Who Will I Spend the Rest of My Life With?

welcome we're so glad you're with us today you can stand on up to your feet we're gonna spend some time worshiping our great god jesus our redeemer lives he is alive let's spend some time singing for him you're this jesus that carried our shameless jesus rose from the grave the same jesus we worship today we worship today and came to us and grace and in truth he is making us new he's making us new i know that my redeemer lives i know that my redeemer is still keeping all his promises the same jesus is coming is the same jesus the same jesus and he laid down his life and he did what he said when he rose the same jesus the same he's still keeping all his promises still keeping us promises the same jesus the road is long you're my portion never failing for me only jesus but you just you the riches of this world could never satisfy let my heart walk for only you and you're every morning and then forever for me only jesus is for me only jesus then my heart wants for nothing but you could never satisfy for me for me only jesus hold me for me only jesus hold me for me only jesus you foreign jesus falling for me only jesus that zephaniah 3 17 says this for the lord your god is living among you he is a mighty savior he will take the light in you with gladness with his love he will calm all your fears he will rejoice over you with joyful songs you have been so so good to me you have been so so kind to me still you keep yourself away reckless when you have been so so good to me you have been so so reckless i don't deserve it still you keep breakfast there's no shadow you won't light up a mountain you won't climb up coming after me aren't you grateful for that there's no wall you won't kick down lie you won't tear down coming after me there's no shadow you won't light up a mountain you won't climb up coming after me coming after me reckless speak to me you're the only voice i want to hear walk with me show me who you are as i draw near if you're not fade away take the whole world and give me jesus let all of us fade away if you're not in it take the whole world fade away we only want you is is is is then all else fade away take the whole world and give me jesus fade away yes god i pray that's my heart that's that's our heart nothing would get in the way of you but nothing god would distract from who you are keeping our eyes on you because nothing compares nothing this world has to offer compares to you jesus god help us to remember that help us to keep our eyes on you we love you god we worship you because you're worthy of all praise honor and glory and it's yours it's in your name jesus that we pray amen thanks so much for singing you can take a seat today we do continue in our series are we there yet we've been answering four essential questions that everybody needs to have a compelling answer too today's question is this who will i spend the rest of my life with so we thought we'd ask some expert opinions from some of our kids take a look at this technically i am not at dating appropriate age so i really don't know most of these questions i think love is being more than friends love is a relationship love is like you know how jesus died on christ's presence because he loved god no matter what i would marry someone that is nice and caring i want to marry someone that's kind and sweet and that helps others when you go out to public and go dating with them say no i'm not marrying you i'm buying a pet if i had to make a marriage work i would give my wife chocolate and flowers some people when they love each other probably go like take them to church take them out for dinner a marriage works by being kind to each other i would make my marriage work by bringing her donuts and making her millions upon millions of cinnamon rolls the best stage to get married is like 50 or 40. 20 or 40s 23 or 22. 37 something like that it's okay to kiss someone when they tell you to i think the right age to kiss someone is in college you can kiss someone when you're married kissing leads to car accidents if you're out in public most nights i try to pack got you climbing on my back saying daddy when am i gonna see you again you know i gotta go out on the road and get on with the show so most nights your mama's gonna tuck you in when you're missing me look at the stars of them i'll be wishing all the same ones and sing this father's prayer i hope you see the seven wonders i hope you say the seventies i hope you let the whole world in your heart but you still got room for me i hope you find a guy that treats you right on your wedding night i'll raise your toast hope he understands always be the man that loves you the most summer's gone school is back it's my turn to help you pat keep your room exactly how it gotta is out on your own so proud of you you know you're the best thing that this old man ever did when i'm missing you and all i hope you find a god that treats you right on your wedding night always be the man that loves you the most trust baby come on when you change your whole world with your heart i hope you think of me when i go to sing my final song hope you celebrate and raise your toast if you cry they'll understand for the man who loved you the most let's pray dear heavenly father we want to be excellent parents grandparents aunts and uncles brothers and sisters lord we want to do these things well we want to live for you we want to follow you we want to shine for you and we want to lead those who we have an influence in we want to lead them well as also so lord i pray that the power of your holy spirit would so overwhelm every one of us that we would have an idea