A Name Better Than Sons and Daughters - John Piper

Let's pray together.

Father, I pray that the worldview

that tries to fit biblical pieces in,

but is a worldview shaped by

unbiblical assumptions, would be changed.

So that, marriage and singleness

are seen to be what they are

in the radical alteration of things

that Jesus has brought.

This is something that
I can't make happen.

But You, by Your Spirit,
through Your Word can.

And so I ask that You would perform it.

Not that a few little nuggets would be

fit in to a defective paradigm,

but rather that the whole system

would be blown away

and replaced by

a biblical understanding of all things.

So that the smaller things

like marriage and singleness

would fit in the way
that you have designed

in Christ Jesus in this brief

and temporary age in which we live

in preparation for eternity.

So, come and help me be
faithful to Your Word now,

and give ears to hear,
I pray, through Christ.

Amen.

I'm going to start and end

with my main point,

and in the middle,

I'll saturate you with many texts.

So that we have foundation under

the beginning by the time
we get to the end

and say it again.

My main point is that God promises

those of you who will remain single

blessings that are better than

the blessings of marriage and children.

And secondly, that He calls you

to display by your Christ-exalting devotion

in singleness,

to display truths about Christ

and His Kingdom

that shine more clearly through

singleness than through marriage.

Four of them.

Four truths that will shine

more clearly through a life

of devoted singleness in Christ

than through marriage.

Number one.

That the family of God grows

not by propogation through
sexual intercourse

but by regeneration through
faith in Christ.

Number two.

That relationships in Christ are more

permanent and more precious

than relationships in families.

And of course, it is a wonderful thing

if relationships in families can be both

relationships in families
and relationships in Christ,

but we know good and well

that is, for many of us,
not the case.

Number three.

That marriage is temporary,

and finally gives way to the

relationship to which it was
pointing all along,

namely, Christ and the church.

Just like a picture is not needed

when you are seeing face to face.

And fourth.

That faithfulness to Christ
defines the value of life,

and all other relationships
get their significance from that.

Faithfulness to Christ.

No family relationship is ultimate.

Relationship to Christ is ultimate.

That's my message.

That's my main point.

It has many layers.

And we now need to see Bible

underneath it,

and where all of that comes from.

And we'll start in the
middle of the Bible,

then we'll go back to
the front of the Bible,

then to the end of the Bible.

And we'll be all over the Bible
in this message,

because this message is a

Biblical theology of singleness.

Isaiah 56:4-5

"For thus says the Lord:

To the eunuchs...

(that is, those that cannot procreate

and thus devote themselves to some

unique service...

a king or somebody.)

Thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs
who keep My Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please Me
and hold fast My covenant.

I will give in My house
and within My walls

a monument and a name,

better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off."

So God promises to obedient eunuchs...

blessings that are better than that
of sons and daughters.

In other words,

God promises those of you
who remain single in Christ,

blessings that are better than
being married and having children.

Now, to see that more clearly,

we need to go back to the beginning

of the Bible and make our way forward.

In the created order,

before there was any sin in the world,

and in the covenental order

between Abraham and the coming of Christ,

God is primarily building
His covenant people

through the mechanism
of procreation.

In other words, being married

and having offspring was of
paramount importance.

Because God was focusing His
Kingdom building efforts

on an ethnic people - Israel - primarily.

So, to be married and to have children

was the preservation of a name
and inheritance

and of a covenant.

So you get in Genesis 1:28,

"Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth."

Genesis 2:18

This is all before the fall.

Genesis 2:18

Before woman was made,
God says to Adam,

"It is not good that man
should be alone.

I will make a helper
fit for him."

And then when God chose Abraham

as the beginning of that
covenant people of Israel.

He says to him,

go out and look at those stars.

So shall your offspring be.

And when Abraham found
that he couldn't have children

because Sarah was barren,

he went and got himself
a child by Hagar,

and said to the Lord,

"Oh, that Ishmael might
live before You."

And God said, "No."

"But Sarah your wife will
have a son."

In other words,

physical offspring really mattered.

And it would come
God's way and God's time.

And then He reaffirmed that

to Isaac in Genesis 26:3,

"I will be with you,
and I will bless you,

for to you and your offspring,
I will give all these lands,

and I will establish the oath
that I swore to Abraham,

your father."

And again, physical offspring
is seen to be crucial.

The reason these offspring
are so crucial,

is because they're the way the covenant

is preserved and extended

on into the future.

And because a name would be lost.

A name would be lost.

Do you remember how Saul
plead with David

not to wipe out his offspring,

so that his name would
not be erased is what he said

1 Samuel 24:21

"Swear to me therefore
by the Lord

that you will not cut off
my offspring after me,

and that you will not destroy my name

out of my father's house."

