Modern Romance: Love Hurts | Pastor Matt Olthoff

my name is Matt Ulta as Bianca said we get to be a part of this church in this community and we're in this series called modern romance every somebody's like that's right that's right that's good modern romance right but here's the thing if you missed last week you can go out we have a podcast now it just came out this last week which is amazing I heard it was like trending on iTunes or something like that which is fun so you can check out our podcast or you can check out our youtube channel which is great so we don't want you to miss what pastor Bianca said last week because we're just going to build on that this week but if you're here for the first time you're in the right place because we're going to talk about relationships and you're like well you know I don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend it's all good I'm not in relationships like like you got relationships all around you look at the people around you you got relationships you got people all around your relationship with you're single you're dating you're married you got friends divorced without you you're in relationship all the time and so we're going to talk about relationships today I don't know this we can Instagram I just saw a bunch of like hash tag says this modern romance thing was going on you know serve the house find a spouse right and if you guys heard that one I heard flirt to convert I don't know if that's true but I'm just like oh jesus take the wheel because it's gonna happen with this right so anyway we love this series but it's it's it's interesting because I know I just can't stop I'm gonna die already lost control I just put the mic down right but you know this has been interesting this week in our house as we're talking about this in the Old South household bianket is all kinds of research I swear she one day she's gonna open up her own like you know be harmony right so he's trying to set people up it's gonna happen right but she was just you know it's just kind of the conversations are really interesting this week and and you know it got me thinking and she would come down and she talked about you know and she's you know she's all about this romantic you know Valentine's Days next week right I mean I was excited about that that's about five of you five you are really excited about somebody needs to find some dates and go out and you know but you know Valentine's Day and she'd come down and she'd be like you know she'd say something like you know I'd be like studying at the kitchen I'm like in God's Word like a holy just you know with my coffee it's all good right people are some somebody's laughing over there and she'd say what are you passionate about okay but she'd be like what are you passionate about and I'd be like you know um you know um and she's like are you passionate about me and she'd say like you know just all this stuff and so I had to kind of like you know she's got three weeks to talk about modern romance and I swear like I was last week I was in the front row and I was like oh no like what stories is she gonna tell about our dating and our marriage and so she's got three weeks as tell stories I got like one week and so let me just tell you we're talking about passionate and romance and modern romance and so I'll just tell you this one story and this is if you don't know this we met y'all can I met online but there's a couple moments in our relationship where you know she's a little bit more fiery than me I'm kind of like the boring Midwest you know we call ourselves like chips and salsa I'm white and salty and she's you know salsa and all fiery and you know all that kind of stuff and so you know we're just going and she would come up and she's just real passionate and she and we actually were talking about this we don't even know what it was about but you know she can't she came to me and I remember we met at a Starbucks and and several times during relationships she'd break up with me it's what it was like three times face she's in the backseat now you know what it was like last week right you know if anyway so I got the mic now I got the mic oh god I'm in control but anyway I'm gonna lose control this thing but here she goes she comes to me and she says you know what we I need to break up and I'm like okay like she's like I just and she does this thing we're like you know she tries with her like some Bible out there and like you know Christianese and she tries to be like Jesus Juke me and all this kind of stuff and she's like she's like I need I need to go away and pray for 40 days Jesus pray for 40 days I need to go away and pray for 40 days and I'm like I'm like okay like like actually like 40 days you're gonna go away just like I gotta go away for 40 days and I'm like okay and she's like I'm gonna go the desert I'm like you're the desert she's like I'm gonna go the desert for 40 s she's like and she's like I'm gonna go to Palm Springs you know I'm just going to Palm Springs Desmond so I'm like okay what do I do right I can't really say anything in this moment and so you know we leave Starbucks and I'm like oh man like you know I pray about it I was talking to my buddy isn't it here's the deal I I believe that that'd be all can I were supposed to be together and get married and so I decided you know that we're in this series based on the book the Song of Songs and so I decided to do something really unique and romantic I said I'm gonna write that song of