No One Really Wants Love | Pastor Stephen Chandler

[Music] i want to preach a message called no one really wants love no one really wants love and i just want to set you up what's going to happen over the next 30 or 40 minutes of this message just so that you're not caught off guard this is going to be one of those messages that at the end of it a couple people gonna break up this this is gonna be this is gonna be the straw that that broke the camel's back it's gonna be over after uh this message however a couple y'all gonna drop on one knee and you're gonna finally pull that ring out that you should have pulled out a few months ago and you're gonna you're gonna lock it down so it's gonna be good and it's gonna be bad some of y'all you're married you're watching the baltimore maybe you're sitting on the couch at home together and right now you're really close to each other you may even be holding hands in service uh by the end of this message there may be so much space between of you guys we can put one of them social distancing stickers right in the middle y'all look like y'all and even come together uh but for others of you you're kind of sitting a little bit far apart right now it's not just i see outside it's icy in your marriage right now as well and as we preach this you're just going to get a little closer and a little closer and a little closer it's going to be one of those messages so don't say i didn't warn you so he warned me come on baltimore he warned me and if you don't like me i've been doing this for 10 years and i'll be back next week so we could uh we'll have a good time next week cool go ahead turn your bible turn your bible and it might take a little bit of time because i bet you've never probably turned to this part of your bible but it turns to the book of song of solomon song of solomon chapter five if you're new to destiny church we're in a sermon series what's a sermon series it's just a collection of messages so that i don't preach for four hours so we kind of spread it over a four week period and we're in a series called relation or or it's complicated it's complicated we're talking about relationships in our lives last week we were talking about covenant friendships if you did not watch that message go back and watch that message i'll tell you this honestly your destiny depends on it you will not maximize the call of god in your life in isolation you need other brothers and sisters in christ around you that will carry you to the breakthrough that god has for you last we talk about friendships this week we're talking about love next week we're going to be talking about our children and then the weekend after that we're going to be talking about the biggest issue in all of your relationships which is and me and how we can fix the one thing that we can fix and that is ourselves the thought of the mindset behind this series is relationships are just complicated they're just complicated it is the number one most watched most viewed most attended series in destiny church history every single year thousands of views online thousands of people in the building in the month of february and it's not just because it's a good laugh and by the way you should have a good laugh during a relationship series whether you're single whether you're dating whether you're married there's something about hearing that somebody else is jacked up that just encourages you and i don't know if that's just me but just hearing that other people have issues is just like okay i'm not that bad i'm doing all right so just enjoy yourself some of that but it's also an area that we all hurt in so much it's not a person that's breathing oxygen you haven't experienced relational pain at some point and you have to understand this wherever there's pain there's jesus wherever there's pain there is hope and there are solutions and god's solution is not just pray more he has wisdom for every single area of our lives now what people don't realize is that the bible has a lot to say about relationships the bible actually has a rule book on how to date on intimacy on marriage it even talks about how to fight right the only problem is we don't know where it is so i don't know about you but every time i hear about a message about marriage or whatever it may be i hear one of two things i hear wives submit to your husband and enter and then the preacher normally goes to say wives you get it off easy the husband has to lay his life down for the wife as christ laid his life down for the church so all you got to do is submit but we got to die and that's hugely the extent of preaching that i hear about marriage and relationships but what people don't realize is the book of song of solomon is eight chapters an entire book dedicated to relationships it was written by solomon solomon had 300 wives and 600 concubines pastor what's a concubine it's a side chick it's like you're not you're not the main chick you just the side chick you know some demented people they're like well there's biblical proof that it's okay to have multiple wives no it's not well abraham did david did did you read the end of their story it did not go well it's not okay to have multiple wives it's not okay to date people at multiple campuses by the way let's just clarify that got a homegrown in baltimore county i served there first and fourth sunday and then pray for me y'all this is church but this is real life we i actually y'all may not know this this is just funny to me but before we were in columbia we had a woodlawn campus and a laurel campus and one sunday i get up and i announced hey we're bringing both campuses together we're moving to columbia and like half the church was like yeah but there were a couple guys that were like there's a problem because woodlawn homegirl gonna make laurel homegirl and i got it's not it's not it's not okay message solomon was solomon kind of tracking one of his many marriages literally from the point in chapter one where he first laid eyes on her and he talks about attraction and and what he liked about her and what he saw about her and all this other kind of stuff and then chapter two is like the first date it's the pursuit chapter three is the engagement and there's so