Breakaway Dating Conclusion Part 2: How - ASL Interpreting Inset

well when I was in college one spring break my buddies and I decided to go down to San Miguel de Allende which is a little like artist colony town just north of Mexico City so we went to Nuevo Laredo got on a bus rode all night long and we woke up in this little artist city and I remember one particular night we were sitting up on our rooftop and realized it connected to the rooftop of lapa no Kia this massive neo-gothic cathedral that stands in the center of the city and so we went out there that night and I'll never forget sitting on the rooftop at night of this massive church and as we sat there watching the Sun go down there were men that were singing in the church they were singing hymns in Latin so I couldn't understand most of what they were saying but it sounded beautiful and it was coming up.this voices of this choir through the skylight and I'll just never forget it was I'm not a particularly romantic guy but I just remember sitting there and watching the Sun go down over this colorful City sitting atop this gorgeous building as this sound of worship rose up over me and it was one of the first times in my life I was so struck by beauty it made my heart ache you ever had that happened where it was just more than I could take in and I remember for me and is that at that moment this burning desire that I want to share this with someone and I'd never assumed I would get married I thought I don't know what God's gonna do with that I'd like to be but whatever but I remember feeling a yearning God I want to share this with somebody and I remember looking over at my buddy Ricardo it was sitting there in his white undershirt and I thought Rick's great and all but he's not really what I'm looking for you know like that's not what I meant is just a buddy like I want a love I want a romantic partner in life that we go out into the highs and lows the beauties and the tragedies of life together and I remember longing for that and realizing and what I wanted to start by saying to you tonight is that that longing is good longing to pair up is good that's Genesis to kind of stuff that before sin before the fall as Adam looked out over the beauty of delight the Garden of Eden he had a longing to partner up with somebody and as cool as the moose were and the raccoons they they weren't it that he wanted someone that complemented him that they could journey into life together and that longing to be partnered up to love somebody is a good longing and so as we enter back into this series on dating and marriage that we kind of took a break from but now we're back in as we enter back into this I just wanted to tell you that longing is good to want to share your life with somebody and that's really why we're doing this series because I want to help you as you journey through this decade where many of you in this room maybe most of you will be married before this decades over I want to talk with you of how do we navigate these relationships with one another well and so we rot back on the subject of dating tonight right and we're picking up where we left off and where we left off was with a premise that dating exists for evaluation dating isn't a status that you sit in like we're dating dating is a process a series of steps we move through to arrive at a particular end and the purpose of the process of dating is to determine if some person is the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with and what you're looking for as you move to that process with somebody as you're looking for character and chemistry and you've got to have both you're looking for a deep character than them is there a godliness about them a stability that will love me for better and worse and is there a chemistry do we get along do I like hanging out with you what you're not looking for is someone to complete you it's a modern myth right because Jesus never married and neither did the Apostle Paul and it's not like well they were just never complete right Jesus never really actuated his humanity no he was fine right and so you are a complete person before you get married and you can't look to some other person to do that his guys just got to find someone that will fill up all my vacancies and actuate all my gifts and make me feel whole in a live and complete in this world that's too much freight to put on a human relationship you put that kind of weight on a friendship or on a dating relationship you'll crush the relationship that's not what it's for right and yet there is a desire for many of us maybe most of us to link hands with someone and run on into forever together and that's a good thing and dating is a process a modern process of evaluation where we go is this is a person that has a godly character and as I have chemistry with that we could run together and so as we got on the topic of dating we talked about who who should you date and we looked at seven characteristics of who you should date you want a believer in Jesus Christ that the two of you are lockstep about the biggest issues in life but not just someone who ascends to the deity but a believer in Christ and a pursuer of Christ that they're not perfect and you aren't either but they're striving to be as they strive to know him they become more like him and not just a pursuer of Jesus you want someone that will keep pace with you that you're not trying to drag someone along that's not fun for either party that you're having to drag them to church or drag them to be someone that wants the things of God it's not fun to drag people and it's not fun to be dragged so if you're gonna date somebody you