The Six Radical Resolutions for Biblically-wise Dating

Today on Summit life with Jeannie Greer. If you are wise in the dating process, you prioritize the presence of character you prioritize the beauty that does not fade because God is the kind of beauty that builds a lifelong rewarding marriage.

Marriage is companionship because marriage is permanent.

It is character that matters most of all light.

I'm your host Molly minutes if you were to ask around and expect to hear that most people are looking for the filling, happy lifelong marriages mean who wouldn't want that, if they chose to get married, but the challenge is we don't often get a lot of direction on how to get there while a solid biblical principle related to this says that if you want something not many people seem to have, and you've got to do what few people are willing to do to get it today.

Pastor JD shows us how understanding the biblical basis for marriage can make us wise in dating and ultimately pursuing God's best for our lives. Let's get started.

Big idea in this series, is that what you thought about marriage radically defined not only marriage itself, but also everything that is connected to marriage and by that I mean singleness or conflict resolution, parenting, even dating. We are using we learn about marriage from Jesus in Matthew 19 to branch out into some of those other topics this weekend. We want to talk about having Jesus centered approach to dating. But here is the dilemma when we discussed this topic.

The limit is people in the Bible did not date. Adam did not notice Eve on tender in the garden and swipe right. Joseph did not notice Mary at the synagogue go home and start stalking her on Instagram and liking her photos to show that he was interested in her dating is, in fact, you realize, of course, a relatively modern invention really only goes back historically. What 70 or 80 years. That is not to say that it bad just because it's new. I'm back in the Bible of a man. We had arranged marriages and they traded donkeys and cattle for their wives and that's not a great system either.

Honestly, just to say that there's not a lot of specific teaching on the subject of dating in the Bible we have to do is we have to take biblical principles on marriage and we have to reverse engineer them to apply them to dating, but because there is no big go to text when it comes to dating in the Bible it means I don't have one primary text someone I have you open your Bibles to work from for the rest of our time together.

I got a bounce around a good bit in your Bibles over the next several minutes. Every time I do this somebody comes up to me after the service of this immune email.

No I Pastor, why don't you just teach the Bible. I spent a year going through Romans.

Okay so get off my back right if you really want to open your Bible and anchor in one place. You do it in Matthew 19 were were starting all this series from every message will begin in Matthew 19, first convince 13 is another one that I'll be getting into here in a few moments ago on open your Bible, there was a series does is it takes principles from the Bible and applies them to a place not directly address by the Bible. That is a process called wisdom that you need to learn to develop not just in this area, but in all the different areas of your life because there are some fields are like the Scriptures not submit address for their principles that should shape how you approach those particular areas. Okay, here is the understatement of the year dating is complicated, amen, amen right it's complicated.

Whether you are 16 as complicated when you're 36 or 56 or 86 and I see a lot of people get hurt by dating massive in the long term damage both to themselves and to others and honestly have been thinking about this all week long. I really want to help keep some of you from that. If I can. I want you look back on this chapter of your life without regret, which very few people can do on, by the way, if you are already married.

My goal today for you is to help equip you to better understand not just your relationship, but understand the relationships that are developing around you and our church and help you better equip people to do that as I want to show you dating them and in the formation of this relationship is supposed to be something that happens in the context of a healthy, thriving community is all of us have a role when it comes to the things were going to unpack today. Okay, first, Matthew chapter 19. There are three things that Jesus taught about marriage. Matthew 19 that should shape our approach to dating this boy thought about marriage when reverse engineer them to apply them to dating. If you missed that message and you want to hear it in the back few weeks go on on podcast or on a website.

You can listen to the whole thing. Let me give you just that. The three points we pulled out of that that passes number one. Jesus taught us that marriage is primarily friendship God's primary purpose in creating marriage according to Jesus was to create a friend a companion for man. God looked at Mama garden says not good that he should be alone, so he created a loop in Hebrew. A deep friend for him like we saw last weekend marriage is not the only way that God deals with our loneliness, but it was the first way it was his plan a for dealing with man's aloneness as a birthday marriages friendship. Second thing was that marriage is permanent in marriage. You lock the door and divorce should be taken off the table as an option. According to Jesus, divorce should be as radical and as rare as the amputation of a body part because that's basically what it is.

Divorce should only occur in extremely rare cases where one partner has killed the relationship. Finally, number three, Jesus taught us that happy marriages require God's help, I think it was Socrates who are not Christian but Socrates told his young students is like bow means you should get married because if you marry well then you will be happy in life if you marry poorly.