much wisdom in it solomon had to go through her brothers before he could take her out literally talking about how you need to be in a council you need to have safety around you don't just trust your own heart and your own opinion and all that chapter four is the honeymoon and it's one of them chapters that you you you kind of can't even preach it in church he gets to talk about blowing on her garden and pomegranates and all this other kind of stuff and you're just like wait what is he talking about and you thought it was a garden he ain't talking about no garden some of y'all gonna go home and read your bible like you've never read it before pastor that's it then oh get us some pomegranate someone stop the safeway on the way home we bout to do this well today we're going to skip all that and we're going to go the trait to chapter 5. watch this chapter 5 is their first fight and one of the things i like there's eight chapters outlined in this relationship and two of them are all about the fight because the fight was that intense it took up two chapters so that's where we're picking up from and he writes it in poetry so i'm gonna kind of translate what what's being said so here we go in verse two it says this i sleep but my heart is awake it's the voice of my beloved so here's what happened solomon and his wife they got into a fight and she got mad and she went to sleep but because she was so upset she couldn't really sleep so she's tossing and turning on the bed she says i heard the voice of my beloved he knocks saying open for me my sister my love my dove my perfect one for my head is covered with dew my locks apparently at dreadlocks my locks with the drops of the night he's laying it on thick can i tell you what happened y'all she put him on the couch they got an argument they got in a fight she went to bed and locked the bedroom door and he's pounding on the door trying to sweet talk and said come on baby wasn't that bad i mean come on now can you let me in and he's trying to sweet taco and she's like i'm not having it so look what she says she says i've taken off my robe how can i put it on again i have washed my feet how can i def she said i've already tied up my hair i've already taken off my face and i ain't fit to get out this bed to go open the door for you here's he's banging on the door saying let me in and she said you should have thought about that before you talked to me out the side of your neck now you're just going to sit out there on the couch all night long that's what's going on in this scene said my beloved put his hand by the latch of the door y'all he started beating down the door he said my love my dove my sister all that that ain't working so now he's pounding on the door and this is a dysfunctional relationship she said as he's kicking on the door she said oh my heart yearned for him there's something about him punching a hole through a wall that just ooh he the real one so watch this she says i arose to open from now he's her beloved for my beloved my hands drip with my fingers my liquid myrrh on the handles of the lock she said i opened for my beloved but he gone he left my beloved had turned away and was gone my heart leaped when he spoke and i sought him but i could not find him y'all she went too far and there's a yo this is a real argument this ain't no little play bible argument she didn't lock this joker out he's pounding on the door when she finally decided to open back up he was over it he left oh he had turned away and was gone my heart leaked when he spoke i saw him but i could not find him watch this he said i called to him but he gave me no answer i know you see my text messages pick up the phone watch this it gets serious so the watchmen who went about the city they found me she ran out first of all she said i can't get up because i'm in my nightgown next thing you know she's running down the street like a crazy woman it's all about come back where you at so the watchmen found me they struck me and they wounded me the keeper of the walls took my veil away from me in other words what he's saying is when we have those unresolved conflicts in our relationships we leave an open door for the enemy to come in and to wound us with rejection and fear and anger and offense and animosity said i charge you or daughters of jerusalem if you find my beloved tell them i'm looking for them no that's not what she said she said tell him that i'm loved sick i feel like love and sick just shouldn't be in the same sentence let's pray father god we're grateful we're thankful god that you have wisdom for every single area of our life god i pray for that single person god that's searching for love or maybe he's over love god i'm praying for that married couple that's looking god to hold on to the love that they have god i'm praying for that estranged couple that's wondering can we ever get the love back that we once had speak to us in this moment in jesus name we pray amen and amen would you be honest enough to say that love is complicated like it's a little confusing and we're getting different messages from everywhere here we go if you talk to tina she'll tell you love ain't got nothing to do with it it's just a secondhand emotion who really needs it you talk to luther he'll tell you here and now i will love you forever yeah axe martin he'll tell you there's a very thin line between love and hate and you can cross that line pretty quickly monaco tell you love is no big deal just play basketball i'll play you i'll play you for your heart you can't blame me for my heart that's weird without even realizing it we're bombarded with images with songs with movies with music of what love is how many of you ever seen the movie the notebook the notebook the book great i just had you raise your hand baltimore just like i see every man who raised his hand great if you could drop your man card off in the lobby on the way after service uh it has been revoked you can no longer carry that uh you are not a man however my favorite movie is hitch not my favorite romantic movie my favorite movie of all time every great uh man and woman of god understands that hitch is the blueprint to life and godliness pray for me i need help whether it's titanic