Who to Date - Ben Stuart

well I remember the first time I ever walked into Kyle Field the football stadium at Texas A&M farmers fight I was a freshman there and arriving but I knew very little about the school so I remember who I was first walking to the stadium I was peppering my upperclassmen roommates with questions like why are we going to the football stadium Friday night when the game's not till Saturday and why are thousands of us filing in at midnight what's going on here and they said well this is called yell practice like this is where we go and we practice all the yells that were gonna yell tomorrow during the game remember I was like I always thought those kind of came naturally like we got to practice those and they're like yes because in a.m. we all yell the exact same thing in unison and when we do that it confuses and scares our opponents I was like that makes sense I so we're gonna all get in the stadium we're gonna all practice our yells for a few minutes and then when that's done they're gonna turn off all the lights and you're gonna make out with the person you brought and I was like I'm sorry what like suddenly this description took an odd turn and they're like yeah you just start kissing the person you brought with you or if you didn't bring anybody no problem you just hold up a light and someone will find you and you make out with them and I was like oh that's great I thought they were joking when I realized they weren't I was like oh my god what like this is a an introvert nightmare I was like what are you saying I was like why did I even bring somebody so you know what happens when people start kissing am I just gonna be that guy that's like how's it going over there like I don't I don't wanna be that guy no the polite knows like what if I hold up a light and no one finds me and then it struck me like wait a minute what if I hold up a light someone does fight and I don't want to kiss like what oh just yet you know like what are you doing what does any of this have to do with football and I remember I was like I am NOT emotionally prepared for this and so when the moment came I just like stared at my shoes the whole time and just kind of waited for the moment to be over but I remember as I was looking at my toes it struck me what an incredible variety of emotions were kick-started with just a simple flip of switch like for some people as soon as those lights went out that was filled them with anticipation because this was the moment they were waiting for all this yelling nonsense was just a precursor to the main event hello right that's what they were looking for right or for other people it just had some apathy maybe they were there with a person that they were dating for like 14 years which he knew that guy in college and you're like that's life right is that even legal you know but they just kissed each other like hey they're already like an old couple you know and there's just no excitement there or other people it may be filled them with agony the thought that you know they thought about last year I was there with somebody and now this year I'm alone or if you were me it was just a tsunami of different emotions the fear of being with someone versus the fear of not being with someone just all crashing and creating this little tsunami of panic inside I don't know now why do I share any of this for this reason I found that that same variety of emotional experiences happens when I stand in a room full of people like this and say we're gonna talk about your relationships we're gonna talk about romance we're gonna talk about dating when I say that I've been in in stadiums filled with young people where I say we're gonna talk about dating and they erupted in cheers I've been in rooms full of young professionals and say let's talk about dating and they groaned audibly and you go why the variety of response what's going on there well for some of them when you talk about that there's anticipation there's excitement because they're sitting next to someone with some potential okay all right they're excited about talking about this some people that's their favorite thing to talk about they're like he's talking about us baby he's talking about our love I'm so glad we're finally talking about this let's do a million sermons on us right but for others of us it brings up anxiety because dating in modern world has gotten very confusing and so when you say let's talk about dating just the anxiety level comes up I don't understand what we're supposed to do anymore how do I even do this do am I supposed to call someone I'm interested in does anyone call anyone anymore do i text them is that it too informal do I say let's hang out is that too vague do I say let's date is that too intense what do I do and we have no idea how to treat each other all the normal scripts are gone back in the day this a guy was interested in a girl he would just show up at her house and come a-callin and sit in the parlor and play the piano with her parents and that's how you would do it right and now you're like I don't know there's no rules and it's confusing to people and stressful or other people there's agony because honestly the world of romance the world of dating and relationships is very painful place so I remember years later when I was leading a ministry at Texas A&M I was in that same football stadium it was filled with thousands of young people and I was talking about the toxic nature of Secrets how when you hold on to a secret it can SAP your strength like the heat of summer and you need to confess James says so that you might be healed and I said you know what you don't need to confess to everybody but you need to confess to somebody and I was like maybe for some of us as a start you can just write down is there a thing that's burdening you write it on a piece of paper and we'll just throw it in these big bins we had at the bottom and thousands of 20-somethings came down and just through these confessions into all these bins we had at the bottom and I read all of them and four out of five we're about the deep pain and the hurt of a relationship that went wrong if I gave all of myself to somebody and they didn't give themselves back or I betrayed a trust and I can't fix it and let me tell you something in all my years of ministry nobody cries like the brokenhearted cries and so I don't want to be flippant with the pain when we talk about this for some of us there's deep agony in this and the reality is it's a dangerous thing and here's the thing we're a successful group of people in the city but success professionally does not equal success romantically we know that right Meriweather Lewis of Lewis and Clark they went out and explored America and when they came back to the coast here Lewis was arguably one of the bow famous men in America and yet when he got back he had trouble dating Clark got married