Then while you become a philosopher and you'll think deeply about life. Jesus, by contrast, wanted everybody to have a happy marriage and he taught that marriage while it is beautiful and it is rewarding and one of God's best gifts to us. Marriage is also so difficult.

It is so difficult is you got to simple people trying to make a life together is so difficult. You can only do it well. With his help. He says that marriage is a gift. Matthew 19 it's a gift that has to be given you from heaven, so those were three things marriages friendship number two. Marriage is permanent and marriage, happy marriage requires God's help, so if those three things are true, we believe that they are because Jesus taught them right then. Let me give you six dare I say common sense resolutions that biblically wise people. Followers of Jesus will make about dating and I want to challenge you specifically if you are single I want to challenge you to own these resolutions as your own.

Whether you are 16 or 56 or 86 and once you write these things down in St. John's, you consider them pray through them and say this is going to be my new manifesto. My new series of resolutions when it comes to approaching the subject of dating and if you're married, what you write these down and help those around you live according to these now. One more thing before we jump in one more morning.

These resolutions would tell you that are counter cultural.

Not means that if you adopt them to be counter to your culture and enemies of people in the college campus or people in your high school people which were placed really no family ago to think your cuckoo for cocoa puffs like we say when I was in college, but I'm telling you, following these resolutions will lead you the kind of marriages that our culture longs for, but seems unable to obtain. Here's a newsflash right I newsflash our culture in doing awesome when it comes to dating and marriage. I was reading one author who was writing for the very popular millennial newsfeed cycle medium.com he said and I quote dating today is the worst. Every time I asked friends who range from early 20s to their late 40s how the temperature in the dating pool is. I met with borderline hostility for all the talk of the ease that dating apps create what he says next is a little bit crude and I apologize for that. His reason for all the talk of ease that the dating apps allow the impression that I'm left with is everybody a swimming in a pool well to the dump in but instead of really gross and getting out everybody decides they have no choice but to keep swimming in the sewage because it's the only pool where you can meet other people.

Our culture yearns for good fulfilling life long marriages but also don't really seem to know how to get there. Hey here's your life lesson again, especially for single. If you want something nobody else has you going to be willing to do what nobody else does not 26 resolutions are. They are six things that hardly anybody around you can merely counterculture nearly everywhere but if you want something nobody else has.

You want to do what nobody else does enough of these are here's resolutions again.

Number one I will always start with I will I will I God cell prioritize character over to Mr. know it.

Marriage is about friendship thing about this is about lifelong companionship than character is more important demonstrate our culture says that chemistry physical attraction. It says it's everything according to the Bible. Chemistry is not nothing God created the kind of attraction. It's supposed to be part of that the package that which is not nothing, but it's not everything that you know that study showed that the effects of attraction, the butterflies, so to speak, where all in about 18 months, which is why the way some of you have never had a relationship that lasted longer than 18 months and see.

The point is that's primarily what your relationship is built on physical attraction and chemistry and butterflies will not fades and it will then you can have nothing left. The apostle Peter in the in his letter to the church says that there are two kinds of beauty. Specifically, he's talking to young women in the church when he says this, but you can apply the same principle to men also hires what he says. He says first Peter three. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment like braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. No, your beauty instead should be that of your inner self, because that is in on feigning beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is a great worth in God's sight and by implication should also be of great worth in your site. Also, why because that kind of beauty that is talking about that inner beauty is a beauty that does not fade. You see physical beauty fades in at least two ways refers to beauty itself fades right thing sag and wrinkle and graded group told you before that the way that I've learned to measure my own fat content and the progress thereof is when I got a shower stemmed from fully mirror I stand my foot and start a stopwatch in the last part of me stopped Jill and I stopped stopwatch and that is my new metric for the fact cinema but is the actual physical beauty itself fades, but the second way that it fades is its power on you fades me, even if that person you know nips and talks about toxins themselves in place or if he starts working out and unbuttoned his shirt down his navel draws a new red sports car, and eventually its impact on you fades.

That means if you are wise. Listen in the dating process, you prioritize the presence of character you prioritize the beauty that does not fade because that is the kind of beauty that builds a lifelong rewarding marriage Matt Chandler who is a pastor friend is about my age brain cancer a few years ago had to undergo some pretty severe treatment. He wrote a book on the mingling of souls about marriage and this one of things Matt says in that book is, is when I got cancer everything that was sexy about me vanished my strength, my vibrancy, my sense of humor. Even my hair all that was gone for about two years I became a shriveled up version of what I was before the cancer.