or or brown sugar or whatever your deal is we all have these romantic songs and movies and tv shows and all this other kind and here's the thing we're all mature somebody say i'm mature so we kind of know that's not real you know i mean we kind of know it's fantasy and it's fake and it's played up and all that other good stuff but if we were to be honest there's part of us that longs for that like i just want to run in the rain one time babe and take off my mask like spiderman and kiss you upside down like i know it's not real but there's just something about a upside down kiss in the rain that's just like let's be for real half of us got vertigo we'd pass out before it even were you again we know it's not real but we still long for it but then we go to god's word to figure out what love is and here's what god's word says that love it says love is patient it's kind does not end me does not boast it is not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrong you ever heard that joke that if you were to have real wedding vows they will merge your wedding vows with your miranda rights because that's actually more accurate i vow to love and to cherish you through richer and poorer through sickness and in health everything you say can and will be used against you for the rest of this marriage it says it keeps the record of wrong love does not delight in ungodliness but rejoices with the truth it always protects always trust always hopes always persevere that kind of love never fails one of the things you've been getting for serious challenge for the next last 10 years and you'll get it for the next 10 years you're just gonna get my straight honesty is that okay there's nothing romantic about that i don't even know why they read that at weddings because that don't put you in the mood for much of love is patient oh kind it's a long suffering so we have this picture of of media love and music and movies and all that then we have what the bible says is love and y'all it's the bible you can't argue with it it's truth it's cool i just don't like that truth let me be honest with you when i think about the perfect marriage i don't think oh she patients me she long suffers me oh she's always trust always hope listen my wife perseveres like that's it's not what wakes me up in the morning i'm not gonna lie to you i'm not excited about that but then with all of those different things then we bring our own life experiences to love where i know what the bible says and i know what media says but here's what i've experienced oh i've experienced the butterflies oh i know what it's like to hold her hand and my heart flutters yo when i asked i out i nearly died in that moment true story we were actually uh we were a double t diner on route 40. if you're a real baltimore head you know what i'm talking about and uh no exaggeration we walk in and homie somebody just had a heart attack so there was an ambulance there and they were dragging him out because he ate the cheesecake that was in the little glass for the last four months and uh i go to ask her out and i literally said so i was thinking but i took a sip of water and it went down the wrong pipe and i'm choking and couldn't get my words out and this assassin watched me cling to life right in front of her and didn't even offer me a napkin so i had to resuscitate myself when i came back too her words were yeah i will no if just in case you wonder if your pastor had gained zero but i've been through the butterflies i've been through through the ooey gooeys but i've also been through heartbreak i've experienced rejection i've given my heart to someone only for them to break it i know what the anger is like what the fear is like so i have movie's definition of love i have the biblical definition of love and then i have my own experience with love and then to kind of finish out the love casserole we have the marriages around us that we've seen marriages of our parents of our aunts our uncles our mentors or whoever it may be though those long relationships that lasted or did not we look at him like oh that that's what love must be two people that can grow old together that can finish each other's sentence and don't seem to be having much fun i'm like a lot of you i haven't seen him open the door for her in 30 years and the way they talk to each other if that's what i have to look forward to i'll pass i'm good and it's like what do i do with all these different voices that are telling me this is what love is and you know what's even worse than that then the only advice they give you is hey go find somebody and work it out it's almost like this marry someone that you can put up with for the rest of your life i'm sorry it got to be better than that that that can't be the extent of it so what i want to do is i want to try to uncomplicate love say what what does this how do i how do i work this how do i maximize this what's god's plan for me in this area that i will actually enjoy three quick thoughts three quick thoughts the first thought is this love love has stages love how this is this is the big revelation for the day think about this when you think about love think about video games like super mario or one of those old school games there's different stages to the game there's different stages to love it's easy in the beginning but you also don't get a lot of gold coins it's really difficult in the middle but if you survive the middle it's actually hard at the end too but you have superpowers at the end so it feels like it's easy love has stages i remember when me and by the way i don't call her pastor's eye y'all do that's just babe to me but for me as i started dating i i like i said i became pastor of church i was 23 i was single in my overseers they sat me down they had a little bit of a pep talk and they said okay here's the rules stephen uh and i'm going to give you the bridge right i'm not gonna tell you what they really said but it was something like this they said hey don't mess with the women don't mess with the money and you'll be a pastor for life said if you mess with the women or you mess with the money you won't be doing this for long got it okay i got it so i nobody else told me to do this i just had this