Is She Dateable? | JD Rodgers

[Music] so [Music] all right let's do it let's do it what's up our friends tuning in in porch live tulsa scottsdale boise idaho my friends in dallas what's up we are back having awakened guest speakers all the things we're back kicking off our fourth night of our dating series dateable and i know we had some people upset uh after is he dateable we're like yeah next week is she dateable and then next week didn't come and the next week didn't come people were knocking on my dms i had a mom and my dm's like you said next week is she dateable and i'm like you're married and then like she's like my daughter i was gonna send it to my daughter and i was like well to that mom if you're listening tonight we're here we're here now and uh just so excited and like i said if you didn't join us basically what we did a few weeks ago is got to just walk through three questions that girls should be asking and guys should be even asking themselves concerning hey is this guy that i potentially will be dating is he dateable according to god's standards not culture what i want but what god wants and tonight this one is for the boys okay tuesdays tonight are for the boys if you're a guy in the house and you're ready let me hear you say yeah oh i love it manpower but before i get to that uh i would like to introduce you guys to a friend of mine and his wife this is ryan and becca ryan and becca michael and these two individuals are really special um have been through a lot this year and i'll tell you a little bit about it so we i'm a friend of ryan's and come february uh he got the news that his kidney was failing at just the age of 24 newly married his kidneys failing and it just rapidly started declining his health started declining and i know this is like a downer to start on but has a hopeful ending so we get this news and all of the friends around that we prayed about it and we're like hey let's see if we could be a live donor so all of us apply all these different things and when i got the application i had no idea the work that went into potentially being a live donor and it makes sense like if you think about it like if you are selected they're going to cut you open take out a major organ and give it to someone that's a big deal and so because it's a big deal they ask a lot of questions there's so much involved in the testing process to see if you're a match because if you think about it how pointless would it be how much unnecessary pain would you have to go through if whenever you hear hey you have my friend's kidneys failing you're just like take mine just for them to open it up try to give it to ryan and to see that it wasn't a match like it would be pointless it would be for nothing and so they ask all of these really strategic questions and out of the process the longest part by far is what's called the consultation where if you go further and further in your blood your blood types the same all these different things you sit down with all these medical professionals and they just drill you with questions questions questions medical history your family's medical history your family's family's medical history your all these different intimate details of your life they even check your mental state all these different things why all of the answers through process of elimination through other cases what these professionals are doing is determining based off of what this person says will ryan's body accept this kidney will they be a match why because like i said there are major implications of this surgery and we want to guarantee that these two people are the right match so we want to make sure we ask the right questions i start there because i think so many of us meet a person and because they're good-looking attractive they make us feel butterflies inside we don't ask any questions we jump right into the deep end we open up ourself give them our heart all for what rejection hurt unnecessary pain that we still are experiencing the ramifications of the choice that we made to not make sure that hey am i asking the right questions am i doing the right pre-work before i jump into a relationship with this person am i asking the right questions not according to my way but to what god would have for me in a relationship we don't do the hard work to make sure that this relationship would work in a way that god would want it and the result is as we jump in too soon and because of that heartbreak in pain and so fellas tonight and ladies i hope you are taking notes and you're listening just as well because tonight we're going to just go through again three questions that i think that god would have us ask before we jump into a relationship before we even get into an exclusive dating relationship before pursuing her we ask these questions hey is she dateable is she a match is this what god would want for me not based off what i see or i feel but according to his truth and his design so go ready to do it here we go first question a guy should ask is who currently has her heart who currently as a single individual has her heart before giving her your heart or before asking her to open up herself and to begin giving her heart to you you should be able to answer right now as an individual as an independent woman who has her heart what does she love who does she love does culture have her heart does any guy that will give her attention have her heart does her ex still have her heart does social media gratification people's perceptions of her what has her heart and i think we come to church and i'm going to give you the answer hey her first love the who behind who should have her heart as a single individual is jesus christ and i think we hear that we're like yeah of course like i wanted to be a christian i want her to love god but really you can tell if a person is about it or