And some of you remember,

the whole institution,

the very complex,

institution of Levirate marriage.

Remember that?

Where a man is obliged to
marry his deceased brother's widow

so that the name of the brother
would not be lost in the tribes.

And the ordination was that the
first son born would get the name

of the dead brother.

Listen to Deuteronomy 25:6.

"And the first son whom she bears

shall succeed to the name

of his dead brother, that his

name might not be blotted out

of Israel."

Now that's an amazing provision,
is it not?

For the perpetuation of the name

through the physical seed of

this man's wife and his brother.

The most famous illustration of that is?

Boaz and Ruth.

Remember?

He marries Ruth in order that

Elimelech and Mahlon, her husband

would not lose their name
and their inheritance.

Listen to these words,

"Ruth, the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon

I have bought to be my wife

to perpetuate the name of the dead
in his inheritance,

that the name of the dead
may not be cut off

from among the brothers,
and from the gate of his native place.

You are witnesses to this day."

Ruth 4:10

So you can see how crucial marriage

and offspring were to the preservation

of name and inheritance
and covenant.

No wonder Jephthah's daughter

asked for two months

not to bewail her impending death,

but to bewail her virginity.

An amazing story.

"So she said to her father,

'let this thing be done for me,

let me alone for two months,

that I may go up and down
on the mountains,

weep for my virginity,

I and my companions.'

And so he said, 'Go.'"

That's the background for
Isaiah 56:5.

That's the background.

To cause your jaw to drop.

And for you to stand amazed at this.

Thus says the Lord:

The eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please Me,

hold fast to My covenant.

These unmarried, these childless ones.

I will give in My house
and within My walls

a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an
everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

Now where in the world
did that come from?

And where is that pointing?

It came from chapter 53.

Want to go there with me?

We read chapter 53, this
glorious prophecy of the Messiah

coming to be wounded
for our transgressions,

be crushed for our iniquities.

But do we ponder verse 10?

"It was the will of the Lord to crush Him."

This is what God did to
Christ on the cross.

Prophesied 700 years earlier.

"It was the will of the Lord to crush Him.

He has put Him to grief.

When His soul makes
an offering for guilt..."

There's our salvation.

"When His soul makes
an offering for guilt,

He shall see His offspring.

He shall prolong His days."

Indeed forever,
after the resurrection.

"The will of the Lord
shall prosper in His hand."

What does that mean?

He shall see His offspring?

Jesus was never married.

Don't you believe any
crazy movie that says He was.

The whole point is that
He wasn't married.

And that He was a dry tree

and a eunuch,

and a single man,

faithfully to the day
of His death.

That's the point.

This is another kind of offspring.

When Christ dies for sinners
like you and me,

who by grace put our faith in Him

and are united to Him,

we become His children.

And the children of God.

And a whole new way
of bringing offspring into being

takes precedence over the old way.

Which is why the next chapter,

54, begins like this:

"Sing, O barren one,

who did not bear,

break forth into singing

and cry aloud,

you who have not been in labor,

for the children of the desolate one

will be more than the children

of her who is married."

A whole new way of thinking.

A whole new way of growing
a family is coming into being

prophetically at this point,

and literally at the coming of Jesus.

So what does Jesus say
when He comes

to Nicodemus who cannot
change his worldview.

He just doesn't get it.

"Truly, truly, I say to you,

unless one is born again,

he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

I'm here to make children.

I'm here to build a family.

I'm here to give birth,

like you never knew.

And the Apostle Paul picks up

the strain in Galatians 3.

"Know then, that it is those who

are of faith who are the sons of Abraham."

Not the physical descendants.

"In Christ Jesus, you are

all sons of God through faith."

In other words, it's not
physical descent that

makes God's family.

The covenant people are the
people who are born of God,

and have faith in Jesus.

Peter picks up the theme.

Chapter 1:3

"According to His great mercy,

He has caused us to be
born again to a living hope

through the resurrection of
Jesus from the dead,

and to an inheritance..."

You want an inheritance?

You've got to have the
right Father.

God.

How do you get God as
your Father?

Be born again.

"...and to an inheritance, imperishable,

undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven

for you."

Jesus, Paul, Peter,
all of them saying,

children are born into God's family

and receive the inheritance

not by marriage.

Not by procreation.

But by faith and regeneration,

which means,

single people in Christ
have zero disadvantage

in bearing children for God.

And in many ways,

significant advantages.

Paul was single all his life.

Or at least, lest we overstate it,

single all of the life we knew him.

Because he says he has no wife

in 1 Corinthians 9,

but whether he is a widower,
we don't know.