Lewis couldn't get married and Lewis wrote in his journal at one point I have never felt less like a hero than at this moment that for him traversing on foot across an unmapped continent was easier than figuring out how to date somebody right so if you're like dating is hard yeah it's been that way for a lot of us and it was interesting when I first showed from the city I remember sitting with a guy who's the chief of staff of the senator and I just asked him the wide open blanket question how can I serve your people as we're coming in as a church how do we serve your people just he could have said anything and I remember he won nobody here knows how to date he said their relationships are a mess he said do you think he'll talk about that and I said I'll see what I can do and it's been a year all right of building the church but now it's our time to talk about we're gonna talk about dating today and if you're married in here and you're like oh good he's not gonna convict me let me just say something that the principles apply in every stage and I think you're gonna see some of that for you and I also think it's good for us to hear about the struggles of our brothers and sisters in a different stage of life because that's what family does and this isn't an organization and it's not a performance this is a family and it's good to care about and empathize with one another we could use some empathy in the world so what do we know well what we know statistically and I'm not gonna belabor this is the vast majority of Americans that are single want to be married some of the most rigorous reliable studies around today of young people in America put it in the high 90% said they want to be married right and statistically although less are getting married and we're getting married later the majority still will get married the majority of Americans do and yet this generation is taking longer to get married than any generation in recorded human history you go why is that well there's a lot of different reasons why for that for some it's the fear of divorce I don't want to mess up marriage I've seen it done poorly and I'm scared of doing that myself others it's not the fear of messing up marriage is the fear of marriage messing up them I've got some career goals I got some things I'll try to accomplish and I don't want someone to derail that for other people it's confusion about communication I don't know what the rules are anymore how do we interact with one another the the advent of the iPhone has changed the way we've talked to each other an increase in screen time has increased self-reported awkwardness among us and all the studies were watching of young people now see a drastic decrease in time socializing and hanging out with friends in the morning we are together not sure how to talk to each other I was in line buying a smoothie at the airport yesterday listening to these girls behind me talk when I'm was an older lady talking about going on this retreat and go with all these couples and in their singles and on this big event and her friend was like did you meet somebody and she said no nobody talks to each other so this is something I found the whole time I'm like that's the world today that's that's so much of the world and less time hanging out with people means less connections means less dates which means less marriage and so that's impacting all that the increase of pornography has done that oh well many studies are showing now that prolonged exposure to pornography leads to cynical views about love affection and marriage if it's even possible and it increases self-reported awkwardness particularly in young men as they relate to people of the opposite sex so there's a lot of things that are making this challenging and it's not put a lot of us in a great place and what bothers me and the reason why I talk about dating a lot lately it's not because I want to be the dating guy that was never like an ambition of mine like Jack did it but I just love people and I'm watching people today struggle and it is not an easy thing and so we got to figure out how to navigate this well so some of you go we'll them did one are you advocating that we should all get rid of our phones get rid of all our screens just move out into the country somewhere so our own dresses churn butter and have plenty of time to talk to each other no I'm not talking about there was some ideal day back in the day there's not and yet here's the reality in the uncertain seas of relationships there are fixed stars we can navigate by and Steve Callahan was lost at sea 76 days and a little rubber life raft and he was starving to death out there but he took some pencils lashed him together made a sextant which is a nautical tool you can use to find your bearings based on the distance between the Sun and the horizon and his understanding of these fixed realities about the universe helped him paddle into the right current and then float gently into an island where he could survive and for us wherever you are in the tumultuous seas of relationships there are fixed realities in the universe about who God is how we made the world how we're supposed to treat one another that if you can understand those you can navigate the Seas no matter how they change and so that's what we need to figure out today how do we do it and last week we talked about in singleness singleness is a gift God gives everybody every human being comes into the world single and God ordains that season to secure an undistracted devotion to the Lord is what Paul told the Corinthians that you and I are made not just by God but for God we were made for him that in his presence is fullness of joy that you will be restless until you rest in him and so your singleness is about pursuing a devotion to the Lord Paul says I forget what's behind and straining towards what's ahead I reach to the upward call of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord you were made to know God and that relationship is the lead story of your life so you got to get that relationship right first you got to get a relationship with God right before you'll ever get a relationship with a guy or a girl right and so we really hammered that last week I won't do it here first but you got to get that relationship right first but I knew there was tension last week as I said that in your singleness it's about devotion to the Lord you got to get a relation with God right before you know lationship with a guy or girl right and I know some people are like Ben I'm already pursuing God so what am I supposed to do if I'm just pursuing God all day how will I ever meet somebody how will I ever go on a date well the way it works is you decide I'm gonna chase the Lord and as you make that decision suddenly you're gonna find there's other people running after him along with you and some of them will become your best friends some