songs that's right that's right so here's what I did here's a guy's take note because you can write love letters it works I'm telling you it works and so I said here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna write down for 40 days I'm gonna write down something that I love about Janka and I'm gonna write something that I'm praying for her about so I write it down to write down for 40 s I put it into a book I don't even call her the 40 dicks days it gets over I sent it to her in the mail and guess what happened on day 42 my phone rings hey you know guys it works here we go she broke up but you know that's Song of Songs you know I was gonna bring it and share it with you guys but it's fun and we got it we can tell stories about relationships for days right babe she's like no don't okay anyway so we're in we're in modern romance we're going to talk about Song of Songs and if you were here last week you learned a little bit about this book if you haven't read this book it's kind of book that that we all like to kind of avoid right and I mean who's who's really read it and if you really read the Song of Songs you got a little blush read as you're reading it embarrass and you're like I don't know if I want to read this out loud right there's things in here but this is that this is the book that we're kind of basing this series on and so a couple things just to think about it is one way as pastor Bianca talked about last week is that it's a love letter from a guy named Solomon King Solomon to his wife Abba Shah okay so he writes this love letter and it's this amazing beautiful love letter not as good as mine but it's you know it was good as it's amazing love letter right and so he writes this love letter and sometimes you know we look at this passage and it's also a parallel reflection of God's love for us okay and so we see this perfect love that takes place in the Song of Songs and I encourage you to read it as do the homework as pastor Bianchi talked about but here's what I want to talk about this week and so I titled my my message love hurts somehow I got that topic right but it's gonna be all good but here's the thing we know about relationships is that that relationships there's brokenness and there's pain and there's hurt and there's betrayal in the midst of those and so we want to talk about today how do you move forward when you've been hurt or betrayed or experience pain in relationships and so I know this this this you know the song of songs has this perfect thing and it's going to be a you know it's gonna this amazing love letter but I think there's some things underneath it and here's what I want to do is I'm gonna come at it from a different angle I'm gonna come at it from a little bit different way and I'm going to talk about just kind of some of the context in which this letter takes place and and so here's what happens is I get in this subject and and you know Bianca gets passionate and I get intense and so it looks like I'm kind of getting angry or intense we're going to talk about some stuff and really honestly we're gonna do some soul-searching as we literally prepare for what does it mean to really love and be in relationships and so here's once you turn to your neighbor and say buckle up buttercup that's gonna be intense I had to throw a little buttercup out there right now so I'm just going huh it's good okay so here's where we talk about Bianca shared two truths last week and I want you to kind of look at these we're gonna review these and here's what I want to talk about is the first one is this and these these truths if you don't get anything else from this message I want you to write these down these are the foundation I think of so many different things they're the foundation of why God loves us they're the foundation of how we love they're critical to you moving forward in all the relationships that you have and so I don't want you to miss these and so the first one is this it's based on Song of Songs 2 verse 10 if you have that you can highlight it and circle it underline it and it says this my lover said to me rise up my darling come away with me my fair one and so what you need to know is this is that God wildly loves you there's some of you in this room that you just that's you need to hear that right now God loves you not just loves you he wildly loves you he is passionate about you he is pursuing you to the ends of the earth he doesn't care what's happened to you in the past he is pursuing you at all costs in fact he sent his own son to die on the cross so that you could experience love that's how much he loves you and and when somebody loves us that much what is our response to how God loves us and so we want to remember that here this God wildly loves you that's truth number one truth number two Song of Songs six three says this I am my lover's and my lover is mine and and what you see in there as you see confidence and boldness where two people can come together and they can love and here's the thing about the second point is this is you can't love others until you love yourself you can't love others until you love yourself and everything we're going to talk about today is going to be based on those two things because here's the thing my guess is as we look at relationships we talk about love hurting I mean we talked about the pain that we've experienced is that we're gonna come across these two things that there are things that are preventing us from experiencing God's love and there