not real recognize real all right and you can tell if jesus truly has her heart and i don't mean that he's just a part of her life but he's the point of her life jesus is her everything jesus gets all of her attention all of her affections all of her devotion she pretty much doesn't even notice you noticing her because she's fixated on what jesus has for her not on you because he is her love he has her heart in such a way that should gravitate your heart towards her paul says this we read this all the time talking about the season of singleness which by the way i hope that you're scoping out the women who are single as single people this is what paul says should be true of them first corinthians 7 25 i am saying all of this he says all these things for your own good not to restrict you like singleness isn't a restriction but that you may live in a right way what's the right way an undivided devotion to the lord so when you ask yourself hey who has her heart another way paul's way of saying that is does jesus have an her undivided devotion has she fully surrendered her life to him and i think that so many of us were like yeah well everyone especially in texas like calls himself a christian like how can you know and i just want to talk about a little bit of what it looks like to know if a girl has given her heart fully to jesus not just with her mouth but with her life so how can you tell if jesus has her heart well how do you know if anything has anyone's heart it's what they kind of obsess over it's what they spend all their time talking about it's what they spend all their time doing i was here writing i was thinking about there's these two guys that lead here they're awesome but every time i talk to them here is a recent i know the same topic's gonna come up bitcoin they're gonna talk about bitcoin every single time or is it like dogecoin is that what it is is that right some of you okay yeah dogecoin i don't know yeah but they're going to talk about it and i'm going to sit here and be like yeah yeah yeah i should totally invest you're right i have no idea what they're talking about some cryptocurrency in the air that we all like the world's going down and we should all invest but the reason why is because they're investing in what they're obsessing over and so many of us we talk about and participate and enjoy and delight in the things that have our heart and so does this girl and by the way those guys they talk about jesus all the time too yeah he's you know he's good they love jesus but so many times like we talk about we meet these people that they're all just talk but you look at their life and there's nothing that reflects an actual change the bible says in matthew chapter 7 that you will recognize a tree by its fruits like you'll recognize a tree by its fruits that a lot of time the spiritual walk a life with christ looks like it uses like this illustration of like gardening or trees and roots and once someone is rooted in an abiding relationship with jesus they water it they do it in proper soil and out produces so much fruit in their life that their old life dies and goes away and a new life with christ comes and there's so much fruit what does fruit what do i mean by spiritual fruit what does that look like galatians 5 verse 22 says the fruit of the spirit or the fruit of a person who has given jesus their heart are these things love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control when you look at this woman what marks her life what indicates what gets her attention and her affections do these things pour out of her like if you were to try to hit her up is she probably busy because she's too busy being the church she's too busy making disciples and meeting with girls like is she the type of girl that whenever vacations come around and she finally gets time off the work of work she goes on mission trips because she wants to go and serve and talk about what jesus has done in her life it's the type of girl that every time you get around her you experience this just like she's different she's different there's this calming peace to her there's this joy about her in the midst of really hard circumstances there's this story to her there's this there's this thing about her that doesn't look like the girls that you met out at the bar doesn't let the girls that are consciously blowing you up on instagram she's steady she's certain she's confident that looks like a woman whose heart has been given to jesus and i think a lot of times the reason why this is actually hard for us men i'm going to lean in just a little bit a little pressure point on this man right here i think why we actually don't want a girl who has given her undivided attention to jesus is because that means that if she's giving him her everything we only get some of her and we want it reversed we want her to give us everything we want and to give some of herself to jesus and there's this contradiction that sure you want a girl that when you bring her home to mom and dad who forced you to go to church growing up she can talk the talk and say yeah i'm a christian but if she actually starts living christ-like that contradicts what you want out of the relationship because if she's actually all in with jesus maybe she doesn't want to sleep with you if she's actually all in with jesus maybe she does want to go to church and want you to serve in the church if she's all in with jesus maybe she actually is going to demand the respect that you lead her that you serve her that you listen that you practice the things in god's word maybe if you find a girl who's actually all in with jesus that means that you have to be as well and so i just you know i'm just saying make sure that when you are going out to these women and you're looking across going man who is dateable who's about it you're finding a woman who