of the kind of life that you would want us to live and lord some ideas on how to live it thank you that you didn't leave us to figure this stuff out on our own thank you for your word that leads us and guides us thank you for your holy spirit that indwells inside of us lord help us to get this area of our life right we ask this in jesus name amen well welcome everybody who are here in the building today and also those who are watching us at home and online thanks for taking the time we are in the middle of a series called are we there yet and we are looking at four questions that every person needs a compelling answer to we've looked at what's going to be the center of our life what's going to be the character of our life and one of the principles that's been throughout this is that you can't pass on something that you don't have so you want to make certain that you have these things so you can pass these things on to your kids and today we're going to talk about who or do you want to spend the rest of your life with going to try to help our kids navigate the minefield of dating now some of you are single so this is for you it's not just for your kids uh some of you are married you're gonna look at these things and say wish i had done these before i got my no i'm just kidding you're not going to look at that lightweight uh some of your grandparents you could invest in these things and you're in your children as well and start these things as early as you can i would say around 8 9 10 years old that's very important wisdom of kids is a great thing though isn't it and so we saw a little video a few minutes ago about kids answering different questions and so i found some myself let me let me share some of them with you this is alan age 10 the question was asked of him how does a person decide who they should marry this was his answer he said you got to find somebody who likes the same stuff that you like like if you like sports she should like that you like sports and she should keep the chips and dip coming so feel sorry for his wife already at this young age keep the chips in dip coming honey i have this ricky age 11 how would you make a marriage work this is his advice he says tell her your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck which really is kind of a compliment because trucks are gorgeous to be honest with that ford raptor that's an amazing looking vehicle right there how about this one right here freddy86 what's the right age to get married this is this is what he said he said no age is good to get married at you got to be a fool to get married already at age six the kid's giving up on love it's just a sad tale let me give you one more pam age seven when's it okay to kiss someone and this is what she said when they're rich so it's a very sharp young lady i'll tell you that right now wisdom of kids i wish i'd had some wisdom along the way i remember this one girl that i went steady with when i was in the fifth grade now fifth grade friends i got to tell you something fifth grade i was the man in fifth grade i mean that was the height of the social ladder for me it was all downhill after that but for one year the stars aligned and i was it and there was this particular girl her name was rachel and rachel was in my class she was also a girl that was at my bus stop she also just lived right up the street in the dead end and rachel kind of thought i was cute well that's not surprising because they could look at the picture of me in fifth grade do we have a picture of me there i am right there i mean who can resist a bowl cut i mean that's a good time so she thought i was cute so she sent her friend over to talk to my friend and my friend came over and said hey rachel thinks you're cute she wants to know if you want to go steady with her well i didn't know if i wanted to go steady with her i didn't really know rachel well at all and so i said i don't care if i go steady with rachel and so he went back to her friend and then she went back to rachel before i knew i was going steady with rachel well the day goes on you know how the elementary school relationship's going to get to the end of the day and my same friend comes up to me and says rachel's acting like a big shot because she's going steady with you i said oh i did i did not know that he said yeah i think you should break up with rachel do you care if you break up with rachel i said i don't care and so he went to her friend and broke up with rachel and when rachel heard that i had broken up with her i kid you not she put her head on her desk and she cried friends i hadn't talked to that girl all day long do you understand what i'm saying and i was like what in the world is going on why is she crying well then i got on the school bus to head back home you know get off on my bus stop and the whole time i'm on the school bus this girl is giving me the snake eye i mean she's staring at me she's mad as hops at me and i'm thinking what in the world did i do well i get off the bus of the bus and i'm heading back home just minding my own business when all of a sudden i hear a sound and it sounds like a helicopter coming down for a landing it says sound so i turned around to see what in the world was going on and it was rachel and she was coming at me with her purse over her head she was whizzing it around over and over and over again and i said to myself i said self i said yeah this is not good right here and before i knew what to do she hit me right across the side of my face with her purse it was like a scene out of braveheart i'll tell you that right now so i stumbled me i fell to the ground i couldn't feel the side