You are listening to David Platt Messages, a weekly podcast with sermons and messages from

pastor, author, and teacher David Platt. We're now in the last two weeks of this series on God's

good design from the first two chapters of the Bible. We've looked at God's good design for creation,

humanity, sexuality, rest, work. And today, and Lord willing, next week,

we're going to look at the final verses in Genesis 2 to see God's good design for marriage

and singleness. And if I could just point out the obvious, every person in this gathering

is in one of those two groups.

You're either married or you're single.

We're going to look at what the Bible says about both groups, marriage this week and singleness next week, both based on foundations here in Genesis 1 and 2.

But here's the deal.

Regardless of which group you're in, you need both of these weeks for multiple

reasons. I'll mention three. One is because at any point in the future, you could switch

groups. Some of you who are single may get married. And those of you who are married have spouses who are not guaranteed to be there tomorrow.

Not one of us is guaranteed breath tomorrow. So we all need to know what the Bible says about both

marriage and singleness. Then second, regardless of which group you're in, you know people in the other group and you want to be

able to love them well and encourage them in their relationship with jesus whether they're single or

married for example teenagers most of you are single but it's good for you to know how to pray for

and encourage married couples including many of your parents,

so that they experience God's good design in their marriage in a way that's actually good for you.

And they might prepare you for future marriage. Also, for example, married couples, we do not

love our single brothers and sisters well by isolating

them or leaving them to figure out singleness on their own. We need both of these weeks to be the

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