of them will be on a team here with you some of them will become your mentors some of them will be cute and you're just supposed to go okay and run along next to them be like you want to run together okay and let's get married and that's how it works right obviously there's more to say but that's generally how it works all right so how does this happen we all make a decision I'm going to pursue the Lord most people want to get married most people will get married but the distance between singleness and marriage is a pathway in all humanity has gone to this pathway and our modern pathway is dating and so if singleness is about devotion dating is about evaluation Who am I supposed to run with through the rest of my days dating exists for evaluation it's not a status we sit in it is a process we move through we will talk more about that next week but the reality is dating is a process to evaluate do I want to grip hands with you and run into the forever God has for us that's the question you're asking in dating is this the person I run with for the rest of my days I don't look into their eyes to make my soul complete I grab hands with them and run into God's purposes for me that's what dating is meant to do right and so different cultures and different times have gone through that process of valuation in different ways some people their parents guided that whole process other times in history the church really helped guide that nowadays it's dating and dating does that and let me just say while I'm in the middle of qualifiers to this isn't gonna be a talk on how to get a date it's not because here's the thing anybody can get a date anybody can get married you set your standards low enough you can get married tonight right so I'm not talking about that I'm talking about how do I meet the right person in the right way that's more difficult and that's what's important and that's what Val is valuable to us how do I meet the right person in the right way so as we talk about dating it's a process of evaluating evaluating what is this person the person I'm meant to run with as I chase the purposes of God that's a whoo question what kind of person should I be looking for what qualities should I value in a human being I run with you naturally ask the who question and then you ask the how quest how do I meet that kind of person what process do I go through what system do we map out that we can get to know if this is the right person so when you talk about dating there's a who question what qualities should that person possess and the how question and how do we discern that about one another that were meant to run together and let me just say the who is more important than the how you can really mess up the how but if you end up with the right who you win right if you pretty good at the how but you get the wrong who you lose okay now you need the hell because the hell gets you to the who but we got to start with the who and that's where we are today does that make sense now one last caveat some people will look at that and say well then the Bible doesn't talk about dating you're talking about biblical dating the Bible doesn't talk about dating and you're right there's not a verse like and Moses took Zipporah unto chilis in order that that's not there but the Bible says a lot about evaluation you see in the book of Proverbs written to young people it says it's better to live on the corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman you think that was written to a married guy hanging from the side of his Ruth like oh no you told me like you think that's what this was no this was written to the single guy saying watcher evaluator is she always arguing with people does she always have some kind of beef with the roommates is there always drama then I don't know if you want to stack that into your life bro because you'll never have peace in your home so evaluate her life before you make this decision or proverbs 25 28 says a man without self controls like a city broken into and left without halls a walls ladies does that guy have a temper does he bully his roommates is he a jerk is he rude to waiters let me tell you something you'll never feel safe with him walls are to protect a city if that guy is prone to anger and violence and of a short temper don't enter a home with that man you will never feel safe and so you'd be careful so the Bible is filled with texts about evaluation how do I evaluate this person and so let me talk a bit about some ways we're doing it now that I don't think we're meant to and then we'll talk about what we're meant to look for who we're meant to look for I think one of my concerns about the world today is when we look for people we tend to take on consumer mentality rather than a companion one we take on a consumer mentality I want to find somebody that works for me right and here's an obvious point I want to say at the beginning you're looking to date so you can marry a human being you're talking about a human being and what I mean by that is I know some ministers are against the whole concept of dating I'm not the Bible says whoever finds a wife finds a valuable thing it's not just that marriage is a valuable thing the finding of a wife is a good thing as you find something valuable the findings valuable and so I'm not anti dating but when you date somebody some people are against the term soulmate they don't like that term I don't care it just matters what definition you put to that word if you mean someone that we can share the deep things on our soul as we journey through life together I'm all for it if you mean I'm trying to meet someone in whose eyes I've become complete I see the doorway to a thousand churches like if that's what you're saying like you fill up every vacancy you unlock all my potential you lead me up to a higher state of bliss I've talked to some people that they talk about romance that way and I want to look at them and be like sister have you ever met a real-life man like if you ever just met a guy I mean it's great that he's clothed you think he can really like satisfy all the recesses of your heart like talk to him like he doesn't know how to do that and there's all kinds of people that we put this Freight on people to be what only God can be to us and when you look for a guy or a girl to be what only God can be you said everybody up for failure the relationship can't handle that kind of weight so some people when they mean soulmate what they really mean a Savior save me for my life now and you'd be the answer to my problems and a human being can't save you there's only one Savior other people they think about marriage and so I just want someone who will serve me I want somebody I got my ambitions and I need somebody that's just gonna come on and do what I want and clean up what I want and fix me what I want so I can get there and some people when they say