Who to date?

well we're talking about dating tonight and the modern dating scene is a mess for proof we need only reference our pop songs the soundtrack of our day to know that our system isn't working it's interesting the New York Times recently reported on a study that they conducted a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs and they found a statistically significant trend towards narcissism and hostility in popular music the increase of the words I and me associated with anger related words with a corresponding decline in we in us and positive emotions that's the world were in today our love songs are getting angrier that there has been a movement right and it's a long journey from I wanna hold your head I wanna hold your hand all the way - ever since I left the city you got a reputation for yourself now right there's a lot of pain in that right what I heard in that statement and there's a lot of hurt in dating a lot of us have felt the sting of it right that we tried to get close to someone and it went poorly and most of us can't monetize heartbreak the way Adele or Taylor Swift can but we can certainly resonate with what they sing and we certainly know the hurts that they've experienced right and I'll tell you and I've said it before but in my experience with counseling and ministering and living among people you guys for four years nobody cries like the brokenhearted crying nobody even funerals don't have that same level of sob of seeing something that still could be be gone there's a real real pain in this dating scene and so many of us see that and you go you know what why would I even want to enter that there's so much pain in this it's so confusing what's what what am I supposed to do and there's a lot of pain in it why would I want to go skipping through that minefield well here's the reality tonight number one is that most of you want to be married in some of the most recent statistics on Millennials say 93 to 96 percent of you want to be married so we want to get married even the people who say marriage is a dead institution want to get married and that amazing surveys today is marriage dead yes would you like to get married absolutely right and you hear when you talk to people like I don't want to get married no no no no I don't want all that pressure I just want someone who will love me for who I am all right and care about me and be there for me and not run out when times get hard but will be there for me through thick and thin and let me just do I am like okay so you want someone will be there just stick with you for better for worse yeah for richer for poorer yeah in sickness and in health yeah oh I see what you're doing yeah yeah yeah yeah so call it something else but we long for permanence we long for someone to step in and promise us that they'll never run out we all want that and somewhere between the longing for marriage and the state of marriage there is a process of evaluation but this process is fraught with danger and that's why we're doing this series because I love you and we love you and we want to help you and there's a lot to talk about in this we're not going to cover it all in one night so if you're like I'm about to learn everything I need to know about dating false we have to do a whole series to unpack all this but let me jump in to where we are now between singleness a guy and a girl just doing stuff and people being married there exists a process of evaluation it has always been this way now different cultures have moved through this process evaluation in different ways in some cultures this process has been arranged marriage marriages that assessing who the proper mate is was something that was kind of led by parents but it was still in evaluating and times gone by it was courtship where a young suitor would show up in the parlor and sit with mum and dad and with the girl and just kind of figure out if they were a good match right so there's different ways we've done it in different times different cultures and yet what's always the case is somewhere between singleness and marriage there's a process of evaluation now much of the confusion I see and your generation is when we start to call this process a status most of your confusion and pain and questions come when we fail to see it as a process but see is that a status we're not going to cover that tonight but there's a lot there so come back next week but here's the reality tonight anybody can get a date and anybody can get married you set your standards low enough you can get it tonight right but a lot don't do it well but to have a great dating experience and to have a great marriage when you rejoice in and not regret all of that is based on two factors who you date and how you date there who and the how the person and the process because dating is a process of evaluation what are you evaluating a person and you're evaluating to try to see is this the right person for me to spend the rest of my life with and so the natural questions become what qualities should I be looking for that's the who question and then another question rises up where you go well then what's the best way to move through this process to arrive at the right person what's the proper way to move through it that's the whole question how do I get successfully to that right person those are the two big questions in the process of dating who and how tonight's about who and next week's about how right now as soon as I say that I know some of you might say well then okay you're telling us about this process called dating but here's saying by will then talk about dating dating is not in the Bible so what are you gonna say to us just give us