inner vow of i'm not gonna date any of the girls in the church church was probably about 150 people back then i'm like if i think we're going to church we break up y'all that's called a church split that's going to end up on tv somewhere i want nothing to do with that so i just like i'm not messing with any of the girls in the church then here walks in as i nab samara serving on the host team talking about here's your bulletin thanks for coming and i'm like i'm not looking i'm not looking i'm not looking i'm not looking and for two years i was like i ain't messing with her now for those two years i saw every single picture on her instagram and accidentally double clicked on whatever that you've been just stalking somebody and you're scrolling too fast and you clicked twice and it's just like no and then you're like do i leave it liked do i unlike it and it's like three years into their feed you're like my goose is cooked this is straight up stalker level but after all of us knowing each other for two years she's serving leading and all this other kind of stuff my mom comes to me and she goes stephen if you don't date this girl you're crazy now i know from this point on it sounds like i'm a mama's boy i promise you i'm not but that's how it went down and i was just like yeah but she's in the chat i'm just telling you she's great i said great that was like the first sunday in september that tuesday i go to mom and say hey i'm ask her out mom duke says no let me pray about it you should have done that before you brought it up yo hey hey you thank god for praying mothers i was not thanking god for a prayer mother she prayed for three months straight from september to november i checked in every two weeks i said you hear from god you hear from god if you're on vacation and see where it don't take this long to get an answer from god now the whole time i'm kind of like flirting with i as she's praying so i'm like driving her nuts and then one time that just goes off on me in the parking lot one after day after service she goes christian men are pansies and i'm talking about all pg county came out land them in the neck it was just she's like you men don't know what you want you flirt don't say amen you flirt with the girl and then you won't ask her out that's why i set a date and if he don't do nothing by that day it's over you have been with those situations where there's a hypothetical conversation going on and you quickly figure out there's nothing hypothetical about this she is yelling at me and i'm like yelling back at her in my head i'm like i would ask you out if i could i'm just waiting for my mama's permission yeah that don't sound good at all let me just preach for a second though but i was raised biblically to understand that you always must be under authority there's safety under counsel so don't just run out after someone that you're attracted to without having godly people to say hey i think that's a good deal and by the way let me just give you a little bit more advice hey ladies if you're interested in a guy don't take him to your mama and fellas if you're interested in a girl don't take her to your father or uncle or whatever here's why them little girls that do a little voodoo thing on you they do it on your uncle too we can't see you need to take her to another woman that ain't interested in all that other no no no she ain't that jezebel is not the one you need to take her to a female that just ain't interested in all of that batman how you doing she's like no no no what's wrong with your voice speak up [Laughter] i got to speak with resort so we get to november right mama's still praying and i'm just i grew up in a really conservative home homeschool pastor's kid whole deal you know that drill so i go to my mom i was like i'm still praying i don't have an answer i said mom listen you're having sex and i'm not that's not fair yo my mom's as dark as i she turned beet red she said oh this boy is burning i gotta i gotta get him an answer so the first sunday in december she says okay i have a piece about it go i asked her out the next day i can give you time to unhear from god we we're going to go do this too and i'm going to be honest with you we're celebrating my 10th year anniversary if i would be honest this really should be my ninth year because as soon as we started dating y'all i checked out of this church for about 12 months straight i was up till like three in the morning no you hang up don't you hang up what are you doing same thing you were doing two hours ago and she was a nurse so she worked from what 10 p.m to 7 a.m so her lunch break was at like 2 a.m so i'm like trying to stay up till 2 a.m i'm on the phone she she would call when she got off of work at like 6 a.m and i'm up you up yeah yo i preached robert morris's messages for a year straight i remember one day she was at work and i was just like man i'm gonna be romantic remember this baby so i got in the car i bought some flowers she got off at seven a.m i woke up at six drove all the way to land him i lived in always an hour away baltimore you know what i'm talking about i put some flowers on her car and and a note in the dash and i hung like a little stalker behind like five other cars she's coming out of work we're on the phone like we are like every single day and she's like yeah i'm so tired i'm gonna go home what are you doing today i'm like oh i ain't going to church i'm going to work today but she goes oh my gosh somebody left flowers on my car and you know how you trying to play it up right who left flowers on your car is it that little janitor that was trying to talk to you i need to do i need to come down there she gets the flower she opens the car she oh stephen come on y'all know how y'all do oh my gosh this is like the sweetest thing ever i wish you were here i would give you a hug i'm like oh you can give me a hug right now [Music] i'm a quick learner y'all here's the thing that we don't understand about love though a relationship has stages all the music all the movies are written around stage one and many of us have this idea that stage one is the only stage and that's where i want to stay forever and if i ever leave stage one then we've lost love forgive me