Savior they mean somebody that will serve me and give me all that I want and you know what you're not looking for a savior and you're not looking for a servant you're not you're looking for a companion through life and so my concern for many of us Peter says that you're looking co-heir in the grace of life a different individual not some robot that just fills my needs but I'm looking for someone who has different ideas different thoughts and as we converse with one another iron sharpens iron I become a better person because I learn how to sacrifice I learn how to be selfless I gain virtue as a result of being in this bond with you that's what she won right and so the consumer mentality is is dangerous I think I run into a lot of people that when you ask them what who do you want to marry let's talk about the who who do you want to marry they start listing characteristics they start saying well I wanted to be tall but not too tall you know what I mean but definitely taller than me like six foot and I want him to be attractive but I don't want him to be all about his looks but I just want him to be ruggedly handsome you know what I mean like a Ryan Gosling I want him to look like Ryan Gosling and so I want him to work out but not be like obsessed with working out like always look in a mirror but he's gotta have a six-pack you know I mean like that's kind of standard and I want him to be funny but not like always joking he's got to be serious too he needs to not eternal like Ryan Reynolds I need him to be like Ryan Reynolds and I need him to have some money not like maybe Zuckerberg money but you know like maybe Dwayne the rock Johnson money I don't know so he needs to have that and they start to list characteristics we start to assemble an ideal human on a list but here's the problem what you've done is you've created a fantasy person and then you've compared real humans to your fantasy person that does not exist and when we do that you go you know what this is a great way to to order a hamburger it's a great way to curate a playlist but you don't get to assemble people god assembles people and so you don't need to come in with here's my list of non-negotiables about their outward characteristics that's a dangerous way to even enter the process for a couple reasons number one is that it creates unrealistic expectations that no one can live up to and that's one of the dangers right now so much screentime as we look at people over and over again on screens that that have been doctored or curated and it presents a version of life that when you hang out in real life people don't really look like and there's obvious examples I think we have a picture of lady gaga do we have that one that's me oh yeah there it is yep I don't have a lot of like that didn't look like her at all uh look Lady Gaga's an attractive person but you can see that's her at the photo shoot on the left and right that's what the cover looked like at the end and you go you know what you're presenting a version of a woman that doesn't exist and the reality is we all look at that picture we go yeah I know but then we get inundated with hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of images a day and it begins to set an unrealistic expectation then we put real people up against and you can't do it it's not fair you wouldn't want someone to do that to you we're not meant to do that to other people right that's why I think a lot of people like looking at celebrities on their off day photos it kind of comforts us like oh look they are kind of a mess like it sort of comforts you right and that's why a lot of guys hate romantic comedies because it presents a version of a guy that you're like come on you know like a girl wrote this movie like I don't know any guy that talks like that and it can create an unrealistic expectation I think the second reason why the consumer mentality is bad is that it's built off the faulty assumption that you actually know what you want that's the other thing it's interesting dance later wrote a book on the history of online dating entitled love and the time of algorithms and what he found was he said you know in the early days of dating apps and dating websites that there was algorithms that would match you with with your preferences we're gonna put you in the perfect match and so we get your preferences they list theirs and then we match you but what they found is they were doing that was many of the people that were the perfect match never made it past the first date and so these companies walk well then what's wrong with our algorithm the algorithms off so match.com which is the biggest one hired a professional to kind of analyze their algorithm how come we keep telling people were gonna match you perfectly and the perfect matches never make it past the first date what's going on with that so we did all this research all this study they paid him all this money and at the end of it he said there's nothing wrong with the algorithm he said the problem is with people people tell you what they want and then when you see who they end up with what they found was there is absolutely no correlation between what you say you want and who you end up with zero correlation you don't know and I saw this anecdotally when I was in college with my roommates all these guys would say I want a girl that looks like this looks like this I got a buddy those like I want a girl this wild crazy and has a bunch of tattoos and he married this sweet introverted girl that had never kissed a boy I married the wild girl with tattoos [Applause] [Music] you don't know you don't know and so saying well I'm gonna curate this process you don't know what you want and so here's the interesting thing with online dating they started to realize that all these algorithms are a waste of money so they stopped doing it and so what happens well now you just simplify the process and let's evaluate one another based on two criteria your looks and how witty you can be in a short little byline right and so they just kind of diminished it to two characteristics right beauty and charm but this is the last scary thing about the consumer mentality if that's the basis on which a relationship starts those are the absolute flimsiest parts of a relationship proverbs 31:30 says charm is deceitful beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised charm is deceitful anyone can fake that they're put together in an hour interview that's why I often one-on-one dating we're just sitting at a restaurant asking questions you don't really get to know what that person is like it's better to see them in community and how they treat people they're not attracted to you've got to watch that person and so charm is deceitful I mean think about in the news whenever they interview the neighbors of a serial killer like it came out this guy murdered a bunch of people they're