advice from you know the bible does not talk about dating but the Bible has much to say about evaluation look at proverbs 25 verse 24 it says it's better to live in the corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious or quarrelsome woman right that's not written for the married guy it's not written for the guy that's already there like now you tell me why I got it's not for him that's written for you that's why you're evaluating a certain girl you know okay it's better to live on the corner of a roof than with a contentious woman all right and then you start looking at her you go is she always upset am I constantly having to ask what's wrong no tell me what's wrong no I know something's bothering you what is it right does she always have beef with somebody then you be careful son right you don't want to be in that house get out of there and the book of Proverbs and much of the Bible has a lot to say about a good woman or a good wife that she's more valuable than precious jewels right ladies later in Proverbs 25 28 it says a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls in ancient cities the wall brought security and it brought peace you dating a guy that's got a temper does he explode is he a bully you don't want to live with that guy because if you bind yourself with him he will not build up your house he'll destroy it you will live your days as a married woman without peace and you will not feel safe you will walk on eggshells there'll be a fragility if you marry an angry man so the Bible's filled with helpful information about the process of evaluation about the who and so tonight's about the who and what I want to do is talk about some of our modern problems and look I'll get the proper solution and our modern problem if I could give us one of our modern problems in this process of dating tonight is that we tend to look for characteristics rather than character we tend to focus on characteristics rather than character and you say what do you mean by characteristics well I mean we look at features or qualities of a person and those aren't bad things to notice but they're bad foundations it was like me yesterday I was trying to fix something in the house and so while I was trying to fix it I stood up on our piano bench and it shattered I mean splintered wood everywhere right and as I looked at that I'm like was that because that was a defective bench no it was actually a good piano bench the problem was I was trying to use it for something it wasn't designed to do it wasn't built to handle the weight or the strain of what I was putting on it and for many of us we want to put the weight or the strain of marriage on some characteristics that aren't meant to handle that kind of way and he go VIN what do you mean what are you talking about well here's what I mean ask somebody what they're looking for in a girl or in a guy and what's gonna come out features things about him try it think about the last conversation you had with a girl what kind of guy are you looking for I don't know I wanted to be tall but not too tall you know it's like taller than me right and I wanted to be strong but not like bulky you know it's kind of like a lean start like I want you to see the muscles oh but he's gonna have abs okay he definitely has to have have but I don't want to be like be in the gym all the time I want it to be natural right I wanted to have a jawline like not God but a job you know like Ryan Gosling I want him to look like Ryan Gosling right but I also want him to be funny you know I wanted to make me laugh but not like funny all the time like I want him to be able to be serious you know I wanted to be like Ryan Reynolds funny you know but like not like dirty rod Reynolds they're like fun Ryan Reynolds you know that kind of thing so I don't want him you know I wanted to look good but I don't want him to be like super into his looks you know I wanted to be like Zac Efron built but not like Zac Efron into himself you know I'm talking about like I'm kind of looking for that right and I don't know and I want him to have some money like I don't need him to be like Mark Zuckerberg rich I just need him to buy the things that I want so like maybe like goldman sachs rich you know that kind of thing right and on and on we go to describe what a guy's like right and we sort of assemble all these pieces to a fantasy person and you guys do it too I mean guys are modern age you look at an endless display of images of women and even though you don't say it out loud to your friends you start to assemble and your mind what you want well I wanted to have a chest like Kim Kardashian but a rear like a gymnast good luck and finding that one right you start to create a fantasy woman in your mind and we start to try to assemble the fantasy person like we're assembling a sandwich at Subway you're right like oh no less of that all I want to have a lot of that and I want to and we start assembling the fantasy person we love right but that sets us up for so much disappointment and so much discouragement there's some real problems with that why number one is that when you create an epic fantasy person no actual human being can measure up to that nobody can not even the people that you started comparing them to and we all know that modern celebrities there's so much work that's done but I just pulled up one picture this is one of Lady gaga I don't know how many of you were aiming at her as a goal in life but there's an image of her this was a picture of her while she was doing a photo shoot for Vogue and then this is what it turned into by the time it hit the cover right and some of you look at that and you go okay well that was