are things that we are holding ourselves back because we we have shame and embarrassment for the things that we have in our life and we can't believe that God could possibly love us and so we don't love ourselves and that's we're gonna talk about today and so we talk about this you know my question as I said is I want to talk about how do you move forward when there's hurt and pain in relationships and we're going to talk next week about dating and singleness and the following week about marriage and conflict resolution I'm sure there's more stories about Bianca and I will get shared of course but we're gonna talk about today is how do we really check and look at ourselves and where we're at before we can move on before we have to we have to heal before we can start to really wrestle with what it looks like to be in relationship and here's what I want to tell you guys I have news for you and I'm sorry this is like the intense part is you know what everybody in this room unless you're perfect you're all sinners like now you're jacked up you know I'm jacked up right so you look at the person next to you they're jacked up and the person on the other side they're jacked up right they're all sinners right we're all messed up and here's the thing none of us are perfect unless you're Jesus and who hasn't seen none of us are perfect we're all broken individuals and so when you talk about relationships and you talk about marriage you talked about dating what you have is you have two people that are jacked up coming together and we expect it to be not jacked up because it's supposed to be perfect and that's not how it works that's not how it works and so what happens when I'm a sinner and I'm jacked up and I got my own problems and own issues that I bring into a relationship is I create more problems and more issues and more jacked up this in the relationship and what happens is pain and hurt and betrayal sinks in and so we wrestle with what does it mean to be in relationships and how do we how do we move forward with that pain and that brokenness and that betrayal and we've got you know a couple choices in the midst of that is I was thinking is there any way to get out of this is there any way not to be in a relationship and I suppose that I could go like and live in the woods and be alone and but then I was you know my parents I was raised by my parents and they weren't jacked up and there was the great people they're amazing they're awesome but they're sinners and they're jacked up too right and so I can't get out of it I can't even isolate myself from it and so as you think about relationships is you've got to risk something in order to experience love and it's the same risk that that God took for us by sending his son to die on the cross he had to risk something in order for us to experience love and that's where we're all at is we have to wrestle with what does it mean to be broken what does it mean to be hurt and what does it mean to experience those things now my hope is that I'm not I'm not alone in this room as we talk about pain and brokenness I hope you guys are with me is anybody with me Thank you Thank You Zen ebuddy experience pain in relationship and so I know firsthand just about pain and so you know we wonder why marriages you know end in divorce I think it's like 50 percent or 70 percent in Orange County in a divorce it's people coming together trying to make it work and not having these foundational things happening and and I was one of those statistics and so I was married previously before Bianca and and I got to experience massive amounts of pain and so I was married him my ex-wife and and I here's the things I thought I had things figured out I thought I knew things but really honestly it was a broken person entering a relationship that I should have been in and I can't go back and say this is what should have been or not man but I don't do that but here's the thing as I went into this relationship and in my first year of marriage she had an affair talk about brokenness and pain and betrayal it's the ultimate form betrayal somebody who trusted with something and they betray you right and so I'm in this relationship and and I experienced this in the first year first year of marriage it was great first year of marriage right so and so I do that and so we come back and I was on staff at a church at the time not a church in this area but I was in staff of the church and the pastor didn't really even know what to do I didn't really know what to do as a Christian I was working in ministry and he said hey just go get some counseling but just don't talk to about people and so just move on and so that's what I did so we had two kids and and so fast forward about five years later and and sure enough that happens again she has multiple affairs and I find myself in massive amounts of pain I find myself completely and totally betrayed and so that you know what the relationship obviously ended and you know that's that but you know Here I am trying to figure out how do I get through life you know I remember sitting in a movie I think it was like the Transformers or something like that and my son is five and you know he likes transformers and he's sitting on my lap because he's a little bit scared of Optimus Prime and and and and I just remember thinking buddy I'm so sorry I'm so sorry you have to go through this and so we're in this trying to trying to move forward with pain and brokenness and here's what happened is that you