always like I don't know he seemed like a nice guys a little to himself but he seemed cool you're like okay people lie you don't know so be careful cuz you're not sure what that person's like and beauty is vain beauty fades beauty goes away it's a vapor that's done I mean I keep up I think we got a picture of him coming show that this is Iggy Pop back in the day and you know change the haircut but I think a lot of girls would be like man that's what I'm look at that guy okay I'll swipe on that profile that's great well here's Iggy now and let me just tell you something it becomes that that guy you think is hot now that's where he's headed and and he's doing good for his age don't look away look that's your future that's coming for you all right all right now you can take it up so if you start a relationship and tried to build it on whether if somebody's funny or charming or whether they're beautiful beauty will fade and charm goes away and you don't want to build a relationship on that because what happens if you get hurt what happens if you get injured what happens if you're like me and you get injured and for a couple years you can't really work out if beauty was the standard of your relationship you're in trouble and when the hardship of life comes you don't need somebody that's cute you need somebody that's faithful you need a relationship built on sterner stuff you see it so what should we look for well let's get to that and we're gonna have speed through this and I know you can't cover everything in dating people you didn't cover my nuance and I would say you're absolutely right it's very hard to cover at all but let me give you some things that I think will help us as we think about who are we meant to run through life with and again if you're married in here evaluate yourself based on these because these don't really change this is the who we're supposed to run with and I don't say the first thing you need to look for before you even begin to entertain going on a date with someone is you need to look for someone who's running the same cause they're committed to the same cause it's interesting the longest chapter in the book of Genesis that chapter with the most words dedicated to it is about one thing Abraham finding a wife for his son Isaac and I think that should mean something to you the longest I mean the book flies through the creation of the entire universe the origin of evil it's zoom and past all that and then it slows down to talk about your relationship so if you think God doesn't care about you're longing to be married wrong read the first book he wrote he cares a lot about it and it's valuable to him and yet it's interesting and that day it was common for the father to lead the charge in helping the son find a wife and Abraham looks to his servant in Genesis 24 and really just gives him one instruction it says Abraham says to his and the oldest of his household who had charge of all that he owned place your hand under my thigh that was an important way to swear a covenant I will make you swear by the Lord the God of heaven and earth you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live but you'll go to my country to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac he really gives him one command my son can't marry a Canaanite and that wasn't an ethnic decision for him what he was looking at there and saying the people that we live among have no allegiance to the God that I have been walking with my faith all through Genesis that I am a man of faith trusting in God and my family is a family of faith and so as I'm looking around of who's gonna link up with my son they got to have that same allegiance they got to run that same way cuz your allegiance determines what you value and your values choose your goals and your goals choose your decisions and your decisions choose a life so aw Tozer used to say that the most important thing about somebody is what they believe about God and it was just such a cool byline for pastors to say but I never understood what that meant the most important thing about you is what you believe about God what does that mean and what I realized is who you think ultimately runs this thing determines your values what you think is valuable and what you think is valuable will determine what you chase your goals and your goals will influence your decisions and your decisions make a life and so before you link your life up with someone you need to look at where are they going and Abraham said I need a woman who says I'm following the Lord I want to chase him I'm running after him I'm going there that's the kind of person you want Paul says it very clearly in 2nd Corinthians 6 he's talking to his people and he says do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what Fellowship has light with darkness what Accord has Christ with belly all the different gun or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever now he's not just talking about dating he's even talking about your closest relationships and he says don't be unequally yoked and he's actually quoting from Deuteronomy 22 an Old Testament book that is really just straight-up talking about farming which many of you probably know what a yoke is you've seen it in picture now many people have him around here but it's when you would put a big wooden bar with metal beams around the necks of two animals and they would go together and pull like a something - till the soil right and what you would do is to make sure you get animals that match because if you don't if you get a big bowl with a little donkey what's gonna happen is this gonna kind of go in circles and you're not gonna have a very efficient process they're gonna have different goals go different directions it's gonna be a frustrating process so if you're gonna yoke them together make sure they're similar get them in the same direction and Paul here unites that to our most intimate relationships now is he saying that Christians shouldn't hang out with people who don't believe in Jesus no Abraham had friends that weren't believers Paul was constantly reaching out and engaging in cities where people didn't have faith in Jesus and so the Christian is meant to be in the culture the Christian is meant to have friends who do not have an allegiance to Jesus we're meant to be a part of a city seek the peace of the city but Paul is talking about in your most intimate relationships who you are bound with forever you want it to be with people who were chasing the same cause going the same direction we can illustrate it this way Alex can I grab you and Esther Alex and Esther everybody when you're when you're dating somebody the idea of dating is you're trying to evaluate do I want to bind my life forever to that person so yeah I can I blow that up thanks man I appreciate you doing that you did such a great job earlier okay you are literally there