want to go are we running together in spirituality they keep me at the top of my game of becoming a man or a woman who looks more and more like Jesus that's what you want and then we looked at more chemistry issues like are you theologically compatible as we start to get closer is there clarity about some of these specific convictions of how theology works of what kind of style of church were gonna worship in we looked at socially compatible do you like hanging out which feels so obvious but I meet so many couples that they're like she is a godly woman he's a godly man and therefore we must be married but you see him after five minutes they don't know what to say to each other and it's painful to sit with them you're like how do you endure this right if sitting through a meal with that person is painful you probably shouldn't link up forever philosophically or ministerially compatible do you have compatible visions for your life if one of them wants to live in New York and the other one wants to live in Calcutta both can be godly but maybe linking ups gonna cause some stress you might want someone that says we have a similar pathway in life philosophically where we want to serve and minister and live and then physically was the seventh one do you find them attractive that's not the number one thing for the believer but it is on the list you shouldn't be repulsed by them right and then we talked about whenever you talk about dating you've got to talk about two things what kind of person and then what process do you go through to find that person you got to talk about the who you got to talk about the how so we talked about the who and then we got into how what process do we go through to arrive at that person right how do i navigate the unstable waters in a way that's more exciting than depressing right and we looked at seven things when we started to look at seven things we got to four and then I just left you hanging right and so this is us trying to pick up the rest how do you date and we said that there's not a lot of passages in the Bible about dating you're not gonna say and Joseph said unto Mary do you want to go to the Outbacks but in Austin blossom that's not how the Bible's written dating wasn't the way they did it back then different cultures different times have had different processes but they've always been processes of evaluating are you the kind of person I should be linked up with and the Bible's filled with advice wisdom about how to properly evaluate a potential husband and wife and so we looked at four that I want to just jump look at briefly the first one wasn't said how should you date prayerfully prayerfully that before I enter into relationships with you I enter into that relationship with God and soak in deeply passage like Romans 8 that says we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose there's a wonderful stability that comes into your life when you know that cast all of your anxieties on him why because he cares for you perfect love casts out fear when I realized the lover of my soul commands my destiny works all things for my good there's a stability that comes and resting in the sovereign care of God takes the desperation out of dating it gives you the stability that's the antidote to the anxiety that so much of modern dating is about it's interesting I heard just this week the prayer of Saint Patrick you know Saint Patrick of st. Patrick's Day you're like the patron saint of beer that's not what he was for he brought the gospel to Ireland but he had a prayer attributed to him this was his prayer in the morning I don't know what your morning prayers are like this was his and it blew me away he said I arise today through God's strength to pilot me God's might uphold me God's wisdom to guide me God's eyes to look before me God's ears to hear me God's words to speak for me God's hand to guard me God's Way to lie before me God's shield to protect me God's hosts to save me afar and a near alone or in a multitude Christ's shield me today against wounding Christ with me Christ before me Christ behind me Christ in me Christ beneath me Christ above me Christ on my right Christ on my left Christ would I lay down Christ when I sit down Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks in me Christ in the eye that sees me Christ in the ear that hears me I arrived today through the mighty strength of the Lord of all creation I don't know what you think about when you wake up in the morning but imagine thinking like that I arise today through the mighty strength of the Lord of all creation who surrounds me and whose in me a stability like that will keep you from going crazy when you enter the world of dating right so we enter in prayerfully trusting God with our story that the God who gave His life for me is going to take care of me right and then when you get that vertical connection clear then you enter horizontally in with us and as you begin to see people that you're interested in you see to them with clarity with our next point clarity and initiation hey I'd like to get to know you better would you like to go to dinner clarity and intentions I'm not trying to get married tomorrow but I'm not playing games with you either I really am enjoying getting to know you and you seem like the kind of person I could see myself with so I thought we should get to know each other and then clarity for an exit but if at any point you're uncomfortable with this you let me know and I trust God with my life and I trust him with your life and he's going to take care of us you give them clarity and did you notice those first two points are connected when you have the