Best Advice for Dating Couples

what God has given all three of us oversight over a lot of people that are in the dating stage I know Derek you have college and young professional ministry and genu minister of several hundred women each week many of whom I would assume are single so what is the best piece of advice if you were speaking to a dating couple what's the best piece of advice that you would you would give to them all right I don't have a lot I have I have one general piece when you know sometimes college students or younger people come asking Derek how do you how do you how do you have a Christian relationship how do you do this right and you know do I have a Bible study guys like I got I had a 10-point sermon series for her laid out and no slowdown but the one thing that I have seen over the last few years is kind of like the key marker of a healthy Christian relationship is just are you guys in the church like you're your biggest job in this dating relationship aside from just general male-female relations is encouraging the other person to be in the church plugged in button the Pew listening or preaching in godly relationships with other other people of you know getting mentored you want them regularly hearing the gospel regularly receiving the supper regularly in accountable community regularly having older people who can speak in their lives right so really the relationships I've seen go off the rails one of the biggest when the early sign is oh they where have they been the last few weeks last few months oh oh oh and they just kind of shotgun it over here oh yeah I couldn't be a character to be consistent in a community you know I mean it's it kind of doesn't bode well I guess yeah and and and that not being in community it worsens the character issue so it's way easier to turn the relationship into an idol and that's actually people think okay the greatest danger is you know sexual immorality or kind of messing up in these things know the greatest danger is turning the other person or the relationship into an idolatry and when that happens right everything else follows one things that when that gets off the rails and so being in godly community hearing the word accountability that's kind of my main thing is so right referee yeah 30 church before you start dating because yeah as opposed to the all go for you or no that kind of things yeah that's good that's good Jim well by well I think among the women what I hear a lot is you know do I need to kind of tone myself down like there's a sense of there's a certain way I'm supposed to be around a guy that I'm dating because when I'm his wife I'm going to be that way and I always ask them to just be sure that he is a person who is celebrating their strengths who doesn't feel threatened by their strengths because just a lot of times the whole idea we talk about leadership and male headship a lot in the church but the way that we think about leadership too often is this really sort of low-level understanding that it is a strong person leading a weaker person and that's certainly not a model for healthy marriage and so I always tell women just be aware that your strengths matter for your marriage and he should be someone who celebrates the things that are strong about you doesn't feel threatened by them and wants you to flourish and things that you are good at and wants to gently help you in the areas that are weaknesses for you and I would say vice-versa for her as well looking at what he says yeah I think you think of like um Christian leadership a servant leadership yeah the servant leadership means I get behind you to help you become or you know be all these things in your giftings as you could be right you should never have to dumb yourself down to be appealing to a spouse that looks like a bad recipe for dating yeah that's that's good well mom was going to be in a dress like Derek if you're a god because clearly but um you know I think one of the things that I recall and scripture teaches us is that beauty and physical attraction can be intoxicating and that's one of the reasons God gave us the church was we have to have friends who can look in and help us see character there is nothing worse than deceiving yourself about the person that you're with and then getting in marriage and realizing they're not you because what we do is we end up projecting onto this person everything we want them to be and you know proverbs says it's like a gold ring and a pig's now that's a beautiful woman without character and you can say the same thing for a guy that you want friends to be able to say to you hey this is not we're not seeing the consistency here you know because and then they start so I remember how I was on my best behavior during my dating stated I managed to keep all my flaws in that because they were think they was it was no same job it was I was pretty awesome at it but um it was just intoxicating effect it's like you know about what you said about church the amount of people I see in our church who started to go to church when they start to date one of the people in our church yeah I'm like that's not gonna end well I mean maybe I'm doing awesome work but it's probably not no yeah that's that's the thing it just that the character actually this is one of those things where people who rush through their daily relationship or people who rush to the altar I've seen I've seen all kinds work out but there is something to be said for actually seeing them through various stages and having a kind of relationship or you can see that takes work to hide that long right so I'm awesome on paper yeah you just let me see anybody can cover anything for three months yeah right but a little bit longer than that how does he react to conflict how consecrates guys who's known him for more than three months that's the whole community piece exactly context and just what your eyes are telling you and one how he treated you on the date or telling you yeah that's good so what do you Jim what do you see when you've got a girl who isn't with what is called a spiritual leader like how do you see I'm sure you've seen that go badly before yeah I mean it depends a lot on the relationship what spiritual leader looks like to you know I mean I think we think it means that he's the one who leads everyone in prayer and leaves them in devotions every day we have very narrow understanding of what that could look like and so I think my bigger concern is just that we would allow for individual strengths and weaknesses and that as long as she is you know concerned that he be the person whom she's looking it could be lots of times women marry men who are less spiritually mature than they are we all marry someone who's in process and I don't think we have to be terrified of that but it's good to be aware of it and then figure out well how can I orient myself with him in such a way that he has not shut down by where I am and that he is feeling encouraged and being pushed towards what's next for him spiritually so I think leadership again it doesn't have to mean that he's more I mean maybe that's great if he is more spiritually mature but I don't think the process is that cut-and-dried and too many women walk away from a relationship thinking well he's never going to be more than he is today and Lord willing if the Scriptures are telling us the truth we will all be more than we are today by the grace of God and so you know we can trust that well last night I'll say here unless one of you guys has something else is just consistently try to tell people in our church to delay and diminish the physical component of their relationship we say it said ASAP aalap as long as possible without getting into the issue of what's appropriate we all know there are things that are clearly inappropriate when the sexual drive has been engaged but even just you know the things that go into physical they just intoxicate and they blind and they they corrupt you know it's it's got to be in the right place at the right time think clearly you know you know I'm thousand amens from a college bastard mr. Martin Luther said if your head is if your head is made of butter stay away from the fire

Channel: The Gospel Coalition

Views: 24,186

Rating: 4.9380531 out of 5

Keywords: the gospel coalition, the gospel, gospel, coalition, pastors, pastor, minister, ministry, Christ, Christian, Christianity, church, churches, faith, reformed, reformation, bible, biblical, evangelical, Jesus, God, spiritual, spirit, Holy Spirit, preacher, preaching, teaching, dating, advice, sex, sexuality, JD Greear, Derek Rishmawy, Jen Wilkin, couples

Id: D9q4jejMp-g

Length: 7min 46sec (466 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 29 2015