obviously worked on but let me tell you something that kind of thing happens all the time that the women you look at in magazines images on your Instagram or whatever websites you go - and the men - have all been chemically or surgically or digitally enhanced and the more we gorge ourselves on images of human beings that have been digitally or chemically or surgically enhanced the more we get disconnected from reality right and it's not fair to do to a guy are not fair to do to a girl the other problem when we start assembling in our mind the ideal person and start comparing other people to our ideal the other problem is it doesn't work and it doesn't work because it's built on a false assumption and you know what the false assumption is that you actually know what you want it's fascinating matcom you can take Lady gaga off by the way in 2008 matcom which is a dating website hired a new chief of algorithms and they hired him because they wanted to figure out why as a dating site they would have people enter in the features they want height weight religion education that sort of stuff and you would enter in your ideal characteristics and they would pop out potential matches and yet they wanted to understand why as people typed in their ideal dates the people that they were matched with rarely made it out of the first date and they wanted to figure out why why is our algorithm not working so they set this guy to work on it and he dug into the data and this is what he found he said when he compared people what people said they want age hair color etc to whom they actually dated he says when you look at their habits there is absolutely no correlation and so studies were done by a number of people and they concluded it is virtually impossible for any algorithm of you typing in features you want to put out the person you'll actually marry why cuz you don't know we don't know and I'll tell you anecdotally for me my roommates and I used to do that I listen to all of them describe their ideal girl and you know what all of them got married to a woman who was nothing like that nothing like that why because they didn't know what they wanted right they didn't know and most of us don't know and you may find that hard to believe but think about it most of us when we ask you describe your ideal person you marry most of us describe an idealized version of ourselves and you don't want to marry you you want to marry someone who complements you not you and so we don't know and so it's interesting with dating sites they figured that out this algorithm nonsense is a waste of time and so most of them don't do it now and the most popular one like tinder which is by far the most popular one there are two billion swipes a day on tinder they've done away with all that now it's just based on two things looks and charm are you witty and are you hot and I know most of you maybe don't use tinder or anything like that you'd be amazed how many young people do when you get out into Dallas and Houston places like that but in here maybe you don't but still our dating system is set up you go to a loud bar why so go I can't have like a full conversation with you but I can see if you're hot and your first line better be funny right and so we determine who we link up and start dating based on if they're witty and if they're hot based on charm and based on beauty but the problem is proverbs 31 says charm is deceitful and beauty is vain its it lacks substance that we're basing the foundation of our marriage on things that do not last charm and looks don't last they're not bad features but they're a bad foundation you don't want to pick a mate on their looks it has no enduring quality so ladies this is Iggy Pop Iggy Pop was a punk rock God in the 70s sexual icon right and he's got a lot of the physical features that are kind of hot for guys right now I mean - the haircut physically he's kind of what girls are into now right but this is not what he looks like now this is what Iggy Pop looks like now right and I want you to drink it in ladies don't look away don't this is your future look at it look at it he's actually doing good for his age all right you can take it down I'm sorry to have to do that to you but I'm trying to prove a point if you date somebody based on looks looks fade and charm can fade it can be deceitful right and here's the reality you don't want to marry someone that marries you for that stuff you don't want that right because why what happens if you damage your face what happens if you get hurt what happens if you get injured and and can't exercise for a few years what happens if you get cancer and all your hair falls out do you want someone who married you because you're so hot or do you want someone who had something more enduring to the relationship you don't want this and the problem with our world today is we've taken a consumer mentality and put it into our relationships with human beings and we treat human beings like commodities and so the proliferation of pornography or images online reduce people to commodities that I don't want your heart your soul your mind I just want your body right and we do that with some of the movies we watch in the images we look at we start to reduce one another to a list of features or commodity and so we base relationships on whether or not that person works for me whether or not those features are good for me whether or not that will help me get where I want to be and we become consumers of people but people aren't meant to be treated like that people aren't products they're not and you can't treat them that way you're not an assembly of features you're a person and if someone interacts with you as