that's just an immature view of what a relationship looks like let me give you some stages to a relationship stages to a relationship the first stage is the attraction stage the attraction stage that's what me and zai were just in there it's the ooey gooey it's also known as the honeymoon stage it lasts for the first three months to two years of engaging with someone it's that stage where every time you hold their hand you get the me butterflies okay don't sing past it i think that ain't your calling it's just that that when you wake up and you see a text message from them you're just like oh they're so sleek that's the stage where you you don't even pay your rent anymore because all you can do is think about you are useless to not you but you know i had friends like that that they i mean they just cut you off they cut everybody off they can't even think straight it's like all they want to do is be around that person we can also call it the fantasy stage or the infatuation stage and what it is is because of that attraction your biology is beginning to kick in and scientifically endorphins are keeping you from seeing anything negative about the person that you're with this is the stage where there should be and i'll preach about that in a second little to no conflict come on married folks you've been married for longer than 15 minutes you know how you act when a couple tells you oh we never fight and you're like should i laugh at you now or are you gonna say something else dumb that i should hold my laughter back for but that's that stage where i can't even imagine what to fight about because they're so perfect it's a stage it's not a bad stage but hear me just don't make any major decisions in that stage because you can't see straight you're not thinking right the second stage is this this is the discovery stage the discovery says this is where you begin to realize that there's some chinks in the armor then they talk a lot they kind of smell funny they're cheap where exactly is your ambition what time you say you wake up today two okay just one more thing how do you spell jesus okay okay just checking this is when you begin to realize they're ain't perfect i cannot tell you what happens here it blows my mind physically endorphins blind you from anything negative but if your body is pumping endorphins for too long you will literally od on love your body says you can't take much more of this so the endorphins begin to decrease and with that the rose-colored glasses come off are you crossing and next thing you know it's just like i don't know if i like this person the way that i thought i did can i be honest with you this is the only stage to get engaged in this is the only stage to make long-term decisions and long-term commitments because this is when reality starts to kick in and until you've hit reality your decisions are not going to be the best and that engagement decision is i don't know all about them i've seen some of their flaws but the things i love about them their benefits their strengths outweigh their flaws and here's a big deal if they were never to change one iota from who they are today i'm fully committed and i love who they are today that's stage two you with me baltimore all right here we go it gets worse before it gets better stage three is the disillusionment stage this is the stage when you realize oh my gosh oh gosh i married a monster this is where you realize what have i done this is where you begin to think till death do his part this never happened to me because i'm married to an angel but for the rest of y'all married for come on tell troop just for a second do you remember the moment when the thought crossed your mind i just made the worst decision of my life and it's forever and then you just sat down and you're like oh gosh they asked billy graham's wife ruth graham they said have you ever considered divorce and she said divorce absolutely not it's not biblical she said i have never considered divorce she said now murder yes i thought about that mo cutting his break lines i have i have i've considered that pretty much on an annual basis can can i depress you at the end we're going to shout we're going to encourage you can i depress you for a second statistics show that 70 of marriages never get past this point 70 of marriages stay in a place of i'm pretty sure i don't like you and i really don't want to deal with you much more but we got kids and as they say it's cheaper to keep her so i'll decide yeah they do say that so i've decided i'm just going to be miserable for the rest of my life and do you know what has to happen to break through this stage healthy conflict the reason why most people never pass through this stage is because they do not resolve conflict they only manage it and managing conflict is just taking a disagreement and putting it on a shelf for a later date it will come up over and over and over and over again until we learn and we'll engage in healthy conflict so there's going to be some rules to our engagement when we argue i ain't gonna bring your mama up don't say nothing about my dad okay let's just keep it between us let's make it healthy top five things couples argue about number five kids number four in-laws yo people is crazy well you knew this when i married it no i didn't number three intimacy number two finances which is just funny to me we care about money more than we care about intimacy somewhere that's jacked up and then the number one area of conflict is over communication by the way communication is cited as the number one issue in people's marriage by double the other four combined and until we learn how to work through the conflict in a healthy manner we will stay at the disillusionment stage stage number four is the stability stage the stability stage this is when you've been through something it's when you've experienced some setback maybe a sickness in the family maybe the loss of a child or the loss of a loved one or the loss of a job this is when you've been through some life together and you realize i'm committed to this person it's amazing how we will say hey i'm committed to you for life and you may mean that but it's not until it's tested that you're able to really see