doesn't just call herself a christian but is living christ-like because she has given her heart to jesus she is running the race she is all out for the lord next question we ask if she's dateable what dictates her value what dictates her value well first off we need to answer just what dictates anyone's value like where does value come from where do we get our value and the reality is the thing about value is what determines something's value is who created it or the inventor the creator of that thing and what we're willing to pay for it over here i thought talking about is she dateable i'd bring out the louis vuitton so when talking about lv i found out from the girls on our team that pretty much everyone's got fake louis vuittons that came to my surprise and i was like wait what you're a bunch of like fakers i thought y'all had it like that and so one of these is fake okay let's call the big big girl back here number one little shoddy number two and uh the princess with a little pink number three okay so big mama the baddie and the shoddy okay here we go whatever number one number two number three raise your hand on which one's fake here we go is number one fake raise your hand some of you girls are like trust me i know there's a difference you're like the durability especially in the rainy season like quality quality okay number two okay number three y'all y'all thought it was number three because of this strap right here isn't it that's exactly why i'm gonna be honest i don't even know i forgot but the point that is kind of the point okay all these bags look the same i don't care who you are you post you post a picture in one of these and i'm like she's she's got it she's bougie and so you know who wouldn't agree with me there's a girl who owns all three of those bags and she wouldn't agree with me she'd be like those are not all the same why one was made by a guy in a garage the other two were made by louie and because louis vuitton made those bags they're different also the reason why i do not agree is because for one i paid what like 80 i guess maybe and the other two i paid 1800. she i don't know actually what the cost is i just i googled it and it was expensive it's way too much and yeah jenna if you're watching don't get any ideas and so i the thing is is she would say no no two of those are of extreme more value because of who made it and what i paid for it and when we're talking about a woman understanding her value she needs to understand who created her and what he paid for her who created her god was god that's right god every week i can count on this guy okay god it's that kid in sunday school jesus every single time god crafted and created woman with purpose with a mission with his heart with a unique design and i thank god that he created women but what's so amazing about that is because the god of the universe is your creator that means that you have more value than you could ever comprehend and not only did he create you but he is so good that he created you distinctly in his image genesis 1 27 says so god created man in his own image in the image of god he created him male and female he created them you are made in the image of god and the purpose of your life is to bear his image to represent his image that when you live you're not living for yourself you're living as a representative of the king of kings and the lord of lords who is in love with you who is obsessed with you has given you so much purpose and that's where your value comes from you're not just made up by random chance you're not just here for some watered-down version of life you are a daughter of the king of kings and men you want a princess you want someone who sees themselves as such because then when she understands her value when she understands what she was put on earth to do there is a confidence and an assurance about her that will change your life that's why you shouldn't settle for anything less than a woman who understands who her father is what she was made for a woman who isn't obsessed with her own image but being an image bearer a woman who seeks to serve that god who created her what's even more crazy is he did not stop as simply making man and woman in his image but he paid an immense price to be with them forever and apart from anything else forget the dating crap forget everything else if she is he i don't care what i want you to know is that god loved you so much that he saw the sin in your world and that while you were a sinner he sent his son to pay the price that you and i could never pay that our sin was going to build up a more and more debt that would keep us further and further away from god and god wanted to be with you so bad that he said take my one and only son this is more this is more worth in a bag this is more worth than a car or a house or whatever you could buy in this world this was his one and only son who came down to earth and god saw you as worth it for him to die on a cross for you he bore stripes on his back the bible says by his wounds we are healed first corinthians 6 20 says that you were bought with a price which was the blood of jesus that was shed on the cross for you and he died they buried him three days later he rose again now claiming victory over sin and so that you and i could be with god our creator forever and in light of that it changes everything it changes everything about our past present and future and no matter what you've done if you do not have that relationship if you have never understood the value that you are worth the son of god coming down and dying for you you should not worry about any other relationship you should stop looking for a man man you should stop looking for women you should look at jesus and you should do everything you can to establish that firm relationship and experience the abundant life that comes from