a person there may be features you have that they love there may be some they didn't expect and don't know how they feel about but as they get to know you there will be things they love there will be things that they can live with that's true of all of us but you'll marry a person not a list of characteristics and it's important that we get away from this consumer mentality because it's toxic it's toxic it doesn't help us I read an interview recently with John Mayer where he was talking about the fact that he can look at 300 images of naked women before he gets out of bed in the and he says do you think this hasn't affected my relationships he said I have found that I would rather go home and fantasize about experiences I've had that have a real relationship with an actual human being why go through the hassle of having to deal with the emotions of a human being it's fascinating I read an article recently by David about David Levy he's the CEO of a company that makes smart toys for children and he wrote a book entitled gosh where's the title of it love and sex with robots and he is the leading cutting edge of creating robots that interact as humans and he prophesized about the future that pretty soon robots will become as common to us as humans and he suggests that marriage to a robot will be better than human relationships because it offers the upsides of normal marriage without the downsides of infidelity illness conflict and complex differences and the only question he asked was if a robot makes me happy why not Shelly Terkel a professor at MIT spoke about this and talked about the disturbing reality that that's not real intimacy and she had a grad student come up to her that said I would trade my boyfriend for a sophisticated robot if it could give me caring behavior and I know that most of you aren't saying well I just want a sweet robot but the reality is there's a way we deal with each other where I just swipe through your images I just evaluate the contours of your body so cavalierly that's not the way we're meant to treat each other as you walk into dating you are not a consumer trying to pick which one works for me you're meant to come in as a contributor a Community Builder that's why we started this series the way we did that a single people women to pursue the glory of God in the good of people I'm not meant to be a taker to use you to build up my life I'm meant to be a giver to use my gifts to build up human beings for the glory of God that's what I meant to be a giver not a taker that as I come in I'm not looking to consume I'm looking to contribute to build up when Adam was in the garden he was working and God brought along Eve as a helper for him and that's not a demeaning term it meant that he was going about a work that was good and got brought along someone who was like him who could connect with him that wasn't identical to him but complemented him so the two of them together could use their gifts to be a blessing to the world that's what you want he didn't bring someone to serve him and some of us when we think about the opposite sex we want someone who just meets our needs gives us what we want we want a butler or a prostitute instead of an equal and that's not right and we need to repent and the reality is God has brought us into an idea of connecting with people that we are not consumers of people were contributors Adams and Eve's coming together to use our gifts together to build up this world for the glory of God that's the beautiful image so with that said you go okay Ben you've told us what we're not supposed to look for what are we supposed to look for well I'm not saying external features aren't valuable we'll get to that but I want to say when you build a marriage it needs to be on firmer stuff and so what are the kind of things that have to be there in our remaining time let me give you seven things to look for seven things to look for and the kind of person you'd want to date in order to be the kind of person you want to marry the first thing I would say is they need to be a believer in Jesus Christ a believer in Jesus Christ now some of you may not be Christians and you're like wait what we'll just hang on we're speaking from a Christian perspective there's stuff in here for you but let me talk about this if you are a believer in Jesus Christ you want to marry another believer in Jesus Christ so you want to date a believer in Jesus Christ you want to be aligned with them on the most important things in life if Jesus Christ is your North Star you want someone who's sailing towards that same star right because who you think runs the universe will inform your values which will shape your goals which will determine where you go and so it's an issue of allegiance and direction so second Corinthians chapter 6 says don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what Fellowship has light with darkness what a has Christ with Belial or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever you go what does that mean well unequally yoked that's language from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament in back then it was talking about farming because a yoke was something you would put on animals and he would put him on it as they were kind of working the fields and what Deuteronomy was saying is you don't want to yoke up an ox with a donkey there are two different kind of animals moving at two different kind of paces with two different kind of goals so don't hitch them up that doesn't make sense hitch up similar people and so Paul imports that into the New Testament says you don't want to be yoked up bound up where you go I go as a Christian with someone who's not