The lower and lower. My wife and entered into a covenant with me and she loved the character the God had formed in my heart that mattered and that all that mattered in that chapter of mirror marriage was her character and mine character sustain the marriage fueling and ultimately reigniting all the rest. Jesus character that ultimately builds that basis of lifelong companionship and friendship and I know you like. I know that he is just so cute and his eyes are so beautiful of many takes his shirt off all my goodness, that sixpack Ms. Gwen tell you right now when you're to get sick and you're on your way to the emergency room at 3 AM is not a matter what, sixpack, he has what could a matter to you that that moment all this, matter to you is that he is the kind of guy you know can petition God in prayer and that he is a spiritual rock that you're to be able to lean on or when you learn that you lost your job what's going to matter to you about her is not how hot she looks and tight pants. Within a matter to you is, is that you know that she can stand by you would not go anywhere because she stepped better, for worse, he means it. She is committed to you not just her own her own comfort and ease of life. This is because marriage is companionship and because marriage is permanent. It is character that matters most of all because your entire self physically, emotionally and spiritually. One person for the rest of your life. You want to marry somebody or in love with right you want to marry somebody was in love with you and who will stay in love with you, but you gotta ask yourself what actually is love is not just the warm fuzzies and is not just the butterflies in first Corinthians 13 the apostle Paul defines love for scrimmage 13 is called the great love chapter, and for good reason was and if you are single I would challenge you maybe memorize this chapter, but if not at least master the concepts in the chapter and focus on becoming this kind of person in an evaluation looking for this kind of these kinds of qualities of the person that your you're looking to marry a Paul says a number of things like love is patient, love is patient, patient's means there okay with you not be imperfect and there okay when you disappointing them because you don't some point your intoxicating effects on memory and aware off. Also in your to disappoint them and you let them down and pick you're going to bore them a little bit night to tell you that at some point in the relationship is going to happen. Questions how they can respond about point they lash out using a punch you right, you disappoint them, or they can chase something somewhere else because now that other person interested them is out of their limited guerrilla pulses is patient, love keeps no record of wrongs asking to be huge when in your marriage. Are you the kind of person are they the kind of person that every time you do something wrong. They pull up their little mental list of just added to the running log be kept of all the ways you've messed up disappoint them in your marriage.

Over the years. I know married couples may not know spouses maybe in this church who actually keep like files you know of, just like every time I do something so that I go back to what I've got here is this is this is how you have hurt me and how you have wronged me as a person you want to be married to love does not dishonor. That means that love doesn't use somebody else like a commodity for the fulfillment of their needs whether that's emotional or sexual or whatever means they honor the whole you. They respect you. That way, as a whole person. Love, Paul says, never gives up love and give up when when they let you down. Love doesn't leave when it's when it when it feels like there might be a better option somewhere else now. When it's boarded never stops believing in you.

It never stops me committed to you and the long-term success of that relationship and not the kind of person that you want to marry and if so, then you got a prioritize character over chemistry is and how can I told her character is like, while English word character comes from the Latin word Caracas word Caracas actually means an engraving tool like the metal that that would make the same imprint no matter what you posted. It the reason I chose that word to communicate characters because characters the same whatever relationship you evaluated it. So the way that you can tell with her character is what this is to look at what they act like in the relationships that are not dating relationships that reels their character. He is relies in the dating stage there in full on used-car salesman. Note right because they're put now the best possible rate is washed and its wax that is vacuumed, and if it smells good right in the unit so I can be here rattled the engine.

These are socialist turn on the radio and electronic air commission was distracted away from. That's what people are doing the dating stage is the hot nova the flawless. So if you wanted with her character is like you got ask questions like how they treat their parents utilize this right and the guys house.

He treats her dad's house is one the country you how she treat how he treats his mom ladies is when they always immature. You that's her character how they treat their friends how they treat their siblings are they forgiving of a patient of the kind remember hearing a very successful on CEO tell me that one of the things he would often do when hiring somebody for position in his company to take out that the lunch and watch how they treated the waiter the waitress because he knew that how they treat the waiter or waitress is an indication of whether characters really like it when the infatuation with this new job off their character would come back out. Do they keep their word. If they can hold a job or they don't keep their word to others, then you realize ultimately one day than I can hear the word you either.

They lied other people to lie you may here's one them.

I thought a punch in the gut for some of you can they keep their hands off of you. If they don't have the self-control to keep their hands off of you in this stage. How do you know they're going to keep their hands off somebody else after you got married to them.

There will be board review and will suddenly develop self-control just out of nowhere. At some point they're going to have that power you have over them is going to fade and they don't know how to control themselves, not a person self-control and I can control themselves there either to see if marriage is a lifelong union of companionship that it is character that matters most of all, again I will make this clear. Chemistry is not nothing God made it just is not everything really quickly.