So he has no wife in all
of the New Testament documents,

and he is a father
if there ever was one.

He says, 1 Corinthians 4:15,

He's talking to his church,

"Though you have countless
guides in Christ,

you have not many fathers.

I became your father in
Christ Jesus through the Gospel."

That's a single man talking.

Men. Single men.

"I became your father.
I'm your father.

Single and unmarried as I am."

Or let him speak for the women.

1 Thessalonians 2:7

"But we were gentle among you,
like a nursing mother

taking care of her own children."

And so it will be said of
many single women in Christ.

She was a great mother in the
church and never married.

Now, take heed and be careful

lest you trivialize what I'm saying.

As though you think that

Pastor John is
sentimentalizing singleness

to make the single folks

feel good in this series on marriage.

I could care less about
making anybody feel good.

I am declaring

the temporary and secondary nature

of marriage and family,

over against the eternal
and primary nature

of the church.

That's what I'm declaring.

I'm declaring the temporary
and secondary nature

of marriage and family

over against the primary
and eternal nature

of the family of God.

Hear that.

This is not trivial.

This is huge.

And I fear that we have
settled into our land

and our culture.

And idolized the family.

Idolized marriage.

We're here for a vapor's breath

and then we're gone.

What happens here is
relatively minor compared to

what will be after the resurrection.

This is no small thing I'm saying.

In the resurrection,
Matthew 22:30,

Jesus says,

"In the resurrection, they neither
marry nor are given in marriage,

but are like angels in heaven."

I am declaring the radical,
biblical truth

that being in a human family

is no sign of an eternal blessing.

Being in God's family
means being eternally blessed.

Relationships based on family
are temporary.

Relationships based on
union with Christ are eternal.

Marriage is a temporary institution,

and stands for something
that lasts forever,

namely our relationship to
Jesus Christ:

Church and Bridegroom.

And when His mother and His brothers

came to Him, Jesus,
and asked to see Him,

He said,

"Who is My mother?

Who are My brothers?"

And stretching out His hand
towards His disciples,

He said, "Here are My
mother and My brothers."

There's not a much more
radical statement in the Bible than that.

You want to be the mother of Jesus?

Follow Him.

The mother of God
is an obedient Christian.

"Blessed is the womb that bore You,
and the breasts at which You nursed."

A woman cried.

He turned and said to her,

"Blessed, rather, are those who
hear the Word of God and keep it."

Does this mean anything to you?

Does talking like that
change your worldview?

Oh, how blessed were the
breasts that gave You suck.

Oh, how blessed was the womb
that bore You.

He looks at that woman and says,

"You keep the Word of God,
and you'll be My mother."

Do not elevate natural processes

like procreation and childbearing

and marriage to anything
bigger than what they are.

Temporal, physical means
of keeping the world going,

and illustrations of Christ
and the church,

which when He comes,
fade away.

"Truly, truly, I say to you

there is no one who has left house,

or brothers, or sisters, or mother,

or father, or children, or lands

for My sake and the gospel,

who will not receive a hundred fold
now in this time,

houses, and brothers, and sisters,

and mothers, and children,

and lands with persecutions,

and in the age to come,

eternal life."

Single person,

married person,

do you want many mothers?

Do you want many children?

Brothers, sisters, lands?

A place to stay at night?

Be a part of the church.

Join the family of God.

It's a huge calling upon the church.

I'm not saying we do it very well.

But hear, church, what we're called to be.

Hear this.

You leave them, and you
get a hundred to replace

in the church - if
we're doing our job.

So what shall we say in view
of this amazing biblical vision

of the secondary and
temporary nature of marriage

and procreation?

What shall we say?

We should say what Jesus said,

and what Paul said,
following Jesus.

And here's what Jesus said.

Matthew 19:12

"There are eunuchs, who have
been so from birth.

There are eunuchs who have
been made eunuchs by men.

And there are eunuchs who have
made themselves eunuchs

for the sake of the
Kingdom of Heaven.

Let the one who is able to
receive this, receive it."

There is no reason that we should

take the phrase,

"made themselves eunuchs,"

to refer to any form of
physical sterilization.

There's no reason to take it that way.

Anymore than we take the words,

"if your eye causes you
to sin, gouge it out."

But we take both of them
very seriously.

If you can receive it,
receive it.

Some people choose,
by God's calling,

a life of devoted singleness
in Christ.

And to them He's promised,

a name and a memorial

better than the name

of marriage and children.

Paul picked it up

and put it most starkly in chapter 7.

Most of you single folks have read this

and pondered what this means for you.

I'll read verses 32, 33, 35
of 1 Corinthians 7.

"To the unmarried and the widows,
I say that it is good for them

to remain single as I am.