a Christian now is that saying that Christians shouldn't like the unbelievers and should get away from them now Christians and non-christians should be friends they should get along they should have meals together they should be co-workers they can be roommates but on the biggest issues of life you want to be bound up with someone who has the same allegiance and the same direction and let me tell you if you're not a Christian don't marry a Christian they'll bore you to tears they'll frustrate the heck out of you you don't want it and as a Christian you don't want to marry someone who's a non-christian because it's an issue of Allegiance and direction so why shouldn't a believer marry an unbeliever well let me pull up some volunteers who gets to volunteer for dating talk all right come on up kids Paul use the idea of yoking together I'm not gonna put a yoke on these kids but the idea is when you get married you bind yourself together right that's what it is I'm bound to you till death do us part right now let's say you're a Christian won't pick may see if you're a Christian you're meant to live by faith faith in who Jesus Christ what does that mean it means I believe what he says and I'm gonna do what he says I want to trust what he says I don't want to value what he values I want to go where he goes and so I'm gonna be pursuing Christ if you're not a Christian you're not doing any of that and that doesn't mean you're a horrible human being and you're evil and you're just killing people but it means your ultimate pursuits in life are not the glory of Christ in the universe it's probably something along the lines of self-actualization and personal fulfillment but as you begin to pursue those goals maybe in dating young and get along as you sit at a baseball game but as you start to make big decisions of where we spend our money and how we raise our kids and you start to make those decisions what's going to happen one or two things one is going to start to pull the other and often what you see is a Christian who has to compromise and give up on their core tenants of their faith or you get the non-christian who she's always trying to drag to church and trying to make do stuff that he doesn't want to do right and so what ends up happening what ends up happening is they go their separate directions and what happens it puts strain on the relationship and you see a tension there that ultimately they say is not worth it and let me tell you something when I worked full-time at a church I solved this all the time that guys would marry a girl because she was cute because she was hot she was funny she was witty and they just linked out and said we'll figure out the rest later and as they got deep into it they realized they wanted very different things or a woman married a guy because he was polite and he looked good in them jeans right but when they got into the biggest issues of life they were not linked up with one another and what do they always say a divorce well we just went our separate ways yeah you did because your allegiances were different so your directions were different so if dating is preparation and a process to marriage you get this right you marry a believer if you're a believer amen thank you guys all right you want to give him a hand thank y'all for uh but some people will say well then she's technically not a Christian but she's a monotheists is that count look you're gonna have differences in your marriage you're gonna have things you don't line up on she likes Pilates you like racquetball who cares right but on major course determining issues in life like the nature of the deity you don't want to ask the question what's the least common denominator you want to be lined up perfectly I believe in God the Father who sent God the Son to be a substitutionary atonement to pay for our sin so we can be forgiven and and dwell by his holy spirit who processes us and holiness and empowers us to humble ourselves to serve one another in love so we can be a picture of Christ in his church you want that right you don't want to settle okay and ladies I get so worried about some of you that get nervous about will ever meet a guy so you're willing to compromise and let me tell you something I heard a pastor say and it's so true he said the loneliness of being single will not be as waged by being lonely in a king-sized bed laying next to a guy who can't communicate to you with you about the biggest issues in life and it's true you don't want that don't settle but not only do they have to be a believer in Christ you want a pursuer of Christ that's the second thing a morally submitted believer not just a believer in God but a pursuer of God anybody can say they're a Christian Hitler did it doesn't matter to me one bit when someone says they're Christian I had a friend when I was in college gets sexually assaulted by a guy who had a Bible on his coffee table and a little Christian bumper sticker on the back of his truck right saying you're Christian means nothing to me the fact that you met him at a church or break away means nothing to me as one of my country friends said you can put a bow tie on a turd but it's still a turd and I knew guys in college I had friends in college and I watched them dial up the religious language when they knew she was a religious girl to try to get her and I would just shake my head to her like don't do it and I remember looking at some of them good guys godly men in the organization we were in and I remember when my sister got in college I said there is no way on earth she will date you because I don't see you striving to look like Christ and so she's not safe with you you want someone who's