of my face so i stood back up again tried to gain my composure and she slapped me on the other cheek and i thought this girl has joined the crazy train right here she's not only the conductor she's the caboose as well i got to get out of here and so i ran to my house as fast as i could i remember sitting on my bed going what was that about and that began my dating relationships not what you would call a very stellar start well we look to the bible for help don't we that's what we always do we turn to the word of god and here's what's interesting the bible doesn't hardly talk at all about dating isn't that great and the reason the bible doesn't say a whole lot about dating because they didn't date in the bible in fact here's the way parents are going to love this the parents chose who the child was going to marry now how many parents would like us to go back to the good old days of you picking because you think you can pick better than your kid could pick right let me see the hands up here yeah yeah i don't understand what you're talking about right now my oldest daughter did good but the other two i'm like i don't know about that i tell you what so we're going to look at dating now even though we don't have a typical dating relationship in the bible uh what we do have is is a courtship that goes on between jacob and rachel now we're going to do something fun with this i saw dave stone do this i thought we would play along and do the same thing we're getting some sound effects along the way as i tell the story okay and so when i get to a certain area of the story i'm going to point to you and you do your sound effect so first is for the guys and your sound effect is a little bit early on in the story okay and here's what i want you to do i want you to whistle like when you see something that's attractive i want you to make that kind of a sound you know the kind of sound okay so let's practice it all the men one two three some of you've got some practice with that don't you i tell you all right let's do it one more time one two three thank you very much okay now ladies you got a different sound effect all right what what do ladies do what sound do you make when you see something that's precious that's just sweet what's that sound thank you for doing it i i'm going to keep my masculinity as much as i possibly can you said oh it's a whole i hear that all the time in my house you know with all the girls that i lived with oh so girls just hear yours all right one two three one more time one two three i think some of the guys joined in we don't need your help okay just the girls for that particular one that would be very very very good and then the third sound effect is for all of us to do at the same time and that's when you see something that's kind of gross and you're like okay got it one two three one two three all right let's go we're gonna go through it now i point to you guys you're first don't let me down okay you're gonna do your sound effect twice okay here we go genesis chapter 29 verse 6. now laban had two daughters the name of the older was leah and the name of the younger was rachel now men be ready here leah had weak eyes but rachel was lovely informed and beautiful nice so rachel is the i guess the attractive one of the two sisters okay now here's what's interesting the bible generally for the most part never gives a description of the person and so when the bible stops and it gives a description of the person like it does with rachel what it's trying to say is this girl is smoking hot one two three guys here we go yeah you got it now leah on the other hand wasn't as attractive her best physical feature was that she had weak eyes now we're not sure what that means kid means that she was cross-eyed could mean she was far-sighted could mean she was nearsighted maybe she just fell down an awful lot i don't know but they're trying to make it sound nice she's just got nice eyes that's who's got nice eyes now gentlemen let me ask you a question if one of your friends set you up on a date a blind date you never met the girl before you say hey man tell me what she looks like he said well she's got weak eyes you wouldn't go on that date right that's the way it would be well look what happens here verse 18. jacob was in love with rachel and he said ladies you're going to love this i will work seven years in return for your younger daughter rachel do you hear the extravagance the irrational side of love that's going on here he's like i like it i love it i want some all of it kind of thing going on here all right he says i'll do anything for her seven years i mean i just worked for her for seven straight years and so the dad says that sounds good to me so this is what the bible says get ready ladies so jacob served seven years to get rachel but the seven years are you gonna love this the seven years seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her yeah it sounds romantic doesn't it seven years it was just like a few days yeah whatever seven years is seven years okay look at verse 21 this is what he says this is after the seven years is over jacob now goes to his soon-to-be father-in-law laban and look at what he says give me my wife my time is completed and i want to lie with her not as romantic or is it ladies at that point and this is where the last sound effect comes in one two three yeah it's not good at all now what's what's going on here in this relationship what what's the fuel to the fire on this particular relationship is it love or is it lust i mean he sees her he's like wow she's gorgeous she's beautiful it's an irrational kind of a feeling that he has he says i'll