stability of knowing Christ is caring for you you can provide people with clarity so many people don't give clarity and dating why because they're scared well I don't want to come out and tell her I like her because what if she rejects me she might she might and if her opinion is gonna crush or make you as a human being you are not a very stable person but if you know no matter what happens Christ loves me Jesus commands my destiny would you like to go to dinner no I'm okay God loves me god bless you right and you can keep moving right and you can provide clarity when you lack anxiety right because you trust in a sovereign God right and then ladies it goes through you to clarity and response clarity and saying to them what you feel I thought of it today I didn't want to share this but it fits here when I was a in college I just had to hit timeout on dating because I was a train wreck a popular joke among my friends about my ineptitude with dating but I remember as a freshman this girl invited me to a date party and so I invited her to one too and our friendship circles were hanging out but I didn't know what to do women confuse me and so I remember at one point she came to me and she just said hey I don't want to pressure you anything but she said I really like spending time with you and I don't know if you see this going someplace but if you do it I'd be up for that and I just I had no idea what to say and I remember I gave like some lame like I don't know if you're attracted to me maybe - like the Jesus in me you're like some night is like some Christian nonsense that she's like um no I'm pretty sure I'm attracted to you we're now I'm not sure anymore and I just I didn't know what to do and so it took me a while before it finally I told her I can't believe it I think you're you're great there's nothing wrong with you but no I'm not in a place where I think I can clearly I've got some issues I'm not in a place where I can date and she was like okay that's great thank you for that and I remember her walking away and I was just kind of dumbstruck by that amount of clarity I was like aren't we supposed to work through a complex web of intermediaries that ask you one another if we like each other she just came direct and it was very clear and ladies it's helpful for a guy for clarity maybe you're not initiating the clarity but maybe when he initiates with you you don't ignore him but you just say you know what I think you seem like a great guy but I don't know that I see this going anywhere and you give him the clarity on the way out and then we talked about autonomy when you are interested in someone and they're interested in you back and you all start to spend time together you may call it boyfriend and girlfriend and fabricate words like that and I don't care if you do but if by those words you mean suddenly because I'm hanging out with this person I've granted access to their body and they owe me certain things beyond what they owe any other believer in Christ you're out of step with biblical categories that in the Bible they're either brother and sister or husband and wife and until you take on all the responsibilities of carrying that for that person till death do you part you don't get all the privileges that come with their body and their life that's the Bible's hard line so while you're dating you just say you know what she might date somebody else he might date somebody else I don't have access to her body you don't have access to his there's a separation there and you go Ben that sounds so difficult won't that could produce a lot of tension yes but that tension is meant to propel you through the process that is you go I really want to touch you you got to go but are you the person I want spend the rest of my life with no not really because I don't like talking you and then you go then get off or then you keep talking and realize I think this is the person let's go and you start to figure that out right and you know well been that style of dating looks painful but I promise you this it's a lot less painful than the way we do it now with all the physical coupling and uncoupling that we do it's not just the Bible its science now and it's always been the same because the Bible talks about the real world but scientists are coming around what the Bible's been telling us all along that when you do that it's deeply painful to wire yourself to someone chemically and then keep pulling apart that's difficult for you and for me we're not meant to do that and that's why number four was purity sexually and I have so many pages of notes on this subject that I realized it can't be a minor point I'm gonna have to do a whole other talk on that because there's a lot of complexities and a lot of hurts and issues around sex and so we're doing a whole talk about it we should do a whole series on it but we're gonna do a whole talk about it next week so I was looking at the schedule and I'm like we're gonna talk about sex on the front lawn not we're gonna talk about sex while we're on the front lawn there's no good way to say it but that's what we're gonna do anyway so let me get to the three points that this talk is about I got to move a little quicker what's point number four excuse me point number five point number five of how we date is graciously graciously and you go what does that mean well here's what I mean I think there's so much confusion like you find someone attractive they find you attractive you express that to one another there's mutual interest and so you go okay and I meet so many people there they go okay there's mutual interest and what are we supposed to do what actually is dating how