it no other relationship will meet and satisfy the longing and the needs of your soul like he can and if you keep asking the question is she dateable is he datable is this is that and you're missing jesus nothing will work jesus is everything he is the glue he is the answer to the equation that everyone's asking it's all about jesus jesus came down to establish a relationship with you so you could be in relationship with other people but without him impossible so get that one right and men do not settle you make sure you care for her enough to say hey i'm not gonna get into this with you i'm not gonna there's no there's nothing more important about this relationship than a relationship with god and point her to where her value comes from her creator and what he was willing to pay the blood of his son and if she knows that you've got yourself a woman that is dateable but the reality is is i think a lot of people a lot of ladies they like know in their minds that through the blood of jesus they're set free but they don't live like it they live so bound so pent up so afraid so idol driven by fear of man or perception of others or need for control perfectionism and image-based reality you want to find someone who understands the power of the blood of jesus and they live like it's true not just with their words but with their life because the reality is there are a lot of things that the world tells us makes someone valuable other than jesus like jesus isn't like the ultimate like here's where your worth is found and so to understand where value is you have to also understand where it is not and i'm going to specifically talk about hey i think these are two areas where women look to for value but you're never going to find it and men if they're searching for value in these things she is not dateable the first one value is not found in looks value is not found in the outward that's all in scripture value is not found in what other people think about you or what you think about yourself and at a time where body celebration is so praised and so clap for why is everyone so anxious and depressed why are they constantly looking at themselves in the mirror wondering if they're enough if it's worth celebrating why internally am i not celebrating why am i still chasing still striving for that affirmation because that's not where true value is found first peter 3 verse 3 says this do not let your adorning be external so do not let the reason why people praise you or adore you be from anything on the outward the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable it means it will not fade the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit now for some of you strong women i'm going to address that just give me a minute they're like what do you mean quiet which in god's sight is very precious for this is how the holy women who hoped in god used to adorn themselves here's what he means by quiet and gentle just to get this really quick it does not mean that women need to shut up and sit down it does not mean that women are here to cook and clean and take care of the kids it does not mean that okay however what it does mean is when it says a woman who is quiet and gentle this actually word it it translates to tranquil which also translates to a peaceful spirit this same word was used to describe jesus actually which also tells me this isn't gender specific that this is a word used this is a word used to describe the image bearer of jesus you and i someone that is marked by peace when you see them you're not feeling like oh my gosh someone that's like constantly nagging complaining gossiping well this well that and always stressed out but simply composed and peaceful because they know jesus the author of peace the prince of peace that's what this is saying but before we get to that what it is not value is not found in the external in fellas you need to know and you need to be able to answer this question is she holy or is she just hot okay is she holy or is she just hot because i think a lot of times attraction can be like drunk goggles that do not give us clear vision into the heart of a woman the bible says in proverbs that charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the lord is worthy of praise charm is deceitful beauty is fleeting she might be smooth with her words they might come off her lips like honeycomb she might be able to whisper and do all these weird seductive things and make you feel some type of way but what we're seeing here is none of that makes a girl dateable none of that is what brings a girl value and if you want to know what a girl thinks about her outward appearance go to her instagram go to her instagram her instagram will tell you really quick if she idolizes her outward appearance and i want to address something there's this thing i'm seeing leaking into christian culture that i just i haven't heard anyone talk about it i'm going to do it at the risk of i don't know tomatoes getting thrown at me there are girls that i go on instagram friends that post pictures like this [Applause] okay the camera is over there they're facing over here and i heard apparently you're supposed to like go on your toes or something and like the angle and everything and the reality is there's a sunset over here that they're not even looking at and the caption says love god's creation and all my brothers in christ are like i love god's creation too [Applause] they're not looking at the sun they're looking at the moon and so [Applause] but do you know what i do they get three strikes all right and then they get unfollowed want to know why what do you want me to look at no i'm being for real ask yourself that what what do you want us to look at like there's no other answer than the back of you and you come to the porch time and time again and i hear i hear you celebrating it's