actually no no i i am commit we're in a stable we've learned how to argue and to get past it we've learned how to resolve our conflicts here's the problem with this stage is usually boring pursuit over romance done this is kind of like the surrender stage of i guess this is what it's going to be then stage five this is what we're all longing for and by the way this is what we talk about in stage one that's the commitment stage that's where we talk about power couples and i'm looking for someone to build with raise my kids and build wealth and all this other kind of stuff this is the stage that you get where you make up in your mind there's nobody else that i would want to build with other than you that it's not just i'ma put up with you or that we've learned how to understand each other or whatever but we have a vision for our lives together and i'm committed to you because i can't see my future without you here's the problem when we think about love we only think about stage one or stage five we think nothing about the middle and let me just be blind honest most people don't make it through the middle bible says this in luke chapter 14 verse 28 for which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the call somebody say count the cost whether he has enough love to finish the marriage lest after he has laid the foundation is not able to finish all who see it begin to mock him on tmz saying this man began to build and was not able to finish god says hey before you get into it you need to have a sober mindset of what you're getting ready to build and i'm just going to be honest with you i feel like the church has failed so many couples in this area because we haven't set we weren't set up to win and we went through marriage counseling and here's what it sounded like zai submit to stephen got that stephen lay your life down for your life what else trust god anything else no oh don't go to sleep angry we'll never sleep uh and it's just like go ahead have a great marriage it's like no no there's so much more wisdom that god has for us the second thing is this write this down write this down love it stages love also has a cart and a horse love has a cart and a you have you ever heard the phrase don't put the cart before the horse just picture in your mind you have kind of like a wagon you have a cart in the back you have a horse in the front and they're saying sometimes people put the cart in front of the horse and the cart can't pull the horse the horse pulls the cart so you got to get things in proper order for so many people when we think about love we're not quite sure what it is we think love is an emotion we think love is stage one the the ooey gooey the the notes the roses the doors opening the i've been thinking about you all day the words of affirmation all those five love languages i'd really like to find out who wrote that book's like a punch him in the face most expensive stinking book i've ever read in my life my love is gifts so keep your words don't touch me just buy me stuff i was like god it'd be another way to love you because this is good but we have this mindset but here's the thing love is a decision a decision that is followed by action we get caught up in the emotions of love and what you don't realize is every emotion starts with a thought and when you have the emotion of affection it's because you had a thought that i've made a decision to be committed to this person we get caught up on the second step so watch this decision first action second we get caught up on the action and we think nothing about the decision when you love someone it manifests in two different ways it manifests in actions of affection somebody says affection or expressed love somebody say expressed love or it manifests in acts of commitment or the essence of love somebody say the essence of love so you have the expression of love and you have the essence of love the expression of love is what we all want it's the kisses the hugs the hand-holding the gifts the doors opening the thoughts the notes the calls the [Music] i was just thinking about you girl what you doing why am i talking so low i don't know just kind of feeling you that's the expression but it's not the essence so when we first start dating it's easy to express love can i give you the essence of love patience kindness selflessness godliness honor hope trust honesty perseverance let me just say it plain because i gotta land this plane that's what none of us want none of us gets excited when we say oh they persevere me oh they trust me they but here's what we don't understand that that patience love hope kindness all that other good stuff that is the horse that sustains the affection [Music] and without having patience for someone it's only a matter of time until you no longer want to hold their hand listen unless you have a lifestyle of being selfless they can open their own car door make sense the horse is the essence the cart is the affection all we focus on is the affection but we don't know how to sustain that affection song of solomon chapter 8 verse 4 he says this young women of jerusalem i don't know why he's calling out the ladies but he is he says swear to me i shouldn't swear well the bible says swear to me that you will not awaken love or arouse love before its proper time here's what it's saying it says don't get infatuated with the affection of love until you've made a decision that i'm committing to the essence of love somebody says okay pastor you guys lost me come on circle my bring that right bring that back back when i'm kissing holding hands shacking but i have not made a decision that i want to be patient kind long-suffering trustworthy what i'm giving you is i'm giving you the appearance of love that's empty and void and what we don't realize is that we can express love without actually being any essence substance or love there so we think that she loves me or he loves oh he holds my hand he owes on the door for me or oh uh y'all's writing notes to me oh he always pays oh my gosh but you haven't dated them long enough to see if they're patient kind selfless honoring long suffering and watch this when you live with someone who's not patient somebody say preach for a second