do we know if we're doing it right you know and you know what is it is it a sales pitch am i running for office like well I think I would be a great husband for the following reasons I'll vote for this I'll never vote for that I'll never raise heck like are you trying to convince them that you're a good deal is that what dating is I fake it what are you into what are you into I love that - yeah I love art and babies love them right do you put on a front and act like something else that you think they want right do you try to stoke the flames of passion I remember the first time I did it in high school Mike what are you supposed to do and my friends were like well Valentine's kind of you gotta like write poetry and buy all these gifts and really like do all this stuff to like romance her and I'm like unto what end to give one another high five at the end of the night like what where's that supposed to go and say you know then what is dating for what are we supposed to do and other people go you know what you just got to be authentic man it just got to be mating so I'm gonna sit on the couch and watch TV and if she won't sit on my couch and hangout fine this is me being me you know man you you be you but you be a you that's like progressing in life right and so you go what are we supposed to do well identity determines activity so let's be clear about who we're talking about here and in Ephesians chapters 1 2 & 3 Paul's explaining how God has chosen to adopt men and women into his family sons and daughters reconciling them to himself that's the big story and as God is building a family were reconciled not just to God but to one another and that has implications for how we treat each other and so in Ephesians chapter 4 he says I therefore a prisoner of the Lord heard you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you've been called with all humility and gentleness with patience bearing with one another and love eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace there's one body just as and one spirit just as you were called to the hope that belongs to your call one Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all Paul saying God has built one body a community and God has called himself father over that community and so if I say I'm not going to date people that don't have an allegiance to God as father through the son Jesus Christ if I say those are the people I'm gonna date the pool I'm gonna date in then you look around and what you're realizing is you are dating royalty you are talking to a child of God the word courtship and the word courtesy or courteous it comes from - to act with manners that fit a royal court how do you act when you walk into the presence of royalty with politeness and with respect because I realized this is a person of value it's not just a metaphor for us that when you were a Christian think about that because it's not just the person you date any person you come across as a dignity stamped on them in the image of God and then when they've come to Christ that is a very son of the Living God daughter of God so there should be a reverence and how you speak to them and treat them whether they recognize it themselves or not so I member in high school being propositioned sexually by a girl and I had never had that happen before where she's offering herself to me and I told her no and it wasn't because I feared her dad and her dad was kind of a swagger II guy that was like I got a gun now to use and I'm like you just come off to me as strange with that whole thing and I wasn't scared of her older brother but I remember being propositioned with that and thinking about what am I gonna do and I had to think about it when I was in high school but I felt like the Lord pressed into me if you use her you have an issue with me if someone tries to use my daughter your issue is with me and I realized it's a reverence for God that's gonna impact how I treat this girl whether she recognizes the dignity of what she is or not and so you go if that's who I'm dealing with what does it mean to treat them with reverence it means graciously because Paul goes on and says but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift therefore it says when he ascended on high and let it Coast of captives and he gave gifts to men gifts is the same word as grace that God has given grace gifting to each one of us and he gave the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ into a all all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of fullness of Christ you go what does that mean it means whenever I come in close proximity to another human being then you say relationally whatever the end may be I want you to be a better person as a result of being in close proximity with me whenever you enter into a relationship with anybody and particularly with dating as you step in with a guy and girl you go I don't know where it's gonna end it may end with us as husband and wife forever it may end with us parting ways but either way made the net result of your time with me be that you are a better person because I used the grace given to me to build you up so you could attain the unity and the fullness of Christ it's about being a blessing more than it's about impressing them that when I get around another person my energy is not in how do i impress them my energy is how do I bless them how do I care for them so you go what does that mean take him to dinner yes but not to impress her to get to know her share what you're learning Paul will go on later to talk about speaking to one another in Psalms hymns and spiritual songs when Donna and I dated we didn't try to combine our