work seven years for seven years is just like a day and then when he finally gets to that point i want to lie with her it was lost wasn't it that's what fueled this dating relationship was a lust for each other it wasn't a love that was patient a love that was kind a love that wasn't easily angered it was someone who was just head over heels with the idea of seeing someone and wanting to have that person be their own lust was what drove them and here's the interesting thing in most dating relationships today that's what drives them it's lust they're swiping through on these dating apps and they're swiping left or swiping right or swiping up or swiping down i don't know which way they're swiping but they're figuring this thing out right and then they get together and before they know it they've they've given themselves away on the very first date and they don't even know the person what what is it that's happening to them and among teenagers today the same thing's going on they see someone they're attracted to someone and lust is the fuel that that brings the fire inside of them and so they end up in situations that they shouldn't be in doing things that they shouldn't do hanging out with people they shouldn't hang out with listen i don't i don't think there's very many of us that wants our kids our grandkids or nieces and nephews to follow in the same footsteps that we went in and so how do we help people how do we help single folks how do we help teenagers navigate these difficult minefields of of dating so they don't end up with a lifetime full of regrets like so many of us have four little insights that i think is going to help you quite a bit first two could also work for marriage last two are exclusive just for the dating relationship first one is this write this down before you can find the right person you have to become the right person let me say that again before you can find the right person you have to become the right person then right this time as you're taking notes write this down the greatest gift you can give your future spouse or your current spouse is to be a godly person so the first question we had to ask ourselves is before we go looking for somebody else to to be with are we where we need to be in our relationship with the lord are we seeking the lord our god with every fiber of our being are we seeking his wisdom and his will are are we living the life that he would have for us to live you see here's what happens to a lot of folks is they think i'm going to get into a relationship and the person that i end up with is that person's going to somehow complete me and there's no person on the face the earth that's ever going to complete you but that's what happens in dating relationships right we get lonely and as a result of getting lonely we just want to have somebody in our life and we think if i have somebody in my life they'll take my loneliness away let me let me ask you a question and don't raise your hand because we'll all be too depressed but how many of you know somebody who's married who's extremely lonely please don't raise your hand i don't want to know but there's there's hundreds thousands of marriages today where they they're in the same house they're engaging in great conversation but they're empty inside they're lonely inside they thought their spouse was somehow going to fulfill them going to satisfy them and they're putting an expectation on their spouse that their spouse just can't fulfill it friends i'm not saying that anybody married the wrong person what i'm saying is when you look to your spouse to fulfill something that only jesus can fulfill you're setting yourself up for amazing amounts of disappointment and that's what happens in hollywood that sometimes movies and tv shows somebody gets somebody they begin dating they have a relationship it looks like it's great it's wonderful and now they are complete another person can't complete you you were made by god and for god to have a relationship with him and he's the only thing that will ever satisfy us and the greatest gift you can give someone else is that you're pursuing jesus christ and why is that the greatest gift because he gives you love when you don't have it and he gives you peace when you don't have peace he gives you patience when you don't have any patience he gives you kindness when you don't have a kind word to say godliness seeking after god with every fiber of your being loving the lord your god with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength do you remember the day when when jesus was walking about and this guy comes up to him and says hey jesus what's the greatest commandment and what he's basically asking is how do you know when you get to the end of your life that you did life well and jesus it was quite simple love the lord your god with everything you've got love him with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and with all your soul and when you love him and you seek after him he will take care of everything else so parents here's the first question you got to ask yourself when it comes to your teenager or young adult this is the question are you pursuing christ you see here's what most people are doing they're pursuing a hot bod rather than pursuing god and they sound similar but they're very different and here's what we need to teach our kids and when you seek god he'll also give you the hot bod you don't have to settle for something less than if you'll seek after god he will give you the desires of your heart because your heart's desires will become his heart's desires and he will my goodness if he can put every star in the sky and