it is talking about binding yourself to somebody now let's say one person says my allegiance is to the Lord I exist and know him and make him known what's the greatest commander of my life to love the Lord my God with all my heart soul and mind and strength and then to love my neighbor as myself that's where I am going but let's say he doesn't have that allegiance if you're not a believer in Jesus what are you chasing in life not that and there's many of you in here that if I would say man is your goal in life to please the Lord in all respects and to really glorify Jesus you'd say no that's not your goal so what's your goal it's something else it's it's a career pursuit it's a career ambition it's it's a financial success it's certain you've said in life it's just something else you're not pursuing what they're pursuing but if the two of you bind your lives together cuz you're cute you're funny you made me laugh like we're on vacation he's a Lhasa and you get married and then you start making decisions in life and you're going different directions what's gonna happen well a couple things maybe whoever's the strongest personality starts to drag the other and maybe you start dragging him to church and he starts showing up but grudgingly and let me tell you something it's not fun to drag somebody and it's not fun to be dragged and so if you're not a believer in Jesus don't marry somebody who is they will bore you to tears and take you to meetings you don't want to go to and and you're like we're at the club but at the wrong time like [Applause] you don't want that or they'll be the stronger personality and you'll begin to compromise and you won't be a part of all that God's called you to or you'll say we're bound together but as you both pursue your ambitions what happens an incredible strain on the relationship and the relationship won't survive and so for goodness sake do not bind yourself with somebody who is not lockstep with you on the biggest decisions in life and so I'll talk to people sometimes that they're like well the guy I'm dating believes in God is that good and you're like hey varieties great you know like I like Pilates he likes racquetball that's fine right but on the biggest decisions in life the most foundational principles of existence don't search for the irreducible minimum well he says he's a monotheists no no you want someone that you say you know what we Bulow's both believe in God who is a father and a father who loves us so much he sent god the son onto earth who lived a perfect life for me died for my sin rose from the grave victoriously and I put my faith in him and he filled me with His Holy Spirit and I'm the very workmanship of God created in Christ to do good works that he prepared before him that I would walk in them he prepared me to walk in them too okay well then let's ride and you run together after the biggest things in life and what my old pastor friend Tommy Elson said is true hey the loneliness of singleness will not be ass waged by the loneliness in a king-sized bed laying next to someone who cannot speak to you about the deepest things in life don't settle find yourself with someone that has the same cause running in the same direction at the same pace so thank you guys I didn't bring the keys so good luck and we love you and Alex and Esther everybody you want him to chase the same cause in the biggest course determining ways and you want him to run after the same thing and at the same pace and so it's it's an irreducible minimum that hey this person believes in the same God that I do I'm gonna chase after them but then you also want to figure out your pacing too then if here's someone that's like and I'm gonna lay down my life on the mission field in the name of Jesus in the hardest country and that person's like um I just bought my first Bible like you may not want to try to run that if someone's trying to clock a six-minute mile and the other person just bought their first pair of running shoes you may not be at the right moment to link your lives up forever you got to be discerning there and so I want to chase after the same cause running the same direction at the same pace what does that mean it means a lot of cute available successful humans are gonna run all right bye but you got a great sifting mechanism he's going that way she going that way I'm not worried about it I'm going this way and as I do some people are gonna run alongside me don't get a wife for my son among the Canaanites and some of you may say well man all I'm surrounded by is Canaanites well that servant walked 500 miles to find this girl and so some of you may need to walk 500 miles and then walk 500 more just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at her door all right you might need to be that person and that's okay be willing to move not only do you want to go we're chasing the same cause but you want to have someone who has a godly character that they're being shaped by him character and Greek it's the word Kuro so it means to etch that God is etching me into a statue his own making that he's taking a scalpel and cutting away what doesn't need to be there and carving into me the grooves that do to make me more and more in His image every day you want someone who's submitted to that process that isn't just saying I have an allegiance to God but they're saying and God is shaping me I don't care when someone says they're a Christian that has some value but I don't know what to do with that or if they say they go to church I don't know I had a dear friend who was raped by a guy who had a Bible on his coffee table and an excision sticker on the bumper of his car so if some guy says he's a believer I don't really care as my country friends used to say you can put a bow tie on a turd but it's still a turd and so I don't care what the guy puts on I've watched guys purposefully adapt more religious language to hit on Christian girls they'll be like yes well hallelujah Hosanna you know and you just like oh stop like don't do that like so you want to watch their life watch what prompts their decisions watch what's driving what they do watch their character because you want to be with somebody who has a godly character why because you want the blessings of their wisdom ladies Psalm 1 says how blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the Lord and as law at 8 day and night he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and it's leaf does not wither whatever he does he prospers don't you want to be married to a guy who prospers even when life is hard well then you watch him does his morality fold like a lawn chair in the middle of a business deal that has an upside that he's willing to sell his integrity for you watch that do you watch him lie to people to get ahead you'd be careful you think he won't lie to you watch him is he sitting in the counsel of the wicked