devotional lives now we must study the same book and at the same time what do you study whatever you want and I'll study whatever I want but when we go to dinner we'll ask that question what's God teaching you I'm reading this great book and she tells me I'm like I'll probably ever read that book but give me the CliffsNotes of it so I can learn it and we're both learning and growing and I'm learning things from her we do things we like doing together we went rappelling we went running together and we realized we both love the outdoors as she hates running and I realized do we have to have every pastime in common I'm like running I can run by myself if she hated the outdoors that might be a problem so I looked at that when we're good we run alone but let's go outside right and we shared what we're learning encouraging one another along the way do ministry things together when Donna and I were getting to know each other I wanted to pick her up and she says well come to this youth event that I'm leading and I went there and watched her and her friends ministered all these high school students one of our first dates I went down to a church in Houston where her and her band were leading worship right watch how they interact with people encourage them with your words that's what dating is for it's for evaluating but it's also for blessing and I remember this really struck me when I was in college because my sister came up into college while I was a student here and I've told this story there were buddies of mine that were joking about I'm gonna try to date your sister and I was like yeah no you're not and and I watched myself realize how not funny that was and I looked at some of them I'm like you will never date my sister right and they're like yeah you don't know Mike no man like I'll kill you and it's not like swagger is like okay I'm like no I'll kill you because I see that you try to romance and impress girls and you use them and so they started to joke with me well no guys ever gonna be good enough for your sister and I said that's not true that's not true and so they asked me well who will be good enough and I I remember sitting and going who would be good enough and I thought about that what kind of man would I want to date my sister and I wanted a guy not that would spend all his energy trying to get her to like him because that's ultimately a very selfish thing I want a guy that with ever amount of time voice influence he has in her life his bent to be God wherever you lead this thing may the net effect of her proximity to me be a blessing in her life that she trusts you more God loves you more as a result of our intersection whether it leads to marriage or leads to us parting ways may we be better people as a result of this time only time I did dating right in college was at the very end I remember dating a girl and we did the things I'm talking about I've kept like you don't belong to me I don't belong to you but we got to know each other and over time we spent time together and we realized this is a deeply godly girl and I'm pursuing the Lord too and there's so much we like about each other but relationally chemistry there just wasn't a fit there and I remember driving in the car one time together in us I'm just going why isn't this working you're so great I'm so great and I remember I just said it and I said you know what I just think we're not a fit and she said I think you're right and we're both like oh that's so sad and then there was this relief that we're both like man you see that - oh my gosh I thought that we see that we should hang out well no actually we should hang out we're both realizing this isn't working and you know it gets confusing us sometimes but I remember at the end of that you know what that was the first relationship where when she left I thought you know what I'm not gonna be embarrassed for her to tell her friends what it was like being close to me and years later when I came back to lead breakaway and I met her husband I wasn't ashamed to look him in the eye because I knew when your wife was in close proximity with me I treated her with politeness and respect and I was proud of that and I want you to have that and so wherever it ends you say I'm gonna treat them graciously the grace God's given me I used to build you up trusting God will lead us together or apart in his good time right that's how you want to do it and incidentally being gracious is attractive by the way proverbs 1116 says a gracious woman attains honor it sounds horrible but let me say this I remember a girl in high school and a girl in college two social situations I was in for extended periods of time where there was a girl in each group that neither of them was the most physically attractive girl in the group they just weren't but every single guy asked them out and you go what is going on with that and what was going on with that is they were gracious and I remember being in circles of people you would watch them they would come up to people in the group and say hey I've been praying about that issue with your family how's that going they would bring gifts to people to go I know you're having a bad day usually and you saw them just be so gracious to people and I would watch guys non-christian guys be so confused they were just like I need to be near you because they're just really like there's something about because graciousness is attractive because that's how you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who will be cool to you for better or for worse right and guys it's the same with you proverbs 19 says what's desirable in a man is kindness I remember when I first got