Singleness + Dating - Love Songs - A Study in Song of Songs | Tim Birdwell | Week 3

``Don't see marriage as the finish line. Sometimes in church we can just talk to married couples and in a sermon like this we can be like, man, if you could just find a spouse, check that off the list and like you're good. And I would say dating, marriage not the finish line, Jesus is. As you look at the book of Song of Songs, many people will say, hey, it's talking about relationships but it's also talking about our ultimate relationship with Jesus and his bride, the church. And I would say, yes and amen. [00:40:38] (29 seconds)  #MarriageIsntTheFinishLine

So I wish I would have heard this before all the sin and the shame and the brokenness that I'm feeling right now. And I would tell you, you have a God who pursued you in the midst of your shame and brokenness, who jumped over mountains to get to you, who put on flesh, who hung up on a cross for hours, who gave his life for you, who didn't just say he loved you, but he showed it through his death. And he knew about your sin, and he knew about your shame and he knew about your brokenness and he did it anyway. What a God. What a God. [00:43:52] (55 seconds)  #DivinePursuit

I love her and yet she will not complete me. Jerry Maguire was a movie, not real life. Your spouse is not savior. And so single people in the room who are like, Tim, I'm not dating now and I don't know if I will. I would tell you, you have value and you have impact because of Jesus Christ. Amen? That first Corinthians is gonna tell us, Paul is gonna tell us, hey you actually have more impact because you have undivided attention and devotion to Jesus Christ and to his mission. You don't have to have divided attention to a spouse. [00:41:48] (42 seconds)  #SpouseIsNotSavior

It is not a status you just sit in. It's a process you move through towards marriage. We're gonna talk about that in a moment. But you you need to be looking for someone, the type of person that you would want to spend the rest of your days with. You need to start with Christ. Not with do they believe in God. Not with are they spiritual. Not with do they have John three sixteen in their Instagram bio. You need to ask, does he or she love Jesus? [00:12:20] (27 seconds)  #StartWithChrist

And so many of us what we do when we think about chemistry, we look at something that maybe at best like one to 4% of the rest of our lives and we base everything about that relationship on that thing. And there's 96% of the relationship that has nothing to do with that that you completely fly over and you skip. Right? And so we need to look is there there chemistry beyond the physical? Is there philosophical chemistry? Right? Do you do you see life similarly? Do you have some commonalities? [00:21:02] (38 seconds)  #ChemistryBeyondPhysical

Listen, if a man lacks self control when you're dating, he will not gain it when you're married and have kids. Life gets harder. Life gets more complicated. Right? And if you don't see him pursuing love and boldness and self control second Timothy one seven, if you don't see him pursuing after that heading in that direction that's his trajectory, You need to run. You need to watch his character. You need to watch her character and many of you would say well Tim this this is hard. I I know it's hard. [00:15:31] (34 seconds)  #WatchCharacterTrajectory

And you just overlooked the character. And you don't need to do that. You know what you need? Here's two key phrases. Two key words that have helped me in my life, my dating life is community and time. You see character through community and time. I told you guys the last two weeks how I royally screwed up the clarifying relationship part of this thing, the defining relationship. We're gonna get to that in just a moment. I screwed that up. One thing I did well, Jaya and I both did well together is community and time. [00:16:30] (33 seconds)  #CommunityAndTime

Some of us when we get into a relationship we we all we think about is the love and the sex and the romance. And what you know if you're married you have some love and sex and romance but the primary cycle that you have is communication, conflict, confession and communion. That's the primary cycle of marriage. You're two finite sinful people, you will hurt one another. You had finances into that. You had living in the same house into that. You had sharing a bathroom and towels into that. And then you had some little whiny kids into that and you will have conflict. [00:33:07] (40 seconds)  #MarriageCycleCommunication

He can heal you and he can let you be in the same church with a brother or sister in Christ. That's what they are. They were not your spouse. They were your brother or sister in Christ. And you can still be in community with somebody like that. I'm not saying you sit next to them all the time but I'm saying because of healing from shame, because of the blood of the perfect son of God Jesus Christ, you don't have to leave a church because you broke up with somebody. Right? But better yet, don't don't go too far where you have to navigate that. [00:26:42] (30 seconds)  #StayInChurchAfterBreakup

Right? A lot of us haven't experienced that. A lot of us are just swiping on a screen and so we have no idea how to walk up to a woman and ask her out on a date so I wanna help you. Right? You use kindness and you use clarity. You walk up to the person that was raising their hand a few minutes ago. You do it outside in the lobby. People around you say, hey I've enjoyed getting to know you. I've seen you here a lot and I just wanna say I admire you and I've heard great things and I would love to get to know you more. Could I take you out to coffee and hear more about your story? [00:29:10] (34 seconds)  #DiscipleYourKids

