I'm super excited for today's service. As many of you may know, last week we actually finished an incredible sermon series that was titled "Come On." I genuinely believe that God spoke to every single one of us in that sermon series. He really taught us the type of church that He wants you and I to become. And now in this new week, this new Sunday, God wants to teach us something a bit different. So starting from today, we're about to go into a new sermon series that is titled "The Kingdom Steward." Is anybody excited for that?

I want to read you a passage of scripture real quick. If you just turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 10. It says, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace."

So basically what God was saying was that when He wanted us to start this sermon series, He was saying, "Toby, I need my people to first and foremost understand that in this life I have given them gifts." I don't want for people to just think that, "Hey listen, the only reward that you get for being a Christian is going to heaven, that's the only gift that you get." No, God wants us to understand that in this life, right here right now, He has given every single one of us different gifts. And God is calling us — as many of us will know, our prophetic word for the year is "shift" — and God is calling each and every one of us to shift our mentality, because God has given all of us gifts and He expects us to steward over those gifts. But the problem in this day and age is that many people steward over God's gifts with a worldly mentality, and God is saying, "Toby, I need my people to understand what it means to steward over my gifts with a kingdom mentality." So I'm believing that in these next few weeks, God is about to make every single one of us kingdom stewards.

Today is a super special day because I have some friends here with me. I genuinely believe that God is about to show us some very important truths about two specific gifts that He has given to you and I. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so that's kind of the reason why. I genuinely believe that God's about to teach us about two very important gifts. When it comes to being close to Valentine's Day, many people think that the only gift that God has given us is the gift of relationship, and very much so we are going to speak about that today. But we're also going to speak about another very important gift that has kind of been swept under the rug because many people don't speak about it enough, and it's the gift of singlehood. Because both singlehood and relationship are gifts that God has given us, and I think He's going to teach us some incredible things today.

Will you join me in welcoming our extremely special guests, Alex and Isabella Grace McLean?

The main reason why I wanted them to join me today is because many times I feel like when churches do relationship talks and singlehood talks like this, many times the couples who are brought up to speak don't really speak the full truth. A lot of people when they're invited to come up here also come up here because they want to glorify the way their relationship looks and paint their relationship in a really perfect light. But the reason why I called these two specific incredible people is because one thing I know about them is that they are extremely authentic, truthful and wise people, and I believe that through their authenticity, through their truth, and through their wisdom, we're going to learn so much.

I'm actually going to start off by asking my two amazing guests to introduce yourselves. Start with your names, maybe also go ahead with your professions and what you do in church, and then give us a really interesting fact about yourself.

Alex: Hello everybody, how you doing? It's good to be here. Honor — I want to thank Toby and the rest of the leadership team for inviting me and my beautiful wife to share with you. My name is Alex. I work as a behavior mentor in schools. I do that for a Christian charity. I'm an ordained minister at my church. An interesting fact — I enjoy fishing. It's not something I thought I would enjoy, but a friend of mine who I've known since nursery took me to go fishing. I haven't been again since, but it's definitely something I would do.

Isabella: My name's Isabella — Isabella Grace, that's all my passport. I'm a content creator. I love YouTubing, I love vlogging. I'm also nine to five, so I'm a handler at a legal firm. It's not as glamorous as you guys think — I'm not actually a lawyer, I'm not a paralegal, I'm not a litigator, I just clean up after their mess. An interesting fact about me: one, I'm left-handed. And also, I taught myself piano. I learned from YouTube. No one's ever really taught me.

Alex: One thing that is interesting about Isabella, and I admire this about her: when I first met her, she's a very quick learner. She'll be saying, "Oh yeah, just go on YouTube," but when I try and do it, it's not banging, because there's a grace on her life. She learns very quick. So get you a man that really bigs you up like that.

Today, like I said, we're really speaking about these two really important gifts — singlehood and relationships — not just because tomorrow's Valentine's Day, but because I think this is an imperative topic that needs to be spoken about more in church. I want to start off by speaking about singlehood, because in church these days many people don't really see singlehood as a gift. Because relationships and marriage is so glorified, people almost think the only point for singleness is to be in a relationship, and I don't think that's true, because if that was the case, then why wouldn't God just create us in relationships or in a marriage? But it's clear that God has given us singleness for a reason. There's clearly an importance to why we are single.