know as as part of the community and I had some great resources and great friends in the midst of that and so they said hey you need to go get counseling and so I did and I went to the counselor and I was actually really excited about going to counselor because here's the thing if any of you've gone through divorce you've been in the situation than me is you realize that that you experience every emotion every day one day you're angry the next day you're you're excited that you're ending the relationship and next day you're really sad you're wondering if I'm ever gonna find somebody again you're wonder what's gonna happen the kids you go back and forth back and forth back and forth back and forth and you're exhausted so I'm never going in this counselor and and I was a little bit excited to go a little bit nervous a little excited to go in the counseling so go to the counselor and I'm thinking that I'm gonna be justified in this moment first time I'm gonna talk about my anger I'm gonna talk about blame or I'm gonna talk about hey you know what this it's her I get to talk about all these things and I'm gonna feel good because I'm so focused on the hurt and the pain and the brokenness I'm just gonna get it out to this counselor right I'm just gonna we're just gonna this great conversation and here's what happened he asked me a question that changed my life is I get in there and I'm you know I'm an edge of his couch and I remember I'm talking to him and and he goes he says this to me he says I don't want to talk about your marriage I don't want to talk about the failures and brokenness in your marriage he said this question had changed my life he says I want to talk about what condition you were in when you said yes to this person in the first place and it was the first time that I had to go back in my life and I so desperately wanted to point the finger I so desperately wanted to be angry I so desperately wanted to have justification I wanted to play the victim karting and this counselor dis asked me to listen if you focus on those things if you focus on the hurt you're gonna miss the miracle that God's doing and so I had to go back and look at what caused me to be in that situation in the first place why didn't I see it well I wasn't aware of it why didn't you know why didn't I recognize this why did I get in this situation and ultimately it came down to these two things is did I understand that God wildly loved me and did I love myself before I could try to so let's love somebody else and and I don't want to go beyond those things I just want you to wrestle with those things for a moment because they're huge and as we look at what God's doing is is listen I don't know where you're at I don't know where you came into the space I know that you all are in relationships I know you've all been hurt in relationships I know you've all experienced pain in relationships but here's the thing is that the story doesn't end there God's promise is that your story whatever pain and brokenness you're experienced God's promises that because his son died on the cross for you is that your story doesn't end with pain and brokenness it ends with redemption restoration and reconciliation and the hard thing about talking about pain and brokenness is that we get to feel those those emotions and nobody likes to be in those things but here's the thing if you don't talk about it you can't grow and if you don't talk about the pain and brokenness you can't experience Redemption and restoration because it's through those things that we actually get to be launched into what God intends for us but God doesn't allow those things or doesn't have those things caused them to happen to us it's not like a theological thing we want to get into but we do know that God makes all things work for the good for his purposes and so even in the midst of the situation when I was wrestling with with just you know pain and brokenness and what it meant to me move on is that God gave me three promises in the midst of this and I'll tell you this I wouldn't change any of it for the world I wouldn't go back and change it I wouldn't go back and rewrite history wouldn't go to back into it because here's the thing I wouldn't get to sit in this chapter of my life and the redemption and restoration of what God is doing the promises today are so much bigger than the promises tomorrow yesterday and so you need to know that that's that's what God is doing and so God gave me these promises I'm going to protect you and he did I'm gonna provide for you and he did I would find money in my account that I didn't even have and he said I am preparing you for something bigger and better and there you got Bianca Bianca in the front row isn't she bigger there's better better better here we go amen amen I had to catch myself and I'd say something I know right so it's good I'll have you get better better better does it give to get hot in here all son who picked this modern romance serious right I'm just like I got a hot flashes up here so we got to get back to this you get it back to this it's that there's some of you in this room it's a hot mess isn't it it's hot mess there's something in this room that you need to know this that God wildly loves you you need to know that it says in Psalm 34:18 the Lord is close to all those whose hearts are crushed by pain and he is always ready to restore the repentant one and so you need to know that whatever you're feeling right now God is pursuing you whatever