not about physical attraction look at the heart but i look at your instagram and there's just this it doesn't match up i see your skin i see things that as just your brother in christ i'm telling you what you post tells me about what you value and what you think your value comes from it also tells me how much you value your brothers in christ who are trying to live for jesus it matters how you post matters what you wear matters why does it matter because it's feeding something it's feeding a false sense of where value and self-worth lies and i know i know the reason why you do it is because sadly a lot of guys in this room and girls like it and that tells you oh look i do this i get attention i get affirmation and it for a moment fix your loneliness for a moment it allows you to forget about your singleness and the endorphins released when that post comes and all those girls saying yes queen with those clapping emojis and they're saying all these different things it makes you feel good but if you treat yourself like bait and you dangle it up the sharks will bite and you don't want sharks that's not the kind of men you want but it's what you're communicating with what you post so i'll get off my soapbox but first peter here is saying the external is not what makes a woman valuable then what is it if it's not if she's just hot or not if he's actually holy what does it look like for a girl to be holy he says in verse four but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which in god's sight is very precious ladies let me just say like you want that you don't want a man who will look at you you want someone that in god's sight is very precious that when god looks at you he's like she gets it she's focusing on her soul not herself she gets it she gets that life is about me and men may we be men who do not feed and help the enemy in convincing women that they have to be both attend physically and spiritually and create these unrealistic expectations that keeps them chasing and chasing and chasing and striving and striving and striving may we be men who does not celebrate and lead them to believe that it's about the outward but be men who chase after the inside of a woman the heart her soul the last thing we should be asking is can she follow you can she follow you as you we talked about in the is he dateable that the bible tells us the roles of how christ is the head of every man and the man the head of a woman and the head of christ is god and so there's these roles we see not ranks these roles whereas the man's responsibility the opportunity to get to lead and servant lead his woman but in order to do that there are things that he must be for her to feel like he is worth following he is worth respecting but she has to be able to see the right things and be able to tell the right things she is dateable if she's able to follow you but first you have to ask yourself as the leader i have to turn it back to the men for just a moment you have to be able to ask yourself and you and the community around you a brother should be able to say yeah yeah when i read this you are that man you are someone she can follow now we don't know yet but talk about if she actually can but you are someone that is living for the lord that you are living this way that we would happily send you to go and pursue a woman that is dateable because the reality is is if you find a girl who hasn't given her heart to jesus who hasn't found her value in the blood of jesus and the price paid for her the reality is is that she won't follow you she's going to need you she's going to like desperately need you to be the source of her life the lifeline to her joy and satisfaction and significance one of the most attractive things when i was my fiance jenna when we were when i was assessing if i should ask her to be my girlfriend we went to this coffee we were talking and i was just asking her questions to see who is this girl right now like is she an individual who understands her role as a daughter of the king or is she looking to me to be her only kind of spiritual connection to god and she said this line that when she said it i literally was like marrying me right now she said this she said here's what i think i think a lot of people they idolize relationships and i know that god wants us to be in a relationship and i know that marriage is a good thing but so many people around me they're just so obsessed with idolizing relationships and that tells you that they're not living as if jesus is coming back tomorrow because here's what i know jd i just met this girl okay i'm like okay keep going listening she says jd i one day if i die or if jesus returns i'm gonna stand before my creator and he is not gonna say well done my good and faithful married person to jd or to this person he's gonna say well done my good and faithful jenna at least that's what i hope he's gonna say i'm on a mission for jesus to look at me and say well done my good and faithful jenna i don't need a relationship because i'm on mission for jesus she understood the relationship and the opportunities she had with god and when a woman understands what it's like to fully follow jesus it makes it that much easier for her to identify how to follow you and to keep following jesus what i loved about that statement from her is that that showed me that i did not i did not feel responsible to ignite her flame for christ i simply now was given the responsibility to just fan it i got to fan her dreams i got to encourage i get to encourage her hopes for her ministry and the women around her and the passions that she has why because she's following jesus she doesn't need me she has a real relationship with him all on her own and so it's really important that as i'm about to read this and wrap up we understand what it looks like to have roles as individuals but