name him by name he will crisscross your path with someone else who he has for you to be a partner with with him being the center of that relationship where you can study the word of god together and you can pray together and you can seek god together that's so important let me give you the second thing this is very important when you have to teach our kids to stop asking who am i going to marry and start asking what kind of marriage do i want to have okay first thing is you're seeking godliness yourself so you're becoming the person so that you can treat your spouse the way that god created you to treat your spouse and then the second thing before you go looking for the person you've got to have a vision for what kind of marriage you would like to have because when you have a vision of what kind of marriage you want to have then you can find the right person that fits in the vision of your marriage does that make sense so you got to understand what you're shooting for what you're going after let's read a book by steve farrar it's called how to ruin your life by the age of 40. highly recommend this book he says what i what do i want my marriage to look like 20 years after i've been married that should be a homework assignment if you're a single person you need to go home and you think that through what would you like your marriage to look like 20 years from now get a vision for the kind of marriage you want and then you can find the person that would fit into that vision so i i knew what i wanted i knew i knew i wanted someone i could share my heart and my soul with i wanted someone who who loved god and that i could do spiritual things with that person i wanted someone who was loyal who was faithful who was trustworthy and true i wanted someone who who wasn't afraid to stand up to me and tell me when i was blowing it but i also wanted someone and i get this i also wanted someone who didn't want to fight with me to the death that they had the ability to say i'm sorry i was wrong and then i would have the ability to say i'm sorry i i was wrong i wanted someone who was kind and compassionate and and i wanted somebody who was smoking hot and and god took care of that for me now my wife didn't have a clue what she wanted so she ended up with me do you understand what i'm talking about that's that's not true having a picture what you're looking for not only shows you the person that you're looking to bring into your life but it also gives you a picture of the person that you need to be see let's say one of your values is you want someone who's going to be trustworthy well then you got to ask yourself am i trustworthy because i can't expect god to bring someone in my life who's trustworthy if i'm not being trustworthy i mean if i'm a liar if i'm an exaggerator why would god align myself with someone who isn't a liar and who is an exaggerator so it starts with me right the things that i want i got to make certain that i have these things in my life do you understand how this works in marriage for those who've already chosen the person that you're going to spend the rest of your life with you say you're so focused on what they're not doing what you need to focus on yourself what am i not bringing to the table what am i not doing that i said that i would do what vision of me being a husband or a wife am i slacking on because it begins with you does it begin with what they're doing wrong or what they're not accomplishing or what the needs that they're not meeting for you it's about what you're bringing to the table see i i wanted someone who i could have deep conversations with but if all you've got is superficial conversations if you can't talk about deep things then why would you expect god to bring somebody in who has a desire to have deep conversations you have to have that ability as well for me the number one non-negotiable was they had to love jesus with everything that they had which meant that i had to love jesus with everything i've got because the bible warns about this stuff of being unequally yoked being with someone who's not a believer look at this second corinthians chapter 6 verse 14 says don't team up with those who are unbelievers how can righteousness be a partner with wickedness how can light live with darkness what harmony can there be between christ and the devil how can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever this this was huge for me why was it huge for me because the world we live in is a hard cold cruel place throughout the course of your life when you get married understand there's going to be difficulties there's going to be trials there's going to be trouble and there's going to be heartache i wanted someone i could pray with i wanted somebody who loved the word of god who leaned on the word of god and sought the word of god for counsel i wanted somebody who could give me good spiritual advice so i would be a little clearer on the direction that i needed to go i needed somebody who would pray for me who would encourage me who would show me the love of christ in their words and in their actions and which meant that i had to be that same person i wanted someone who wanted jesus to be the centerpiece of our home and it wasn't just a saying that we'd read the bible together and pray together we'd have family devotionals together we do all these spiritual things we go to church together now some of you you know what i'm talking about because right now you're watching me in your living room and you're watching me alone your spouse isn't in there because i'm arrested or you came here today and you're here alone because your spouse could care less about