Sometimes people asked me if I got a guy asked me this recently. Practically speaking, this is what you do if you do if you're super attracted to a girls character but not to her ducky dating her for Jesus.

I would never tell somebody to date somebody that are not physically attracted to.

I would tell you not to do that for for that person say because every woman wants to be beautiful to her spouse and and vice versa. No woman wants to hear. Hey, you look doesn't matter to me only find you attractive at all, but I admire your quiet time discipline right nobleman was clear that the same is true for guys, but what I will tell you what I told this guy is sometimes that kind of attraction grows over time, so practically speaking, if you're in a relationship like that just given some time stay in their proximity don't date them no good on the romantic Road stay in their proximity and see if that physical attraction develops. If not, it's not the person for you right, but it very well might, because that's what got us designed us to the character is a more beautiful beauty.

Again, I'm not seeing chemistry is nothing, just don't give the way that our culture that's what that's true, if that's number one is true, then number two. Here's her second resolution that common sense was right when I will date for clarity, not intimacy. I first got ask yourself what you after in dating. What's the purpose dating is not supposed to be like an appetizer for marriage like commitment light or sexual pleasure, pleasure, light or companionship light until you get to that the main course.

The meal of marriage know dating is a time where you're supposed to evaluate the person that you want to join yourself to for life. So if the purpose of dating is to choose somebody to marry and if that means character matters most of all them physical intimacy is something that for the most part, you should keep to a minimum. Why was because physical intimacy works like a drug. It intoxicate you and masks the other things are actually going on when you're sick and your bodies and pay the doctor very well might prescribe you a coding pill you take a coding pill in your bodies and pain and you go terribly for coding pill also and you feel awesome now to be told you're not awesome you're still sick.

The coating just masks the symptoms for a while and that's fine when you're sick. When the drug of physical intimacy keeps you from seeing what is really going on in the relationship and it keeps you deluded about who they really are. You're in deep trouble because when the physical excitement of sex fades, which it will all that you are to be left with is a sick relationship. Listen, let me be clear okay because what I'm trying to do is make an argument to you as to why this is in your best interest.

Let me also make very clear to you. The Bible is very clear that awakening sexual lust awakening sexual stimulation outside of marriage is sin. Jesus said in Matthew five, for example, the sermon on the Mount. He said for us to look at or think lustfully about somebody who is not our spouse is committing fornication with them in our hearts in God's eyes. And so obviously doing things to get your motor running. Even if you're not going all the way is going to call if you think lustfully about that person. And so it's become sent first Corinthians 6, Paul tells us to flee sexual immorality not to see how close we get to the edge of the pool without: in so we are to avoid this kind of thing because it sin. But what I'm saying is even beyond that, even beyond that you all knowing what I know now about marriage, even if I were a Christian, and the law of God, was not a factor I would counsel a couple who were dating. To keep physical intimacy to a minimum because sexual stimulation sabotages the spouse search yourself.

King Solomon counsel on single people in the book of Psalms Solomon promised me a women of Jerusalem by the gazelles and while there not to awaken love until the time is right.

Gazelles and wild dear are a Hebrew metaphor representing youthful sexual vigor, and King Solomon's like keep on hibernating until it's time for them to run and then let him out of the cage and let him go. While building don't even like reminder to awaken his right. You're listening to send in my ministry pastor and theologian Katie Greer. If you happen to join us late today. You can listen again free of charge@jamiegreer.com we can expect to maintain purity in our lives if we don't have the word of God in our hearts. That's one of the reasons we created our all things new memory verse cards to make it easy to always carry God's promise is with you and you just set at 50 Scripture memory cards as a thank you when you support the ministry of Senate life today you can put them on the French with the magnet that comes with the cards we can stick them in your while and pin into a bulletin board or a mirror for extra encouragement, Scripture cards remind us of God's steadfastness in his unchanging promises now and in the days to come and see them displayed regularly helps us memorize and tuck them away in our minds and in our hearts simply sandlot at the summit church is when life that we want to believe God's word that comes from a desire to be saturated in Scripture's own minds that we can't help but talk about it. Sharing the word of God in life and salvation alone prepares us to stay in it every challenge we face courage and strength, select prioritize memorizing it here together were so grateful for you and your partnership with nice ask for them.

All things new memory verse cards and magnets that you become gospel partner. When you give a single get $25 or more, 866-335-5228 665-5224 you can give online Katie Greer.com Mulligan events, so glad you joined us today sure to listen tomorrow for the rest of our message titled radical resolution are biblically wise, dating here on Senate life Jamie Katie Greer ministry