then roles in a relationship with one another and like i said we always say like the bible doesn't talk about dating however we believe that dating is a destination that leads to a promise which is marriage the bible is full about helpful things about god's design for marriage and so we oftentimes pull from that to tell us how we should date to align with what god would have for us for marriage and if you've been to a wedding you've heard the pastor read probably from ephesians 5. he says this verse 21 i want you to first acknowledge this submitting to one another out of reverence for christ wives and husbands wives submit to your own husbands as to the lord for the husband is the head of the wife even as christ is the head of the church his body and is himself its savior now as the church submits to christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands husbands love your wives as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself and splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish go to verse 33 it says however let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wise see that she respects her husband i know that this passage mentions the s word that we don't like submit there's a bad connotation on this word submission but it's actually a really beautiful thing when you take time i don't have time to go into right now but when you take time to see how like intricate and the details god is about the way that he designed the relationship between man and woman and husband and wife to exemplify into parallel with his relationship with us with jesus with us with the church it's it's just amazing it's masterful and i would encourage you to really get down and learn what it looks like to understand your role in a relationship but part of the woman's role we see her very plainly is that she is called to follow and respect the man as the leader of the household does not mean she's less than that she gets the opportunity to follow the man and you have to ask yourself like i said men are you someone worth following but is she someone who knows how to follow you or are you compromising are you settling are you looking for someone and convincing yourself that yeah she'll know how to like be in a relationship with god and all these different things and trying to convince yourself of something that's not a reality because if she is not ready to follow you you both will end up being hurt and losing in the end david had mentioned a illustration that he had heard before where there was this amazing race uh marriage edition husband and wife and when you watch the race as they would come you know they're married they're so in love they haven't seen each other they've gone through all these hard things these different obstacles and they get up to each other high five go they don't stop and be like so how was your time like how was this how was that like look into each other's eyes engaged in an intimate moment no why because they were on a mission they were on a mission they were on a destination to win to claim victory as a couple together you want to look for someone who is on mission with you oh a woman that knows what it looks like to follow you but more importantly to follow jesus with you so just ask yourself is she on the same page as you when it comes to the vision of the covenant of marriage that is an everlasting covenant that divorce is not an option the divorce is not even in the category it's not in the picture does she understand what you want to lead in a marriage does she understand that you have the desire hopefully to make disciples in your home that the church is us and we have a responsibility to invite people in to show hospitality or does she want to be one of those couples that want to get married we all know we have those people that once they got married you never saw him again it just bounced but the ministry does not stop the end goal is not marriage if the end goal for her is marriage what a sad life after your 20s like if that's all that if that's everything it's marriage like once i get married my life's set that's gonna i mean the guy's gonna let you down real quick you're gonna be like this is it this is all i this is all i planned for you want someone who is ready to run the amazing race with jesus with you on mission together a woman who understands that hey life is not about us life is about serving others it's not about building our own kingdom it's about building god's kingdom it's not about posting and building our own love story and sharing it with the world it's about telling the world of the greatest love story to ever exist the gospel of jesus christ are you a leader we're following and is she able to follow you and are you both able to follow jesus in this amazing race called life a life with him i'll close with this i know that i got this feedback from some girls if you go to the comments on youtube or coming down up front after the last message on is he dateable they were like this is all nice in theory and when i write it down in my journal but then i walk out and i'm like these guys don't exist first to that i would say that's not true they exist they exist be patient they exist but then also to that i know that guys you could be feeling the same thing right now that like man do girls like this really exist or do relationships like this really exist could i be a man like this who really exist could god really provide something like this because i think that some of you are not convinced that you are worthy of a love life like this and i will tell you something jesus rewrites history he takes everything about your past and he redeems it he changes it he makes you new no matter how many people you slept with no matter how no matter how many images you've looked at no matter how many relationships have ended poorly how many