spiritual things and you would give anything i mean you love them so much you would give anything if they cared about the same things you cared about and you kind of feel ripped off a little bit don't you because the most important thing in your life which is your relationship with jesus you can't share with the person that you love the most on the face of this earth and i can only imagine how hard that must be when god is sharing with you some truth or some insight that just blows you away you can't go to your spouse to say hey look at this we need to work on how about this when god answers the prayer you can't go in there and say hey let's rejoice together god answered that prayer because they're not interested and you would give anything if your spouse loved jesus the way that you love jesus you would give anything if they would worship with you that you could have jesus be the very centerpiece of your relationship and so young people single people listen to me take the spiritual aspect of your life and your relationship very very seriously or you're going to end up with regret and every person i've ever met who married and at the time in their life when they got married one of them was kind of somewhat a christian and the other one didn't care at all and the other one got fired up for christ and the other one still doesn't care every one of them wishes it was different and every one of them would look you in the eye and say this matters this is an issue that never ever goes away so make sure you have this in your relationship before you walk down an aisle and you say i do to somebody let me give you the third thing that we got to work on we got to get a great definition of what dating is we have to explain to our kids what the purpose of dating is see a lot of kids think that the purpose of dating a lot of single adults think the purpose of dating is just to go out and have a nice time that's not the purpose of dating the purpose of dating is to find your soulmate the purpose of dating is to find the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with and so very early on in the dating relationship you need to be asking some very important questions and you need to be observing this other person to see if this is someone that you could see yourself spend the rest of your life with you have to formulate some questions critical questions and then when a red flag comes up you need to pay attention to the red flag now i'm going to help you out i've written some questions down that i think that we need to deal with okay first one is this where is the person i'm dating in their relationship with god now i just went on a five-minute tirade i'm not going to continue to go but i cannot tell you how important that is so if you're dating somebody who doesn't have a relationship with jesus that relationship's going nowhere unless they give their life to christ and say well i'm gonna be a missionary dater yeah okay good luck with that uh that usually doesn't work out and here's the reason it doesn't work out because you never know for certain if the person gave their life to christ because of you or because of jesus and then you get married and you find out that it was for you so he could get you or she could get you and they never really cared they never were sincere and now they don't care a thing about it find somebody who already is seeking after god with everything they've got let me give you the next one how do they treat other people are they rude do they act like they're better than everybody else do they have a pride issue how do they handle themselves how do they handle how do they treat their their parents that'll give a great indication of how they're going to treat you how they treat their mom how they treat their dad how they treat their brother and their sister what do they say about them how they handle themselves with that how about this how they treat you they build you up make you feel better about yourself they encourage you and inspire you or no matter what you do it just isn't isn't good enough for them see what i mean these are good questions to ask how about this one when things don't go their way how do they respond do they they run into their room they get all quiet and do silent treatment they won't talk to anybody you know what they do they pout or do they let it rip and they cuss at you and they yell at you and they go crazy on you is that is that who you want to be with how do they handle that how about this one how they handle conflict do they have the ability because you're gonna have conflict in relationships i don't care how good your relationship is you're not always going to see eye to eye with someone else so are they able to address the problem rather than attacking the person can they sit down have a mature conversation come to reconciliation and move forward or do they hold a grudge how about this one are they trustworthy do you believe them are they honest are they faithful so you gotta get a definition of what dating is all about and these are the kinds of questions you ask early on in the relationship and why early on because you won't get your heart broken as bad because when you begin to realize oh my goodness this isn't what i thought it was going to be this isn't the person i thought that they were then you get out of the relationship early on and you don't have to worry about it you didn't give your heart away to another person and you didn't waste a lot of time because what are you seeking you're seeking for god's best in your life and we've got to teach our kids to look for god's best let me give the fourth one when you teach folks to set