Some of you think, no, not little Susie not little Bobby. They don't know anything about sex and dating. Yes they do. And if you don't disciple them Love Island will and the Bachelor will and Snapchat and TikTok will. And so we have the word of God, the spirit of God who raised Christ from the dead. We have that. You have that. You have everything you need for life and godliness to disciple your kids in this. [00:02:58] (29 seconds)  #CommunityOverLoveIsland

Listen, that's the beauty of the manifold wisdom of God called the church of Jesus Christ. Amen? We get to be that for one another. We don't have to go off on an island, love island. Never a good idea. Never a good show. You you want the context of community speaking into this thing as you guys you wanna ask the girl's hand in marriage. You're like, it's not the nineteen sixties. I know but I'm a dad of two daughters and I just guarantee you that boy is gonna ask my hand in marriage. He's gonna ask for my permission in marriage or it ain't happening. [00:38:56] (38 seconds)  #TalkNowNotLater

And you need some people. Your mom. Your dad. Your friends, your pastors, your mentors. One of my wife and I were dating as we were getting closer to marriage. We invited some people in. We went on double dates. I asked the guy, hey, can you just observe us? Can you can you get to know us? Can you ask me questions about my physical relationship with Jah? About our spiritual relationship? Can you can you speak into this? I wanted that wise counsel. I didn't want to do this thing by myself. [00:38:28] (28 seconds)  #TheologyShapesValues

As you talk about things in your past, listen, there does need to come a time where you start to talk about things. Not the first date but as you're starting to get closer to engagement you need to talk about things that could be hard, that could cause conflict. But if you don't know about them they are gonna spoil spoil your vineyard one day and you need to have some basic not bare details about your sexual past, about how many people you've been with and what does that look like. [00:34:27] (28 seconds)  #ChurchEngageLoveTruth

It's a it's a little hard. Have you ever said that? Like why is dating gotta be so hard? I would just say because there's two sinful people seeking to link arms together for forever. That's gonna be a little bit hard but listen if you're doing it with the right person it should also bring life. It should bring life. That's what we see in the text. Look at it with me as we see this poetical language, this imagery we see verses 10 through 13. [00:09:10] (30 seconds)  #ChristCharacterChemistry

Dating can be hard. Dating can be hard. It can be confusing. It can be complicated and you have to have pursuit or it gets more confusing. It's it's gets more cloudy. See guys what you don't see in this story is you don't see a guy sort of coming up like you don't care. You know like hey, sup. How about I get your snapchat? Listen how about you get a job and delete snapchat? Amen? [00:08:09] (32 seconds)  #AvoidDramaRelationships

Right? Because she didn't know and she was confused. And listen I had my reasons. Was I didn't trust girls a lot at this time and I was trying to come off a bad relationship. Whatever. Like I I needed clarity is kindness. Right? So intention and direction. You need to be asking where is this going? Where is this going? It's going somewhere. Where is it going? And you need to talk about that. See, dating is not a situation. It's not a status you sit in. It's a process you move through towards marriage. [00:31:18] (31 seconds)  #PursuePermanence

Or if you're honest are you experiencing anxiety and constant drama and spiritual dryness? And some of you you know people like this and they're dating and they just seem miserable and it's all drama all the time. And you're just like why? Why are you doing this to yourself? I remember in college I would be around like 22 year olds and they would like be so vibrant in ministry and serving on teams and going on miss mission trips and studying the bible together and then they would pair off in a dating relationship. [00:10:43] (34 seconds)  #DefineTheRelationship

Right? After you've been out on a few dates you don't wanna leave her guessing. Is he gonna call? Why hasn't he called yet? Is it supposed to be twenty four hours? Thirty six hours? I don't know. You want it guys? You want to say at the end of the day you want to say, hey this was really fun. I would love to do this again. I know it's crazy. Hey I would love to keep calling you. Is that okay? I would love to keep getting to know you. I'm not saying let's get married tomorrow but I will say I'm not just doing this for fun or to hang out. [00:30:22] (29 seconds)  #DiscipleSinglesStudyScripture

And and and listen you need to be reasonable about this. I I love this quote. You need to become the person, The person you're looking for is looking for. I I know that's kinda wordy but you don't need to just think about the person you're looking for and have your binoculars out and be like what what color hair does he have? What how tall is he? Is he too tall? How how would that be standing next to him? Like how does he chew his gum? Like what does he like to do? You need to like get the mirror and be like have I brushed my teeth in a couple days? [00:22:53] (36 seconds)