times you've cheated on and guys i know i know there are many of you that are okay with just friends with benefits and hooking up every weekend because you've tried to emotionally connect with a girl before and she hurt you she cheated on you she left you when things got hard or she just got bored with you i know since then he made the decision like i'm kind of out on that maybe when i'm like maybe way later in life but jesus rewrites history his love for you can change the way that you love others the way that you experience love and intimacy with others and i know for some of you girls you might be like check check check i'm dateable where are they let's just be real i mean some of you are like hello can i get a neon sign i would say to you be patient be patient and have perspective never lose perspective on all that you have available to you in your already abiding relationship with jesus it's enough even when it doesn't feel like it even in those lonely hours i've been there it's enough and trust me you don't want to settle you'd rather be 40 and single than 40 and miserable in a relationship with someone that wasn't putting in the work to be this kind of person ladies if this isn't you it's worth it let jesus begin to change your life and be a girl who has given her heart to jesus not just with her words but with her life a girl who understands her value that she was created by the god of the universe bought with a price by the blood of his son and a girl who understands what it looks like to follow a man after god's own heart you can do it i know it's hard i know it might seem unrealistic but you can do it um after three months of testing and questioning we found out that i indeed in the match uh for ryan michael's kidney and i get [Applause] i get to give my kidney to ryan in two weeks from the day which is just unbelievable i'm i don't say that to be like oh my god like please do not come down here and say that so don't that's not why i'm sharing this i'm sharing this because in that picture we were super happy but there were months of despair ryan on dialysis ryan and his wife crying to me ryan and i see you suffering on suffering on suffering but you know what made that moment so joyful and so exciting when i got that call and they said mr rogers you are a match i stood up i began to scream why because i knew that they were right because they did so much work to know that they know that they know that i was a match for ryan there was not a doubt in my mind not a question in my mind because we put in so much work to make sure that when i go and they give my kidney to ryan his body would be able to accept it because they have put in so much work asked all the right questions and i would say to you it's the same way when you are in a relationship it should feel so right joy to come out of it love should come out of it peace not chaos excitement for what god is doing and the story that he's writing in your life that should be what you're experiencing if it's marked by someone who is truly dateable god's way but you only know that if you're willing to go through the hard work asking the right questions making the right changes in your life to say i will not date how culture tells me the dates i will not settle for anyone who does not understand their value and word from jesus i will do this the right way and if you will you will experience life on mission you will experience life an amazing way according to what god designed that's what he wants from you anything else you're settling but there's better because of jesus this is possible and i want to be possible for every person in this room whether single dating engaged married whatever stage you understand where your worth comes from and it changes the way you live your life i hope that every person in here is dateable not because the way they look or act or because they do the right things because they've given their life to jesus let's pray god we just i know a talk like this can uh potentially bring forth shame and guilt and right now god i ask that you would remove that you were not a god of shame but of love and of peace of mercy if there's someone right now who feels uncomfortable would you wrap them up in your love if there's someone right now in a relationship that is heading down a path towards destruction and devastation would you bring clarity right now that they would end that relationship and be committed to the right relationship with you i pray against the rising rates of divorce on this generation i pray that this generation will be marked by people who say we will do the work necessary to be different we will do the work necessary to make sure that we pursue and honor and love our brothers and sisters the way that god calls us to trusting that it's better despite that what we feel or what we think or anything else we trust that it's better because god you said it's better i pray god that heartbreak would diminish cheating would stop the disciples would be made that generations on generations on generations are impacted because we made a stand to be different not on our own strength not on our own good deeds or our own performance but because we are people who are marked by jesus because we trust him with our lives we trust him with our relationships come and do your work speak to us now as we respond in worship hear that i pray amen

Channel: The Porch

Views: 431

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: the, porch, dallas, watermark, community, church, christian, christianity, ministry, movement, fort, worth, faith, sermon, dating, truth, bible, advice, biblical, counsel, jonathan pokluda, the porch, watermark community church, young adults, fort worth, david marvin, todd wagner, the bible

Id: PwaKIWelBLE

Length: 50min 21sec (3021 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021