boundaries up front when they start dating someone i started off the talk by saying this most of us in this room most of us at home wouldn't want our kids to emulate the way that we dated i know i wouldn't so we got to talk to them about setting boundaries and and they have to have courage to do it so somebody calls uh you know your daughter on the phone or your son on the phone nowadays you know girls can call a guy you know um first date they get in the car first thing they should say is hey i just want you know i'm a christian and that means a lot to me that's not like i'm a christian it's not that big of a deal i'm a christian i'm a follower of jesus and i want to honor him in this relationship so i won't be holding your hand and when you walk me to the door tonight you don't need to worry about kissing me because i'm not kissing you i'm here to develop a friendship with you with the possibility that this friendship would grow into something even greater than that and maybe we would end up being soulmates but it begins with friendship not with lust and if the person doesn't like that go ahead and get out of the car because they weren't worth your time anyway see we have to teach our kids that when they give themselves away to somebody else they give a piece of themselves away and they'll have lifetime regrets four things are affected when we blow it in this area of our life the first thing that's affected is our worship when we're not honoring god in the relationship it's hard to come into this place or to tune us in and to really focus on jesus and because you know that there's a major area of your life that's not under his control it's the the double life ain't much of a life at all is it so it'll affect your worship it'll also affect your self-worth because you'll look in the mirror and you'll hate yourself and you'll say things like i can't believe you call yourself a christian you're worthless you're useless god could never love you god could ever forgive you god could never care about you and then it's going to crush your witness because people are watching us and when we say one thing and we go off and we do the other people don't take jesus very seriously and then it also affects your wedding and i don't even need to get into that your girlfriend is not your wife and your boyfriend is not your husband someone right now is dating your future spouse so it might be you it might not so here's the question how do you want that guy to treat your future wife do you want him to hold her hand do you want him kissing her do you want him touching things that he doesn't have see these are the conversations we have to have and you've got to start young because the the the wave against this the wave against everything i've shared with you is so great and so crushing and if they do it like everybody else does it they will have tremendous tremendous regrets i know some of your parents like well my kid gets teenager and they start dating they don't care what i think they don't care what i say they don't want they don't tell me anything i understand i get that you can still engage in conversation and even if they try to shut you down every single time it's still your job as a parent to bring it up it's still your job to have the hard conversation even though they're not mature enough to have it just yet because they'll pick up seeds of it along the way and that's what you're doing you're planting seeds of godliness of living a god honoring life and if you're living a god-honoring life they'll see it and your life will become so attractive to them that eventually as the oxygen returns to the brain they'll start listening to you and to know that you're there to forgive them when they blow it that you never give up on them that you keep believing the best in them you show them the love and the grace and the wisdom of god and you walk with them through this minefield if you do that parent you'll be a pretty good stinking parent let's pray dear heavenly father this was a tough one right here um because we've all messed up and we've all blown it and we all have regrets lord i pray that your grace would overwhelm us that you would cast our sin as far as the east is from the west and that you'd remember our sin no more i pray for single adults i pray for teenagers who are just struggling with this area of their life and they're trying to figure it out and they they just don't know up from down left from right i pray for moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles and i pray though that we would all be one unified front to help them to guide them and to lead them into your truth lord i pray something that was said today was helpful and beneficial in order there's somebody in a relationship that's not honoring to you i pray god you would give them the strength to get out of it and to start over again start fresh again from that dating relationship lord i pray for marriages that are struggling because we're more focused on what the other person isn't doing rather than on ourselves i pray lord we would look in the mirror at ourselves and say how can i bring my a-game to this relationship how can i love and care and forgive and be patient and kind like you have been to me how can i express that onto my spouse lord i pray for any marriage struggling that we would stop waiting for the other person to make the first move and that we would make the first move instead and i ask this in jesus name amen

Channel: Sagebrush Church

Views: 3,935

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Id: avMeprURJXk

Length: 59min 31sec (3571 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020