into the world of ministry when I was a high school student all my mentors were homely looking guys but they all had beautiful wives and I was like what are y'all how are you tricking them like what are you doing I'm like what is the deal with these like how what did you what's happening here and what happened is they were honorable men and they were kind they were so kind and if you got an attractive guy that's really into himself that's cool but it gets old it gets real old but you find a guy that's kind and a guy that's gracious that's who you want to spend the rest of your life with it is we got to move a lot faster all right point number six is community community that when you find someone that you're attracted to the urge to pair off happens and that's a good edge but a challenge comes in our world today where there's too much pairing off of the dating process and we lose what has been a great gift in the history of evaluation and that is the voice of community that we need community around us you need community your same age for a dating pool but you need a community around you that will help you evaluate proverbs 11:14 says where there's no guidance a people Falls but in an abundance of counselors their safety proverbs 24:6 is with many councillors victory is Shuler back in the day when a guy wanted to court a girl he came and sat in the parlor of her house why for safety because you don't trust some of these yes right and they would sit in her home and her parents would be there to watch how does he treat her how does he treat us and then he would leave and they would help you evaluate that person I'm not saying you suddenly got a date like that now but what I am saying is that it helps to have a valuation around us one of the greatest problems with modern dating is the loss of that it's interesting to read modern statistics they've been measuring how people meet their spouses since the 1940s and since the 1940s the categories of meeting your spouse through friends through family at work and at church have all been going down down down down down only two categories have gone up bars and online and right now in America one-third of all married couples are meeting online one-third right now now I'm not disparaging meeting someone in those two places but here's the danger of those places when you're meeting someone online it's just you and a screen with their data you don't have your community around you and that's that's dangerous or at a bar your friends can't hear what he's saying it's too loud so they can say he looks cute but you don't know if he's cooler an idiot right and so we've lost the value of community of people helping us evaluate and we need that we need people around us I remember when I first started dating Donna we went out and we met with a community of people and I think that's the best way to do it in college have a big group of friends guys and girls and do stuff together because you get to watch them how they treat people they're not trying to sleep with and you see if they're nice to people in general and then if you hang out in community you're getting to evaluate people and then as you get to know somebody man you get certain voices around you advisors that can speak into that that love God and love you and have wisdom and sometimes your best friend loves God loves you but they're not necessarily a source of infinite wisdom you need wisdom around you and so I remember when I was first interested in Donna I came to her said I want to take you on a date she said pick me up at her church and I showed up at her church and the entire staff was there I thought I was gonna pick her up in the car I was over an hour of me meeting everyone that had ever gone to church there I mean she was like the darling because she led worship at the church and they're like that's our baby all right now I was like oh man this is a serious job interview right to get to go on a date with this girl but I like that I like that she had community around her and then when I was getting to know Donna I wanted to ask her out around friends so I took her rappelling with a man who was a mentor in my life Steve shaver because I loved Steve and I wanted him to see us together and be able to help me see are we a good fit I wanted someone in my life that could speak into my life in Song of Solomon Song of Solomon the love book in our Old Testament it begins with the woman speaking and she says let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth when the book opens she's already infatuated with this guy and when you get infatuated with someone you can lose clear thinking and when you meet the Shulamite at the beginning of sine of songs she's there she's looking at this guy and she's like uh when his mouth on my mouth but you see as the book progresses four people speak the woman the man God and the woman's friends right and you see her friends as she extolled her infatuation with this guy's when it's her friends turned to speak they say rightly do they love you her friends who are not infatuated with him are able to say impartially he is a right or proper person to set your affections upon some of you have been dating someone that all your friends and counselors have been saying to you this doesn't look like a good fit and what some of you do is you start cutting those counselors and friends out of your life and that's a big mistake you get people around you that are wise and loving and you let them evaluate and tell you what they see that's critical Donna and I needed that around us and you need it too you need friends that will help you evaluate and the last thing I would say is patiently