I want you to be free from anxieties.

The unmarried man is anxious
about the things of the Lord,

how to please the Lord.

The married man is anxious about
worldly things, how to please his wife.

I say this to secure your

undivided devotion to the Lord."

Paul speaks about each
having his own gift.

Verse 7.

One of one kind,
one of another kind.

In other words,

let him who is able to
receive it, receive it.

So, here we are at the end
where we began.

With all this Scripture underneath us now.

And I will give my main point again.

My main point of this message is,

God promises, those who remain
single in Christ

blessings that are better than

the blessings of marriage and children.

Now, if someone should ask

as I did,

how about both?

Wouldn't it be better
to have both?

The blessings of marriage and children,

and the eternal blessings?

There are two answers
to that question.

Number one.

You will learn sooner or later,

and you may as well learn now,

that the blessings of being with
Christ in heaven,

are so far superior

to the blessings of being married
and raising children,

that to ask this question,

wouldn't it be better to have both?

Is like asking,

"If you're going to give me the ocean,

can't I have a thimble as well?"

It does lose some of its force.

You just need to see heaven.

You need to see Christ.

better than we see Him,

to keep things in proper perspective.

That's the first answer.

Can I have a thimble with
the Pacific Ocean?

The second answer
to the question

is that both marriage and singleness

present us with unique trials
and unique opportunities

for sanctification.

Unique. Not the same. Different.

Both important.

And there will be unique
rewards for each.

And which is better will
depend not on

whether you were married or single,

but on how you responded to each.

So, I say it again,

to all singles in Christ,

who will be that way long term,

God promises you blessings
in the age to come

that are better, far better,

than the blessings of

marriage and children.

And that brings some responsibility
and calling with it.

I can imagine, somebody who

would rather me not make this emphasis,

saying, "what this bunch of singles
really needs to hear,

is that they should stop abdicating

their responsibility and postponing

the end of adolescence for about
thirty years."

Well, I've said that,
if you have ears to hear.

If you think what I'm saying here

is a license to extend adolesence

to 25, and 30, and 35,

while you play computer games

and don't take up
your cause for Christ?

And lay your life down for Him?

With all this time you have?

Then you don't understand
anything I've said.

I am summoning singles
to a radical devotion to Jesus Christ

which means grow up
and become a dad at 25

and single the rest of your life,
if God wills.

And a mother at 25,
of a spiritual family that you disciple

who are born, not of going to bed
with a girl or a guy.

The strongest, most Christlike
single is the one

who is virgin till death.

And may it be so for many.

What a glory!

What a reward!

And the world will tell you,
"That's a waste."

That's a waste.

They don't know anything.

How's your worldview?

Are you buying into it?

Then you're gone.

Then life.

There are four truths

that singles can display
in this world

better than married people.

I've spent nine weeks

telling married people

how to display Christ
and the church.

And I'm taking one week

to say to single people

what's the counterpart drama
in your life.

What are you supposed to display?

If me and Noel, if we, are
supposed to display

Christ and the church
in our relationship,

what's singleness about?

It's about these four truths.

Number one.

Displaying that the family of God
grows not by propogation through

sexual intercourse,

which you avoid and abstain from

because you believe in Christ.

But rather it grows by
regeneration and faith in Christ,

and you give your life
to begetting such children.

Second.

The relationships in Christ are more
permanent and more precious

than the relationships in families,

and therefore we'll give our lives
to cultivating relationships

that last forever.

Noel and I won't be
married in the Kingdom.

That's huge in the way
singles and marrieds think

about relationships and friendships

and covenant bonding with people.

Number three.

That marriage is temporary.

It finally gives way to the relationship

to which it's been pointing all along:

Christ and the church.

And fourth.

Faithfulness to Christ

defines the value of life.

And all other relationships

get their significance from this.

Faithfulness to Christ.

No family relationship is ultimate.

Relationship to Christ is ultimate.

So, to Him be glory,

in the Christ-exalting drama of marriage,

and to Him be glory,

in the Christ-exalting drama
of the single life.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, I am very aware

that that's an orientation message

on the way to look at things biblically.

And many questions for individuals

now remain to be answered.

Which I cannot answer for them.

One has one gift,
one has another.

Let him who can receive it,
receive it.

But You can answer, Lord.
You can answer.

Is it marriage?
Or is it singleness?

And Your answer doesn't arrive
always when we want to hear it,

and so I pray that all the singles

will be patient with You and with life.

And they will be devoted
utterly to You.

Now and if they marry.

Devoted utterly to You in marriage.

So make Yourself supreme
in the life of singleness.

And supreme in the life of marriage,

I pray.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.