i don't want to hold your hand don't yell at me because i dropped the plate i bought that plate i'm not your kid huh don't get frustrated and then we wonder why all the romance is gone hear me romance doesn't sustain romance first corinthians 13 sustains romance and if we're not committed to first corinthians 13 the romance will fade and then we get up here and say oh we've fallen out of love no you've fallen out of feeling you've fallen out oh yeah i'm quiet up in this methodist church can i just go a little bit deeper and have just a little bit of fun that's why 15 year olds have known business dating because the only thing that you can do is the affection side you're not even mature enough suffering you're not a suffer the suffering is you forgot your passcode to tick-tock like i'm suffering but we play with this thing we're cavalier with it sometimes we're 26 our heart is shattered in 15 different places pastor i need the affection i need the love i was made this way you told me that last week man shouldn't live alone i know but that's what family is for you should get love from your family affirmation from your family affection from your family hugs from your family so you don't enter in a relationship deficient [Music] because if you enter relationship deficient you will make it all about what you did not get and you'll miss the essence of what real love is pastor that's good preaching but that's just not my reality my family was not very loving psalm 68 6 says this that's why god places the lonely in families he sets the prisoner free and gives them joy here's the thing and i'm not exaggerating god created the church to be a surrogate family to give you the affirmation and the love and the affection that you need so you don't go into your dating or your marriage is deficient so you can make it about what it's supposed to be about instead of minoring on the majors does that make sense some of you are like pastors all good but you know i'm dating this person and i don't know nothing about that affection stage or the infatuation stage because we were fighting like cats and dogs from day one like there was never a time that we were patient or kind we we you know why that attraction stage is so romantic because you don't know anything bad about that person so you don't have to be patient with them because they've never irritated you yet you don't have to keep no record of wrong because you haven't known them long enough for them to do anything wrong those relationships where you're fighting like cats and dogs from day one you ain't even gone on one real date yet and you're at each other's throats here's what's happening they're bringing the record of somebody else's wrong into this new relationship they're bringing their impatience and their lack of kindness from past encounters into this and hear me if you're dating run for your life pastor you don't have a lot of hope no i'm a realist and i understand stage one is supposed to be one of the best it goes downhill for a little bit until you get to stage five so stage one is starting here and you gotta take a dip after that not a lot of space to dip you gonna look up and be like i dipped all right pastor you've depressed me fully i need some hope okay can't give you some hope here's the last one here's the last one here's the last one love has a payment plan that's encouraging right love is apparently you you were going to land this place so i told you before me and my wife bought a house it's a beautiful house it's just an old house so we have like a budget set aside of fix the house because every year something's gonna break and and now it's the heating system uh two months ago uh we got our heat bill it was triple what it normally is i was patient i was kind of right babe i was like what's god i said listen you little children a little and a dog put a coat on you're gonna have some scarves get you a hat on they can walk around the courthouse we walking around y'all going nowhere no we just home but i ain't paying that bill again price is ridiculous mortgages as much as the heating bill this is nuts so then the next month's come we haven't turned the heat on all months so it should be zero right it was higher the second month than it was the first month so i look at my ain't gonna do me i've been freezing for 60 days straight so this is on you so we finally called the the heating guy and he came in yesterday you know how every time you have a repair guy come he's speaking in tongues i don't have to give the interpretation you have to help me out that's what you're saying because i figured out the problem i said okay what's the problem he said your heating system has a leak so there's the heating source in it but the heating source is constantly leaking out because i have a lot of time when i say heating source just think romance okay cool he said he said it's leaking out so he said you have three options i said okay hit me he said you can either patch the leak he said you can make a decision to live in a cold house or you can upgrade the unit in a relationship when it comes to love you have three options you can patch the leak you can decide we're just going to live in a cold house somebody has been living in a cold house for a long time or it's not biblical but you could upgrade the unit get you a new model about 10 years younger a little bit more efficient it'll heat the whole house pray for your pastor i'm talking about a heating system y'all y'all going somewhere else so i said it's an old house forgive me don't forget trouble i said how much is it for a newer model when he told me the price of replacing the unit i said it's cheaper to keep her forget it no we're gonna fix this thing we gonna fix this because we're laughing can i be honest just for a second for those of you that are thinking of upgrading to a new model it will cost you more than you are it's not worth it okay don't want to live in a cold house no that's miserable some of us have decided to do that just because we don't know how to patch the leak the ideal scenario is i gotta patch this leak here's the thing i want you to get stage one shouldn't stay in stage one don't hear me say that you're only going to have ooey gooey romance