we date patiently that we give it time there's no rush into forever first Timothy 5:22 is speaking about leadership in the church but it applies to leadership in your life the influence of a husband or wife it says do not be hasty in the laying on of hands that's transferring Authority nor take part in the sins of others keep yourself pure verse 23 is about drinking wine we'll skip that one verse 24 the sins of some people are conspicuous going before them to judgment the sins of others appear later so also good works are conspicuous and even those that are not cannot remain hidden what he told Timothy is as you're teaching as you're bringing up people that are gonna have serious influence in this community don't rush to make somebody a leader he said watch him he said because some people their sins go before them I knew you were trouble when you walked there right some of me like that guy is troubled that girl is drama on her way in the door right other people you don't know right away and as soon as you meet them they'll look good they'll be nice they'll be friendly they'll be interested in you and you'll go oh my gosh love is an open door and you'll just be so into them and you don't realize he's gonna try to kill you and take your money right my daughter's when they watch frozen they love the Prince Hans part and I'm like y'all don't get too into this guy because he's trouble right you watch them over time because some people they present really well but over time if you watch them there are serious cracks in their character that will become fault lines in the pressure of marriage and it'll crater the marriage and you don't want that you don't want to find out then so give it time watch them some people their sins follow after they come in looking good but you wait and you'll see it the same with good works they're conspicuous they come over time and so I watch them and I wait CS Lewis wrote a book on the four loves and you picked the four Greek words for love it's a great book you can get the audiobook and actually hear CS Lewis read it it's amazing but he's talking about agape which we often equate with a godly love for all phileo which is a brotherly friendship love story game which is an affection eros which is romantic passion and in our world today we typically go for eros am i sexually attracted to you and then we hope there's some phileo a sense of friendship or a affection or agape later and what I think would be wonderful as we decide to live as a Christian community walking in and saying we are people who've received the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that he loved us loved us so much he gave his life for us that when I trust in him I made a child of God and the people around me if they've put their faith in him that's the son of God that's a daughter of God and as we get together we use the Grace in us to build each other up graciously with one another and we have an agape a godly love for each other and as we have that godly love our deep brotherly friendship of I will I will go to war with you builds and then it's that phileo builds then you find someone that an affection a story gay you just like being around them starts to grow and then it becomes a romantic love doesn't always work out that way but it would be beautiful if that's how we tried to walk into it Sam I'm just gonna love the people of God love everybody but as I dwell in deep community I love these people and over time I see their character I sense a chemistry and then as the affections rise we run on into forever together but that takes time and it takes trust you've got to trust him and I just hope that you'll believe a God who was willing to give his life for you you can trust him with your heart and soul as you feel that ache to spend your life with someone God will care for you some of you will have to wait Isaac and the Old Testament had to wait until he was 40 some of you may need to wait that long but it's better to wait for the right person than to not wait and regret it deeply others of you it might be your late 20s something like that but you wait you wait for me I loved my single years of pursuing the Lord and I wanted to do ministry and I didn't want anyone to get in the way of that and in due time God put me in a ministry situation where I saw Donna leading worship and I thought we're doing the same kinds of things ministering among people in similar ways chasing God at the same pace it's meant to be right I saw this happen with my family as my sister had a longing to go into mission work and she knew medicine was an important part of that so she started going down that track realized I'm not a doctor I think I'm more of a counselor and she went into counseling pursuing missions in Africa she met a doctor pursuing missions in Africa and they realize our lives are headed the same direction for the glory of God let's run together and you give it time you wait God will take care of you does that mean you'll get married when you want no does it mean you'll ever get married maybe not for some of you but here's the deal if I trust that God gave the life of his son for me to forgive me I can trust that he cares about the deepest things of my heart and he does and I hope that you'll rest in him that's a God who loves you commands your destiny so I will wait patiently and entrust my heart to him and him alone

Channel: Elizabeth Marley Hollingsworth

Views: 10,618

Rating: 4.8816566 out of 5

Keywords: ASL, Breakaway, Breakaway Ministires, Dating, Bible Study, TAMU, Interpreting

Id: iaNC8w9T304

Length: 41min 15sec (2475 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2016