is he walking among the scoffers and you be careful or is he a man who delights in the law of the Lord I want to live a life of integrity and that integrity is rooted in something other than you you don't want to be his source you want him to have a source that he's planted by streams of water why so he can bear fruit for you and that you're the beneficiary of his wisdom that's the kind of guy you want to be married or men proverbs 31 talking about a godly woman says strength and dignity or her clothing she smiles at the future she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue she looks well to the ways of her household does not eat the bread of idleness her children rise up and bless her her husband also he's praises her saying many daughters have done nobly but you excelled them all charm is deceitful beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord she shall be praised guys you want a woman that fears the Lord don't settle for I don't know if she works out she seems cool no you want a woman that when she speaks to you its with wisdom that she doesn't use her words to cut you down or she doesn't blow you off but she presents to you words that help you become a better man you want to be someone who who she's not just looking out for her own interest but she looks at everyone under her influence that's who the household was and she goes how do I conduct myself how do I use my money my time my energy so the whole household Rises you want a woman like that you may not get to know that over one date you may need a watcher in the community and say you know what when she enters a team that team elevates when she is ruled over her roommates are better people as a result of her existence then I would be a better person - if I get around her you want to benefit from their wisdom and you want the peace of their integrity you want the peace of knowing the person that I am bound with has a source of integrity outside of me that will call them to be faithful even when I'm failing you wanna uh what's her name Brenda Rover Dave Rover was a soldier who was injured in the Vietnam War when a phosphorus grenade went off burned half his face and much of his body and Dave told the story of being in the ICU and watching the man next to him who was also similarly injured watching his fiance walk up to the bed and say look at you you're an embarrassment I can't be seen with you and she took off the ring and said it as a bedside table and he said when he saw that it terrified him because he saw what a grotesque could face his face had become he was scared of what his girl would say when she walked in and he said she walked in and she looked down at his face and said welcome home and give him a big kiss and that's what you want you want the person that's gonna love you for better or for worse in sickness and in health you want the piece of their integrity ladies you want to know he is fighting for purity sexually if he's doing it now as a single guy you know he'll do it when you're married that you won't have to be nervous when he's gone on a long work trip of what he's doing in that hotel room you want the peace of knowing my man fought for holiness when I was it out of the picture and when I was in the picture so when he's out of town I'm not worried I trust him you want the peace that comes with being married to somebody who has integrity you won't find that out on date one so tell me more about your sexual history and practices you probably shouldn't lead with that but Paul told Timothy and first Timothy 5 don't lay hands too hastily on somebody and share in the responsibility of their sin for others he was talking about when you lay hands on someone who dubbed them a leader of the church he says don't hurry up and call someone a leader he says some people their sins are quite evidence going before them to judgment others their sin follows after he says some people you knew they were trouble when they walked in siddell Mary other people they present well they look great they look cool and then after a couple months she go you know what he's always kind of demeaning to the waitstaff you know what he tells people he's gonna do something and then I watch him and he has no no intention of doing it I don't know if I can trust his heart and sometimes it takes months to watch that so you give yourself time to observe are they chasing the same cause and are they letting god shape their character you want to make sure those things are there right with Abraham and Isaac she not only had to be a believer in God she had to be willing to walk on the cutting edge of faith along with him you want that cause and you want that character and then the last thing you look for is chemistry chemistry and chemistry matters for many of us we lead with that and it really shouldn't be the lead you want that integrity to be the base and then the chemistry is do I like hanging out with you that's the important thing so some people I talk to in religious service like well be faithful unto the Lord and will they be faithful unto me yeah but does he bore you to tears you don't have to do this you know so you want that cause you want that character and then you want an easy chemistry we enjoy talking to each other because let me tell you something a lot of marriage is just hanging out that's why I encourage people not to expedite sexuality too fast some people their whole dating right is life is sexual exploration and they're not even figuring out do I even like talking to you I've sat with couples that they're just like little buzzers touching hills you see all the dopamine : officer touching each other but then whenever they stop touching for a minute and talk you're like she bores you and he annoys you I can see this but y'all don't cuz you're just waiting for the next dopamine hit and this is trouble so you want to pull that back so you can evaluate because listen the majority of your married life is not having sex surprise it's not it's just like doing stuff like reading a book like do you call that guy how'd that go it's that kind of stuff and you want to make sure it's somebody that's interesting and you like hanging out with and there's a million things I could say on that I'm at a time I can't do so again sorry you're like you didn't get to my question I told you but you need to figure out theologically are we compatible we're doing the same thing is one Catholic and one Protestant you're gonna have some very different definitions of how to salvation work in the nature of Authority and you're going to figure that out how you gonna raise the kids it's one of you from a more charismatic background and when you from a more conservative one theologically you're gonna want to figure that out some of that is not a deal breaker but you just got to see how important our guitars to you and worship how married are you to a pipe organ you're