So before you guys were a thing, when you were single, how was that season for you? What did that look like, and why was that single period so important for you?

Alex: I think it looks different for everyone. One thing I love about our God is He's so intentional and He designs all of us with a unique path and purpose. So any time we share our story, take the biblical principles — don't necessarily take it as a template. For me personally, I'd come out of a quote-unquote worldly relationship. If we're being real, a lot of times when we're early on in our walk with God, we're more so telling God our plans and hoping He backs it, rather than trying to hear from Him what His plan is and walking alongside that. So my singleness season was a lot of unlearning how I was communing with God. Like, God is not my genie. He wasn't there to just make my dreams come true and for me to continue walking on. So a lot of my singleness season was about refining and understanding God for who He really was, and understanding how my heart needed to be aligned with Him.

Some of the practical things that happened — I went on a 21-day fast. That was really life-changing for me. The intimacy, the depth of revelation that I received during that time is something I believe is still carrying me today in my context of marriage. And I say "context" on purpose. So my single season was a lot of just really developing myself as a man, developing myself as a son of God, developing myself as a child of God, and just learning the basics — learning about God's love for me, learning about what it meant to serve, learning about what it meant to love, learning about what it meant to be bare before God, all those emotional sides of things. Because there's not going to be a sudden switch that happens when you get into marriage. If it had not been for the fruit that God allowed me to experience or reap from my singleness season, I don't think I'd be the man I am today in my marriage context.

Toby: You really saw your single season as a positive. Why do you think you were able to experience so much intimacy in that period when you were single?

Alex: I think it was just mainly because of a stripping away of everything else. If we're honest, we look to other things as a crutch — whether that's another person, whether that's a certain environment. And I believe that there's a place that God brings us to where He makes us understand that He is really all that we need, and everything else that we have that is a gift from God is only an addition. So it's that famous saying of not getting consumed by the gifts but focusing on the gift-giver. When you go through that stage in your singleness — because God needs you to catch that revelation before you get there — it's like prioritizing a driving license without remembering that you need to do the lessons. It's understanding that all of that is part of the foundation that is going to keep you solid when you reach the place that you desire to reach. And any time — you see this throughout scripture — any time that we muddle up the order and the process that God desires for us to have, we either get something prematurely or we go in undercooked.

Isabella: I'll be so real with you guys — I've hardly been single, but I must say that the period that I was single for a year was such a blissful time. And the reason why is — I know this might sound cringy — even when I was single, I always had it in mind that you're never really single, especially as a Christian, because before any worldly husband, you are married to God. I've always seen Jesus as someone who would be my first love. The Bible always speaks about Jesus being your first love, Jesus being the head of the body, Jesus being the groom and we're the bride. That whole time of being single, it was technically just stewarding my relationship with God. And what does that look like? It's using every resource that He has given us for the glory of Him. Every single day I would read my Bible. I wouldn't have to worry about messaging anybody and saying, "Oh yeah, just reading my Bible, I'll message you after." No, I could just do whatever I wanted. Even if that means I was in hiding for a day, I didn't have to think about somebody else. And I think that was such an amazing thing — just doing me, and not necessarily having the pressure of preparing to be a wife.

Even as women — I'm speaking to women today — it's been a cultural and traditional thing to always tell the women, "Prepare to be a wife, you gotta cook, you gotta clean." But I never had that in mind. It's always about looking like Jesus and being a woman of God. That is ultimately the end goal. I think we got it wrong somewhere where we decided to put marriage as a hierarchy and as the end goal of living. But I never saw it like that. It's always been a positive experience for me, and I'd highly recommend just being proactive in this time. Don't just be lazy and be like, "Oh, I'm waiting for a man." Be proactive with the husband you already have, which is God.

Toby: What I really gathered from what you were saying — something so important, and I think it's a mentality that so many of us need to break — is that singlehood isn't a period where you are waiting to be in a relationship. Singlehood is actually a period where you're meant to be proactive. It's not a waiting period. So many of us think that singlehood is simply about waiting until the next step, but there's so much that you can do in your single season. People have held relationships to such a high standard that people think, "Okay, I'm single right now, it probably isn't the place I'm meant to be, but I know eventually God's going to bring me someone."