thing that you think that is a barrier or that he's caused he didn't cause he's actually pursuing you he loves you that much that he sent his own son to die for you and you to hold on to that truth you know I remember there was moments as I was in in the divorce and the scene of the situation and and I didn't know what the future holds I didn't know if I had a job as a pastor I didn't know if I could do this I didn't know what happened to my kids I just I just didn't know and in the midst of that I'll tell you what in the midst of pain and brokenness I have never felt as close and intimate to God in my entire life because when you're in a desperate place and all you have to hold on to is him God just moves and God shows up and reveals himself in a powerful way and I need some of you in this moment to know that God is pursuing you secondly as this is is that you can't love others until you love yourself I realized that as we talked about pain and we talked about relationships there's probably a pretty good chance that most of you hurt people hurt people and when I was hurt in my relationship I'm sure I hurt Bianca I'm sure hurt the kids I'm sure hurt other people around me and so hurt people hurt people and and and what that is and what that was about for me is that I believe that there are things that I had done that I couldn't possibly be loved by anyone and so I took it out on other people in the midst of loving relationships and I want you to hold on to this this truth right here in Romans 8:35 who could ever separate us from the endless love of God's anointed one absolutely no one now listen to this for nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us nothing there's nothing you've done there's no mistake that you've made there is nothing there's no shame there's no guilt there's no embarrassment that can separate you from the love of God amen right there's nothing and so he goes on to say in this he says this troubles pressures problems are unable to come between having us in Heaven's love what about persecutions to depravations dangers death threats no they are all impotent to hinder God's love and so you know one of the things as we talked about modern romance we talked about these two truths and we talked about Song of Songs and we talked about the context and what the took place in is that I believe the song of songs is so much more than a perfect love letter it's actually a picture of the gospel it's actually a picture of redemption and restoration and so why resonated with the song of songs I resonate with this package or the the the letter and just the the scripture and the the taxes is this is because I want to go back and look at the context if you look at Song of Songs 8 5 Abba sha makes reference to Solomon's mother okay now Solomon's mother if you know the story and you know the connection is Solomon's mother was Bathsheba and you can find this in 2nd Samuel 11:1 we're not gonna I'm not going to go there I'm going to summarize the story for you but this this love letter this perfect love letter that's the gospel is actually the context of what Solomon went through goes all the way back to his childhood and so but Sheba and David if you know this story David is the king of Israel at the time and it says in the chapter that he was supposed to be on at war and he wasn't at war he was in a place that he shouldn't be and that's a message is something in this room some of us are in places we shouldn't be in and he's standing there and he looks out over the King the castle and he looks and he sees Bathsheba and she's taking a bath and you know it's like the the olden days pornography happened right there you know so he's looking down right and so he's looking down he goes I want that and so he takes it and he sleeps with Bathsheba and then he realizes he's done this and just terrible thing and he got her pregnant and so her husband was a military officer he puts him in the front row tries to kill him and eventually he does get killed and and then they're gonna give birth to the baby and the baby's incredibly sick and and and David just goes on his knees and starts to pray and the baby ends up dying and so this is the kind of foundation that Solomon is born into and after he comforts Bathsheba she gets pregnant again and she gets pregnant with Solomon okay now you've got to imagine the stories that were told at the castle and the palace and the throne room with the family as this is Solomon his this is what David did this is the Roy I mean you talk about brokenness and pain and betrayal it all came out of the foundation of what Solomon was born into and so he grew up with his half-brothers and he watched his half-brother try to take the throne from David ask his dad and try to overthrow him and then he dies and David runs out and so eventually Solomon comes back to the end of his at the end of David's life and Solomon comes back to want to be king and in his mom at the time but she but actually she kind of comes in and tries to manipulate it and tries to you know kind of make sure that he's King because you know if somebody else becomes king then then there's fear for their life because somebody could actually come out and just try to destroy them so that they don't threaten the throne it's like modern day like you know it's it's like drama beyond Rana drama it's like a novella as Bianca says I can't talk in the accident Bella you know so it's it's like a soap opera happening right and so it's this is like the