submitted to him ladies Psalm 1 says how blessed is the man who doesn't walk and they counsel 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 in which he meditates day and night he'll be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season it's leaf doesn't wither and whatever he does he prospers you want to be linked up with a guy like that that says there are ways of thinking ways of talking ways of doing things I will not do it and if all the guys are joking like that I won't if all the boys were doing it I won't because I have standards but the words of God I will meditate on them that guy's gonna flourish no matter what the seasons bring you want to be linked up with that guy and guys you want a lady like proverbs 31 that's strength and dignity or her clothing she smiles at the future when she opens her mouth there's wisdom there and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue she looks well to the ways of her household doesn't eat the bread of idleness her children rise up and bless her her husband also praises her saying many daughters have done nobly but you excel them all charm is deceitful beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised you want to live in a house with a woman like that right that you know is going to be a blessing to you and your house forever you memorize Galatians 5 and you see it do I see in this person the fruits of the flesh or do I see in them the fruits of the Spirit because this is what I want to live and if you see sexual immorality in them you be careful 1st Corinthians 5 Paul is writing is I write to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or as an ID or a revealer a drunkard or swindler don't even eat with such a one which is fascinating because Paul was constantly moving towards the non-christian the non-believer to associate with him to eat with them to love them but he points out a category in 1st Corinthians 5 he says if you have someone who claims to be a brother yet when it comes to money or sex or their words they're willing to violate the tenets of Christ he says you stay away from that person that's the most dangerous kind of person you get out of there you don't want that so is he pressuring you sexually you don't want that guy you don't want that guy you want someone who has an anchor of love and morality outside of himself tethered in the eternity that's what you want and guys you want that too I remember when I was in high school I heard a preacher speak he was serving in Vietnam and he got hit by a phosphorus grenade that burns you and keeps burning and it mangled his face half of his face drooped and he said I remember laying there in the hospital bed and I had to lay there bandaged up with a guy bandaged next to me with similar injuries and he said I listened as his fiance came up next to him and she started weeping and said I can't bear the sight of you I can't be with you and she put the ring on the table and walked out and he said he began to weep because he was terrified of what his woman would say when she saw his mangled face and he said when she walked up she looked down at his drooping lip and she matched her lip to it and kissed him and said that'll work you want a woman like that that's gonna be with you for better for worse because she has an anchor and something not fleeting like your looks but a tether and the love of God ladies you want a guy like that here's the reality if you have a guy that's just into you because you're hot ladies let me tell you something when you have a baby there's gonna be a season there where y'all can't get it on right it's called the long winter right and somewhere in that you're gonna plump up ladies it's coming and let me tell you something you want a guy who was the master of his lusts when he had no other allegiance to do it other than his allegiance to Jesus Christ you want to marry a guy like that why because when you're in that moment you don't have to worry about where he's spending his nights when he goes on a business trip you want a guide that has an anchor in eternity right that's what you want not someone who just names the name of Christian but his pursuing it are they perfect no no human being is but you want someone who's striving to be holy by the grace of God right when I met Donna I was not impressed that she led worship I was not impressed that she was on a stage playing a guitar in front of people because there's enough secular or bad motivations to be on a stage in front of a crowd so I didn't care one bit that she did that but I watched her life and what I saw was a woman that was pursuing being holy not for applause but because she loved Jesus I saw a woman that was teaching other young women not because she was getting paid but because she wanted to I saw a woman that was willing to serve I saw the fruit of someone who was seeking the Lord she was not perfect and neither was i but she was pursuing him and that's what I want someone you can run alongside as we pursue him together and that's the third thing you want someone who will keep the same pace as you so you may even be in the world of Christians but I've seen people do this where some guy wants to be a missionary to the Muslim world and lay down his life for Christ and he dates the girl that just became a Christian a week ago and she's like so this is a Bible oh my god I don't want to die right and he's trying to pull her along and you're like man we don't want to do a van Jew dating where you try to date someone to Jesus and you don't want to be the ministerial dating either Weesa Christian but he's a little raw but if I just keep bringing him to church you don't want to drag that guy so even if