for the first three months to two years and then it's gone for the rest of your life and you just have to grit it out by faith that's not god's plan but what sustained romance in the beginning is not what sustains romance in the end you got to make a decision that i'm going to patch the leak what does that mean i got to deal with my issues we have to resolve this conflict it may require marriage counseling so whichever one of you hard-headed people that said i'm not going to talk to anybody about my marriage you go stop that it's foolishness you can't fix your own heating system what makes you think you can fix the most complicated relationship in your life get you some help make sense but after you fix that leak then that unit has to start doing the work revelations two verse four we're going to land it here says this but i have this again dude this is god speaking you've abandoned love i don't know why i'm feeling real bold and just saying this with my chest myself on it some of us have abandoned love in our marriage and we've surrendered to a cold house some of us are seriously considering upgrading to a new model some of us if we would be honest we're not single because we can't find somebody we're single because we're paralyzed in fear that our relationship is going to end like the miserable ones we've seen we've said it's better to be my myself than to go through what my mom went through or what my dad went through what my sister went through god said there's another option he said remember therefore from where you have fallen hey y'all go home and read the rest of uh uh song of solomon chapter five here's what the next chapter was about the two of them talking about why they fell in love in the first place hey daughters if you see my lover tell them to come back and the daughters of drew said what is it about this guy that you're so into him because i've never seen someone chase somebody like and then for an entire chapter she goes on to say he's strong and he's wise and he's respected in the community and he has wisdom and he has strength and he's tender and he's kind and by explaining to pursuit she's reminding herself why she fell in love in the first place and then chapter six is him going off about how great she is and why he fell in love in the first place and remind yourself of those things then here's what god said he said and do the work you did at first you can have romance from the beginning to the end but it's work and i've always heard the work preach as you got to do the work you got to go on a date night you got to hold hands you got to do this you got and you guys are steven honest if going on a date night is work for you you got bigger problems than you think it's not work to go out and let somebody else cook for you and refill your drink every five minutes you only have to talk to them it's still enjoyable it's great that's not what the work is you know what the work is first corinthians 13 is the work it's work to be patient it's work to be kind it's a work to be selfless and long-suffering and to always tell the truth to work to not delight in evil and rejoice in the truth that's work to protect somebody else's heart it's work to trust work to hope it's work to persevere but if you do that work just hear me you're going to want to kiss him even after being married for 20 years you're going to want to hold their hand you're going to want them to walk in the room and you will feel the butterflies because you've done the work to pump some heat back into that house pastor we're just going through the motions the love is gone the love's not gone the affection is gone the expression's gone and i promise you it's gone because you've stopped doing the work the both of you commit we're gonna do the work again we're gonna be patient we're gonna be kind watch y'all two hours after he left house was hot patched a hole pumped it with freon good god needs to patch some holes we need to put first corinthians 13 to work and watch your marriage look what the bible says it's supposed to look like go from glory to glory to glory to glory let's pray father god we're grateful we're thankful god that you've given us wisdom and hope for every single area of our life father god i pray god for those that are searching for love give them wisdom give them hope give them the desires of their heart god i pray for those that are looking to sustain their love god that you would give us the power of the holy spirit god to be patient to be kind to do the work god i particularly pray for those i feel like they've lost love god that you would soften hearts god that you would do a miracle that only you can with your eyes closing your head bowed and bald somewhere online in the room can you pray this prayer with me say holy spirit what are you saying to me and just give god a moment to make this time to make this message personal to you hear me it is impossible to love another human being unconditionally without first receiving the unconditional love of god many of us we grew up in church and we believe in god we've just never received the love of god or maybe you thought being a christian was all about following rules and you didn't know that god wants you to come into his family regardless of where you are you'll say pastor i can't say that i've encountered the love of god now or recently but i want it in my life it starts with you making him your lord if that's you right where you are can you pray this prayer with me say father god thank you thank you for loving me thank you for wanting me as your child thank you for sending jesus to die on the cross so all the holes in my heart can be healed today i surrender i give you control be my lord be my savior and use me for your glory in jesus name amen amen come on church can you celebrate forever

Channel: Union Church

Views: 16,824

Rating: 4.9721255 out of 5

Keywords: relationship goals, relationships, friendships, community, toxic friendships, prayer, prayerful friends, message on friendships, message on community, how to make friends, how to build community, relationship advice, message on relationships

Id: IlwMrYXa_vg

Length: 60min 27sec (3627 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021