend your weekends? And friends, your deepest spiritual life will be a mystery to the person who is most deeply intimate in your life. It just logically doesn't make sense.
Now if you, if you find yourself married to someone who isn't a Christian. The Bible is really clear that it can still be a good thing, and that you should be faithful as long as they will stay with you. How many stories have been written about people who've come to know the Lord through a significant other? And the Bible recognizes that it's reality. It, it, he, the scripture writers encourage women to stay with their unbelieving husbands as long as he'll stay with them. And so I'm not trying to say, hey, get out of it, but I am trying to say, if you're dating, marry in the Lord, date for that purpose. If you are already married to someone, just love them like Jesus loves the church. I'm sure that you have a good reason to be married to them. Remain faithful and let them be won over. OK.
Second, practical point here that I, I wanna teach on is don't chase perfection. Don't chase perfection. I think dating is harder today than it was when I was dating. That's almost comical. Like you should just laugh because of course it is. It is so much harder than when I was dating. When I was dating, if you met someone online, you were a weirdo. Sorry, I hope that, like, that's just how it was. I, my wife and I have been married for over 15 years. Match.com was a thing, but it was only for people that played Dungeons and Dragons. It, which we, lovely people. But we, it's so much harder now. Now it's like, you know, the old phrase that they would, I would say to people and other people would say to me, is there, oh, there's plenty of fish in the sea. And now you're like, yeah, I got all of them right here, and they're, I'm swiping the wrong way on every one.
You have so many options. It can feel like finding a needle in a haystack when you're chasing perfection. You know, the old TikTok from a few years ago. I'm looking for a man in finance. 6'5", blue eyes, trust fund, right? I, I skipped that part. I asked Chat GPT how many people are 6'5" in finance with a trust fund with blue eyes, and it is 1 in 37 million men. Keep on swiping. So much harder.
Friends, I'm gonna say something, and hopefully this is freeing. Forget about finding your soul mate. Forget about finding your soul mate. I don't think that God necessarily makes people in pairs. Now look, I love my wife. But, I don't think that there is just one in the sense that. There is just one. Well, I'm digging myself in a hole, but hang with me. Hang with me, OK? I think that the Lord gives us choice in who we marry. And that when Megan and I married one another, we were perfect for one another in that we needed someone just as rough as the other person to rub off all those rough edges in our personalities and our souls. And I think that the longer that we are married, the more we become soulmates. I think that 15 years in, our souls are interwoven. And if something were to happen to her, a part of me would die forever. That wasn't there when we first got married. It takes time for the interweaving of souls. And so you, when you're looking for someone. You don't chase perfection.
Here's what you look for, three, you look for character. You look for character. Here's the deal, when you are committing your life to someone, you want to make sure that that person is on an upward trajectory. You want to make sure that that person is becoming a better person because the reality is, I'm not the same person I was 15 years ago. Praise the Lord for that. And neither is my wife. Praise the Lord for that. I think we're both better. I think we're both better. And so when you're marrying someone, when you're considering dating someone, what are you looking for? You're looking. Number one thing, for a heart. That is willing to admit. They were wrong and to do better. You're willing to look for someone who's repentant, that's the church word that I'm looking for. Who will grow? Who will change?
The day I remember the day I decided to ask Megan, Megan to be my wife, we were sitting in my 2005 Honda Civic. it was a real chick magnet,. And. She Confessed to a sin. And I said, that's sexy. But we don't do that because we're Christians, and we're not married. So, I'm gonna, but this seems right. You seem like the type of person that is becoming a better person. You're looking for you're looking for friendship. Marriage is 90% friendship and 10% romance. You can't forget that 10% of romance. I think it's really important that you have the romance in there, but 90% of the time, Megan and I are just best friends. And I'm so thankful for that. And so you look for someone that you wanna hang out with, that you want to just enjoy boring time with.
The fourth thing to highlight here before we move on is protect your discernment. Don't let physical intimacy outrun commitment. When you engage physically with another person, it biologically does something in your brain and bonds you to that person. It's meant to be that way. It is meant to be that way, sex and marriage. It bonds you together and it helps. It's like a, a, it, it just helps everything to run better. God designed it that way, but when you get too physical in a relationship that is not bound by marriage, it actually influences your discernment pro process and makes it so much harder to break up if it's not the right fit.
And so if you want to be able to truly discern, you need to put some real safety rails on the physical intimacy part. Christians don't think that you have to have sex or live together to know if you're compatible. And there's lots of statistics that show that cohabitation doesn't necessarily predict marital success.
And so with all this being said, I just want to, to go back, I know that today's been, usually I like to just take a text and work through the point of the text, but today I, I felt like, you know, it's been pastoring this church for 8 years, haven't preached a sermon on singleness. This is the most clear text, and we, we just need to go here, for this week. But I, I just wanna take a moment to encourage you that if you find yourself looking for more intimacy in your marriage or in your lack of marriage. That your longing for intimacy is actually a deeper longing, it's got a deeper longing connected to it. And it's actually a longing for an intimacy with the one who created you, and the one who has come to redeem you and to restore you.
And so I just wanna point your hearts heavenward and tell you that your deepest longings cannot be satisfied by your spouse or your potential spouse. But only by the greater spouse, who is in heaven. Who longs for us to be with him. I'm gonna take a moment before we shift to communion, we're gonna have a time where we can confess some things together, corporately as a church, and receive affirmation. So if you would gather your heart into prayer as we put this prayer on the screen.
Father, you have called us into one family through your Son. Yet we confess that we often seek our own identity, security, and significance in other places. We confess that we have looked to marriage, romance, children, or independence to bear the weight of hope that only Christ can carry. Forgive us for the ways we have failed to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Forgive us, oh God, for building our lives around ourselves instead of opening our homes, our tables, and our hearts to your family. Teach us, Christ, to treasure you above every earthly gift, and teach us to receive one another with the same love with which you have received us. Amen.
Hear these words from the apostle Paul in Romans 8. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba, Father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
In Christ, your deepest longing is not found in your marital status, but in your adoption into Christ's family. Whether married or single, widowed or divorced, young or old, all who trust in Jesus are fully loved, fully accepted and fully welcomed as sons and daughters of the Father. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, your sins are forgiven, your place in God's family is secure, and nothing can separate you from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God.
Each week we take a moment to celebrate a communion meal, which is a reminder of the way that of the of the wedding feast of the Lamb, actually. The fact that one day we will celebrate a wedding in heaven, where we are bound to our God once again, and there will be a feast beyond all of our wildest imaginations. And each week until then, we take kind of a foretaste of that. We're reminded of what Christ has done for us, that his body was broken for us, that his blood was shed for us. And we do these physical reminders of the bread representing the body and the juice or the wine representing the blood, so that we can be reminded in a physical tangible way. Something that we can taste, something that we can smell of what Christ has done for us. And so each week we have an opportunity to repent again, to go to the Lord, and to be made new, to be reminded of what he's done for us. And so if you're a Christian here today, I encourage you to come and receive over the next song. When we invite us to stand. As we prepare. Pray with me.
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you love us so satisfyingly, that you have sought out our souls, and you are pursuing us even now. And God, I pray for anyone who feels like they're being pursued by God, that they see this message of Christianity and say that's different, and it's good. Would you come after them today? Would they receive Christ as their savior? Would they be moved and changed? Would they trust in you? God, we pray for fresh faith in this room. We pray that our lives would reflect the kingdom to come, that you would make our church on earth in Somerville look like it will in heaven. That we will be brothers and sisters, father and mothers, that we will love one another. We ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.