To be really practical — in your single period, what kind of mentality should you have in that moment? If it's not a mentality of "Okay I'm single because I'm waiting for a relationship," what is the mentality that you really should have in that period?

Alex: I think the first thing is, "God, what do you desire from me in this season?" Whether you're married or single, our life as a believer is all about pushing towards the high calling of Christ, and about allowing Him to transform us from glory to glory, from strength to strength. So anyone's mentality whilst they're in a season of singleness or marriage — "Lord, how can I be more like you? What is it that you require of me in this season? What should be my focus?" Something I do practically, and I try to do it with Isabella but also personally as well, is at the start of the month just asking God for a word. One word: "Lord, what's something that you want me to focus on? Is it patience? Is it something to do with loving others? Is it something to do with wisdom?" Ask God for direction, because He will provide it. Anyone that's in that time of singleness — that's what you want to be doing, because remember, God makes everything beautiful in its time. So as long as we follow His words according to His time clock and not our own, then we're always going to be prepared for what's ahead, whether we expect it or not.

Toby: So in a sense you're saying that in our single season we shouldn't have a mentality of "God, will you make me better for the man to come," but instead "God, how can I be better for you?" Because really truly our focus should be on God rather than the person that we want to be with.

Isabella: Practically — there needs to be some sort of balance. There's an imbalance when we know that we're idolizing relationships rather than just wanting it. I wouldn't suppress the wants and the yearning for a partner, because I do believe that it's a godly thing for us to want a companion. But practically, in order for us to unlearn what the world has taught us in terms of marriage being the ultimate goal, we need to go back into the Bible and actually replace those ideologies. It can't just be unlearning; it has to be renewal, and renewal always has something to do with replacing information or ideologies that are already in your head. So practically I would 100% recommend you guys studying into singlehood and why it's such a gift. Even after today, you guys can just think, "Oh, you're just saying that because you guys are married." No, we're telling you from experience and from unlearning and speaking to God on a vulnerable and transparent level: "God, how do I really utilize me being single right now? Because God, I'm struggling." And God will really honor your question, and He will be honest with you, and He will give you the advice that you want to hear on how to really steward that time well.

Isabella: A lot of people struggle to see singleness as a gift because it's what we were taught. We were just taught that marriage is a gift. But actually the Bible doesn't say marriage is better than singlehood — it says that they're both gifts. Upon researching, I realized that valuing singleness is actually unique to Christianity. We see in Judaism, it's actually a commandment to get married. We see in Islam, the Quran tells the unmarried to get married because Muhammad despises singleness.

So we really have to take 1 Corinthians 7:7-8. Paul, a single man, says, "I wish that all of you were as I myself am," which he means unmarried, "but each has his own gift from God, one of a kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am." He's giving this advice because he's saying, upon my personal experience, although I'm not married, that doesn't mean that I can't have meaningful relationships and friendships elsewhere. I've truly found contentment in God, even if that means I have to remain celibate my whole life. I still see that as a gift. Because even when you're single, you still have to be abstinent — it's kind of one and the same thing.

I also want to touch on 1 Corinthians 7:35: "I say this for your own benefit." So singlehood is for you — it's actually for you. "Not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." So it's something to honestly take advantage of. I really wanted to say to you guys, don't perceive singleness as a trial. Don't perceive it as suffering, like "In this life I've suffered, God." When you see your friends getting married and all of that stuff, don't see it as almost like God testing you.

Toby: Somewhere along the line in relationship conferences, we've really condemned single people. And there's nothing wrong with you. Aren't we glad that we serve a God that doesn't overlook those who are single? Aren't we glad that we serve a God that doesn't just focus on those who desire to be married now or desire to get married quickly, but we have a God that's actually looking at the single people and He's like, "Hey, that's a gift that I've given to you. That's something that you should be proud about. This is a season that you should steward over."

Alex: The most important thing to remember is that as a child of God, nothing that you experience is ever wasted. The God that we serve is a God of purpose. So even those times that we've gone through — even in relationships, because remember there are people that have been in relationships and then become single after, so let's also speak to that side of things — nothing that you pass through is ever wasted. Remember, God is about shaping and molding you to look more like Him. So every season, whether it's the single season...