he really is a Christian if he's not running at the same pace as you you don't want that right that person when you enter life with them they will either double your effectiveness or cut it in half you want to run with someone who will double it right you want to run with someone that makes you play your best game I remember for me when I was in college I used to love to play racquetball with my buddies and we would go and there was this group of girls that always wanted to go with us and so my buddies and I we would just kind of charge in and go after each other and then I would play against one of the girls and it was like okay you ready okay no you hold it like you want hit it with the racket part not the side part okay here we go and it's kind of like alright whatever you know and then I remember one girl got in there and I was like okay are you ready cuz the ball is gonna come pretty fast alright and I hit it and she just went and it it didn't just make that popping sound it made that whizzing sound you know when it like breaks the sound barrier when it was like and I didn't even see it until it was rolling down by me and I remember I looked back there and she went sorry I was like don't don't apologize right and we continued to play and shoot with AC and I had to work right and let me tell you something that's who I wanted to play against right because she made me play my best game right that's who you want to be linked up with in life not someone that you're trying to constantly pull along but someone that you have to run to keep up with because they're making you better right that's who you want now those first three we gotta go fast sorry we're going a little late tonight but those first three are non-negotiables you can't bend on those those are things that there is no wiggle room on and let me tell you something with those three things we've eliminated a whole lot of people all right currently there's seven point four billion people on the globe right ladies only twelve point two percent of them are males of marrying age okay so that means there are currently nine hundred and six million men of marrying age on the planet nine hundred and six million that you have to choose from right if you take the three characteristics that we just applied they're Christian men or a third of them that gets you down to three hundred and two million right you get guys that are serious about it that's probably half that's 151 million okay so we just took in three little categories 7.4 billion down to 151 million all right so we're crushing it right the ones just around the corner okay so these next four let me just mention them real quickly and then we'll get out of here these next four you're gonna Bend on these the question is how much do you want to bend number four is are you theologically compatible theologically compatible and you go what do you mean by that well let's say you're both believers both chasing Christ but then you start to get into okay we're really serious about each other we could build a life together you start to have to ask okay are we Catholic or we Protestant there's gonna be some issues there on how faith works how grace operates how authority works where are we gonna go to church right you charismatic you conservative right you can bend on a lot of things in these categories but but you're gonna have to figure that out you're gonna have to have that conversation right and here's the reality that I would just push you in there you want to agree on as much as possible you don't want to ask what's the minimal question you want to ask what are the biggest what are the big questions how do you think the sovereignty of God works how passionate are you about missions let's line up on the big things yeah but then let's start to talk about the small things - and are we theologically compatible number 5 is our way socially compatible that doesn't mean are you identical Jonathan Edwards one of the greatest minds in America's ever produced the great theologian Jonathan Edwards married Sarah Edwards they could not have been more different she was a delight socially Jonathan Edwards was painfully awkward but they both loved Jesus and they brought out great elements from one another and she wrote a beautiful book about I think the title was marriage to a difficult man write a biography was written about it called an uncommon Union right they were very different but those differences complemented each other because they were socially compatible she could draw him out and he could take her into greater depths theologically there's a beauty to that and so are you socially compatible right and that also means are you headed in the same direction in life right and it gets down to country or city right I mean how much do you want to flex some of you showed up in this town from Dallas or Houston and this is a small town you you go I am in the sticks right in College Station others of you when you got here you came driving over snip down box or something like that and this is the big city you rolled in and you were like they've got two movie theaters here and let me tell you some city could marry country there's no problem with that but it's gonna come down to where are you gonna live right where do you all Tomatis ëtil are you like well of course we'll live out among the cattle or will that make her slowly die inside you're gonna have to have those conversations there's gonna be bending but you're gonna have to figure that out right and let me tell you something won't belabor this more next week but with that socially compatible piece let me just throw this out there sex is great it's not gonna be what you do the