gonna have to figure some of that out you know socially compatible do we get along that doesn't mean you do all the same things Donna and I are very different in a lot of ways right I know the Bible better than her and that's not an arrogant thing I spent a lot of money and a lot of time in seminary learning it in its original languages I know it better right but man in in prayer and discernment and wisdom before the Lord and in really seeing and caring about people she outpaces me there's no question about it so you're not looking for someone that's a mirror image of you you're looking for a compliment with you right and so are all of our interests the same no when we got married I was really into running she was not but I had to realize you know what that's not a deal-breaker for me it really isn't I can run by myself but I really like the outdoors and if she didn't that would have been problematic and so you're looking about you're not looking for a mirror image of me I'm looking for a compliment and there will be some things we share and some things we don't but at the end of the day do we share the big things and do we really enjoy each other and are we sharpening and making each other better do we have a similar philosophy of where we want to be in life where do we want to go I know my sister she really wanted to follow the Lord and she she thought the medical world would be the right place to do that but as she got into studying medicine she realized she didn't like his sticky she didn't like it but uh she was good with people but she knew that was valuable and then she met a guy that was a doctor that wanted to go to the mission field she's like well that's interesting but he had this passion for Madagascar and she's like I'd have never really had a passion for Madagascar but as they talked she realized you know what I care about relieving human suffering I care about people I care about the cause of the Lord I'm gone for Madagascar and they roll together and so that's the kind of fine-tuning you have to do what are the non-negotiables for me and how do we sift down the things that are deal breakers and things that aren't and there's again a lot more we can say about this but we need to wrap it up but I want to say this as we close some of you as I'm talking about this been pursuing a godly cause God shaped character chemistry with me that all sounds so good you're talking about a unicorn I've heard of these mythical beasts and and I hear people say that all the time talk about unicorn I was on a podcast the other day with a amazing woman in New York and she said the most often question I get asked by women are where all the eligible men wear it were the men and I told her you know what I know that social awkwardness is a reality in the world today and that's a lot of it and often the church historically has been helped to that and I don't think it's been as much lately I said Ben let me tell you some I sit in small groups with lion faced men all the time and our church we have guys that are exactly what I'm talking about all the time so don't dismiss these wonderful guys by saying there's no good guys out there there are I said a good man it's not like a unicorn it's more like a kangaroo and some people are so frustrated I there's no kangaroos yes cuz you're in Wyoming and night after night you're hanging out on my oming you're getting getting to the back of the club getting past the velvet rope into the to the inner workings of Wyoming and you're looking around and there's there's no kangaroos yeah cuz you're in the wrong place man and you start to get bitter and cynical you just gotta move and some of you you're looking for a godly woman you're looking for a godly man but you're looking in crazy places and so let me tell you something it's meant to start in community and this isn't a pickup joint that's not why we're here we got one cause we're chasing but as we chase that cause together we are a community we are mentors we are mothers we are fathers we are brothers we are sisters and we will be people who treat one another with respect and love and we will see people get married in this house and that's how you want it that we're gonna all run together we're gonna all journey together so you just get involved in a community chasing God's cause and you trust of the God who loves you and takes care of your eternity will also take care of your present amen last illustration back in the day when captains of ships used to get out on the open seas they would get out in these moments at times and as particularly they were trying to dock into Shore they'd realize I don't know this area and there are Shoals there are rocks there are there are things that could wreck my ship and destroy my life and in that moment they had to make a decision there's a captain I can say well I don't care I'm the captain of my ship and they just grip the wheel and steer it where they want and risk running over some rocks and sinking their ship or in humility they could fly a flag and it was this bright red and white flag still use it today and it would communicate to every other boat into the shoreline I need a pilot a pilot was somebody that knew the area really really well knew every shoal and rock and sandbar underneath the waves they knew all the traps and when you flew that flag a pilot would get in their little coracle and they would row out to you and get on your boat and they'd grab the wheel and you would let that flag down and you'd put up a different flag to let the whole world know I don't need another pilot I have a pilot and it's interesting they wrote a hand back then it's one of my favorite hymns actually my friend Robby Siri recorded it it's called Jesus Savior pilot me over life's tempestuous seas these untold waves they obey your will when you tell them to be still wondrous sovereign of the Seas Jesus Savior pilot me and so let me just encourage you there's more to say about all that we're doing here with relationships but you got to get a relationship with God right first and God's not waiting for you to get your act together God came after you before you came searching for him he came for you Jesus arrived a long time ago and he did it for you because God so loved the world he gave His Son that whoever believes in Him wouldn't perish but have life and so if you're in this room and you've never put your faith in Jesus he is the bridegroom he's the husband he's the one who came to knit our hearts together with his and he's the pilot who will guide you through the uncertainties of life you can trust him and I hope that you will

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 223,843

Keywords: Passion, passioncitychurch, ben stuart, dating, who to date, single, engaged, married, Washington D.C.

Id: F4da5mTLlTQ

Length: 52min 5sec (3125 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2019