Dating with Purpose: Christ, Character, Chemistry, Commitment

``And you can get your horizontal relationship right. You can crush it with a spouse and be lost without a savior. We're gonna sing a song of what a god, not what a man, not what a woman, what a god. And it has this line that just stuck out to me all week. It says, no treasure of this life can satisfy. Don't look over here for someone to fulfill you. Look up here to Jesus Christ to be fulfilled, and then be freed up to enter into this dating process with Jesus Christ as your security, your identity, your eternity. That's where this thing starts. Let's pray. Father in heaven, [01:23:17] (54 seconds)  #FulfilledInChrist

And and one, would just tell you, we just sang about it. The blood of the perfect son of God was spilled out on a cross to heal you from that sin and shame. And if we're a church community, we gotta figure out a way whether it's in situations like that or just in friendship and conflict where you have to leave a church because you went too far. I I think we're misunderstanding the gospel and we need to take another look. Amen? Christ can bring healing. Christ can fortify you through those kinds of situations. Even if you stay broken up, you can still honor that person. [01:05:15] (41 seconds)  #ChristHealsBrokenness

And so scripture says, hey, don't be unequally yoked. Hey, you're looking for a person that you could be bound together with, going in the same direction with. You don't want to be dragging that other person along to church. And never works out. You don't wanna be dragging that other person along to go on a mission trip or to go to a bible study. You're meant to be lockstep going together in that process. AW Tozer, a theologian said this, that the most important thing about you is what you believe about God. [00:55:22] (29 seconds)  #WalkLockstepInFaith

And here's the problem with that is while we're not talking about these things as the church of God with the word of God and the the power of God, people are still hearing about them in our culture because they're not steering clear of these topics. In fact, they're they're leaning in on these topics and people don't know how to date. They don't know how to do marriage. They don't know how to do sex or conflict because they're just hearing the culture talk about it a hundred and sixty seven hours a week. [00:38:33] (32 seconds)  #CultureDoesntTeachDating

And I just want you to know if you're new to PBC, man, our heart is to engage culture, uphold truth, and love people well. And we are always going to enter into these somewhat controversial topics because not we want we want to be edgy or like I want to get people throwing stuff at me but because we love you and we want you to see God's truth is is real in your relationships and and we don't want people specifically as not just a pastor but a parent, I don't want my teenagers [00:39:12] (33 seconds)  #EngageCultureWithTruth

And we as the the people of God with the word of God, we have it. And the spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead, we have it. We are called to step in and disciple our next generation. We are called to disciple our kids around topics like marriage and sex and dating and relationships. What does God have to say about that? He has some things to say about those things. And we wanna wade into those waters and we'll always be a church [00:40:13] (31 seconds)  #DiscipleTheNextGeneration

And there's people in our church who are navigating this confusing weird world and they're not doing it well and they're hurting and they're confused and and we love our single people. Amen? Like can we just we have single people in our church. Can you raise your hand if you're single? Would you do that for me? Okay. Okay. Yeah. Keep your hands up. Take a look around. This is your options. Okay? You're welcome. You're welcome. Alright. Connect in the lobby after service. Alright? [00:43:19] (31 seconds)  #SinglesCommunityConnect

Proverbs 25, it talks about a man who lacks self control. You wanna see, does he have a temper? Does he have a reputation of getting around with other women? You want to run away from that. Again if you see that in the dating stage without the complications of finances and kids and all those things, like it doesn't get better, it only gets worse. And so you see, do they do they have character? I always think about this, like, t Swift. As I think about dating, I think about t Swift. Taylor Swift for the uneducated in the room. [00:56:36] (37 seconds)  #CharacterOverCharm

It clouds discernment. I read an article in Psychology Today that talked about, hey, breakups, they don't go so bad and so messy because of duration. They go bad and messy because of intensity physically. Many times when I see people in our church who are dating and I and I start to hey, where's the other person? Well, we broke up. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. And, you know, like, I got the church and the divorce. And I'm still here, but she's gonna go to another church. I'm like, what? [01:04:29] (32 seconds)  #GuardAgainstIntensity

But really what that's giving you the imagery of is in that day, bringing this conversation about a relationship to your mother's house or to your mom was a place of safety, of security. You could talk about this wisely. Other people could sign off on this relationship with you. Listen. If you were dating, if you were getting serious, and I I know everybody's got a crazy uncle. I know everybody's got some crazy parents. There might be one or two people who are like, I hate that guy or you should not marry that girl. Okay. That's fine. But if everybody if everybody says this is not a good idea, I I don't love the way you are when you're with him, I I don't feel like you guys are growing closer to Jesus together, Those are red flags. [01:19:13] (46 seconds)  #FamilyDiscernmentMatters