majority of the time you're married okay it's great you're gonna have a lot of fun it's gonna be the best thing you do that day right but for the vast majority of the minutes you spend with that person you're gonna be hanging out doing other stuff right and so a big question is when you're dating someone do I like hanging out with them I see so many people that stay in a relationship why because she's so hot whenever we touch each other it's like bug zappers going off but then you watch them talk to each other and you go he annoys her she bothers him they don't like hanging off and when the allure of the sexual begins to wear off they're gonna look up and say I don't really like you and that happens more often than you think and that's why one of the dangers is injecting a bunch of sex in the dating process because it frustrates the evaluation process of is this a person I like hanging out with do I enjoy their company when we go on a road trip am i praying please God get me out of the car or do I not notice the time go by are you socially compatible number six is philosophically there's one of them say hey I remember sitting with a buddy and he was like you know what Ben every time I pray I think that God wants me to use my gifts in architecture here in Texas to earn money to give it to missions I talk to other friends that said I'm going to Calcutta right and I'm gonna go serve among the poor and you've got to decide as I start to minister to someone where do they ultimately see their life going are we going in the same direction and number seven is physically are you physically attracted to them that is important there's value to that and it's interesting when the Bible talks about relationships often it will mention that she's attractive right it's not bad you want to be attracted to them physically that's not a bad question to ask it's just a bad question to ask first right because the reality is you might watch someone over time and see the depth of character and realize they'd become more lovely in your eyes right and so you do need to be attracted physically but that's seven out of seven now there's more we can say and praise God we got a series and sorry we went so long tonight but I got excited but here's where I want to end some of you see this list and you go man then I am far short of that you describe some things that don't describe me at all and let me tell you something if that's you that you look and go I don't match that list then you need to hit pause on on pursuing dating because you need to go back and listen to the first two talks of this series and I got to get a relationship with God right before I'm ever gonna get a relationship with a guy in a girl right I want to get that right first and let me tell you something for those of you don't know Christianity is not a list of characteristics nor is it a list of character traits either if you look at this and you fall way short let me tell you something all of us have all of us have been devastated by sin all of us have done things that we're not proud of all of us have things about us that are really broken and sad because the world is not what it should be the Apostle Paul who wrote much of the New Testament said in first Timothy he says the saying is trust worthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of which I am the foremost but I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life what's Paul saying he said when I looked at my life apart from Christ he says when I saw it in the light of what I was meant to be I saw I wasn't just a sinner I was the foremost of sinners I was a mess but then Paul looks at them and says but God had mercy on me not because I'm so spectacular he said but he made me a trophy that when you read my words you would see look at how low this guy was and look at how the mercy of God lifted him up look at what a wretch this person was he was the person killing people on the very streets of Damascus we're killing us happening right now he was Isis and God came and delivered him and made him someone who knew the mercy and forgiveness of God and became someone like God and became an author of the New Testament so I don't care what you've done what you've been a part of what your hands have touched your eyes have seen where you have gone all of us in here have been devastated by sin all of us in here have no hope to be the kind of men or women were supposed to be under God except by the mercy of Jesus Christ the one we sang about who was the perfect man for us the perfect human being for us who died and who knew no sin became sin for us and buried it in the dirt and rose from the dead that whoever believes in him would not perish in their sin but just as he rose we rise into life life with God forever and when you put your faith in Jesus Christ the very Spirit of God begins to work on you you will not instantly become perfect but now God is working to make you more like him as you pursue him and you keep doing that and so if you don't know him that's our message Jesus Christ did marry a lowly woman only his love could make us beautiful like that and he did it and so you get a relationship with him right do you pursue him and as you're chasing him by the grace of God you will see someone running alongside you with the same allegiance the same direction the same passion the same pace and y'all just keep running next to each other and go hey there and you go racing on into eternity together amen

Channel: Ben Stuart

Views: 406,224

Rating: 4.9471769 out of 5

Keywords: Ben Stuart, Dating, Romance, Advice

Id: pxGrc64gViQ

Length: 49min 16sec (2956 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 07 2018