modern there the olden days novella that's happening this moment and so but Sheba she manipulates it and she goes to David and she says you know you promised to make my son King and so he becomes king in that moment out of living a life of pain and brokenness and betrayal and deceit and so when we look at this love letter that he writes in Song of Songs and we can you can start playing anytime you want and you look at this love letter is it's this perfect picture of love but it's such a picture of the gospel because it came out of this brokenness you see he didn't just ride it and have this perfect life he wrote it because he knew and experienced pain and so how could somebody write this beautiful love letter of what love looks like and should feel like in the midst of pain and brokenness and and I have to think in that moment as he's becoming King that that David his dad as would have been tradition and custom in that time he would have passed down some wisdom to his son they said I've experienced a lifetime of pain and brokenness and betrayal I've seen it all and he says I want to give you some advice and how you can get through it how you can move on from it because if we focus on the hurt then we're gonna miss the miracle that God's doing in our life and so David who was a songwriter and a poet and you know an artist as he writes these Psalms that have to do with when he was going through at that time and the first one I want to share with you is Psalm 55 Psalm 55 was written after David was betrayed by a close friend and oftentimes this passage Psalm 55 is compared to or paralleled with what Judas did to Jesus and David after experiencing betrayal from his friend and they were close they were connected he writes this poem and he writes this prayer that I believe he would have shared with Solomon but somebody hurts you when somebody betrays you I want to show you what it looks like and what to hold on to in the midst of that Psalm 55 verse 22 so here's what I've learned through all it all leave all your cares and anxieties at the feet of the Lord the measureless grace will strengthen you listen whatever you've experienced whatever heard they the experience and relationships we look at David's advice to Solomon and to write for us to read in this moment he says listen whatever it is get rid of it whatever it is laying at the feet of Jesus whatever it is you've got to let go of it you've got to let God come into that place that you can't hold on to that brokenness and the pain and the bitterness and betrayal because you know what the enemy is going to come in there and he's going to create a stronghold in your life in the midst of that so he keeps going to verse 23 he will watch over his lovers never Lebanon slip or be overthrown he will send my enemies to a pit of destruction murderers lies betrayers will face the ultimate untimely death listen to this my life's hope and trust is in you and you never fail to rescue me some you need to hear that today now whatever you've experienced in life whatever pain has come your way the wisdom that we see in Scripture is to lay it at the feet of the Cross because if you hold on to it you can't experience what God's gonna do in the next season in the next chapter and so what does it look like to surrender that what does it look like to give that up the second thing he would have done is he would have shared Psalm 51 and Psalm 51 was written after David committed the sin with Bathsheba because all of us in this room if we're in relationships we've probably hurt somebody we've probably wronged somebody in this room some of those are obvious some of them are not obvious some of them creates shame some of them create guilt but this is what David did he committed murder he committed adultery he was deceptive he manipulated the situation and he's writes this create a new clean heart within me fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires ready to please you may you never reject me but you never take from me your sacred spirit let my passion for life be restored tasting joy and every breakthrough you bring to me hold me close to you with a willing spirit that always obeys whatever you say verse 16 for the source of your pleasure is not in my performance or the sacrifices I might offer you the fountain of your pleasure is found in the sacrifice of my shattered heart before you you will not despise my tenderness as I humbly bow down at your feet and so I want to create a moment right now because what I know in this moment is that all of us in this room are in relationships and all of us in this room have experienced to some degree pain and brokenness and heard some of us more than others some of us bigger than others and listen as we talk about modern romance we talked about dating and we talked about experiencing love and we talked about having healthy marriages and healthy relationships you can't do any of that until God heals your heart [Music] and so we want to do is going to create a moment right now where we just want to let the Holy Spirit move we wanted God just to heal you wherever you're at in your relationships you

Channel: The Father's House OC

Views: 20,436

Rating: 4.9211822 out of 5

Keywords: TFHOC, TFH, The Father's House OC, The Father's House, Modern romance, sex, dating, relationships, Matt Olthoff, Bianca Olthoff, church in OC, Church in anaheim, christian dating

Id: DV99xKIAev8

Length: 30min 47sec (1847 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2019