URGENT CARE // Christian Dating // Pastor Richie Fike

Welcome to the Movement Church podcast. We want you to

know that God is for you. So you're about to

hear a sermon from one of our weekend services in

the Trilaights of southern Colorado. God is not a monument,

He's a movement. So we're praying that this message will

move you in a meaningful way. Listen closely after the

message for ways to get connection with us.

God.

Bless you. Thanks for tuning in.

So we're in this series called Urgent where we've been

dealing with the most urgent relationships in our lives, and

we've covered a lot. We've covered your relationship with God.

Would you say that that's urgent? Yep, We've covered your

relationship with your spouse. Anybody would want to say that

that's urgent? Yeah, relationship with your kids, and relationship last

week with our parents. And this week we're gonna be

covering a subject in church that really doesn't often get

covered very often. There's a group of people among us

that're in here right now who don't get a lot

of shine. Most of church experience is built around married people.

But this week we're gonna be talking about single people.

If you're single, come on, let me hear a woo woo.

Come on, now, single people, you can be louder than that.

There might be a guy in the room that needs

to hear that. Wu Come on, if you're single, be

loud in church. You know what I'm saying single people.

Single people often don't get a lot of shine. We're

gonna be talking about singleness, and we're gonna be talking

about dating. And I'll tell you, if you are married

and you just decided to tune out because I'm going

to preach about dating, then that tells me a lot

about your marriage. Okay, because dating isn't just for single people.

We're talking today about Christian dating and that the the

name of the sermon is don't build backwards. Don't build

backwards because the world, I don't know if you've noticed

this or not, but the world that we live in

has a different perspective on how to build a sturdy

relationship than what the Bible would have to say. And

so today we're going to talk about singleness. We're in

most single people that I know want to be married people.

I say most. There are a few monks in the

room that are totally fine with never being married. Maybe

some people who have been married before and go have

been there, done that, No, thank you. But most single

people I know want to be married or thinking about

what is it going to look like? What is it

going to feel like? They're dreaming, they're fantasizing. They're watching

your marriage to see good things that they might want

to emulate. They're watching your marriage to make sense of

what's good about your marriage, and they're also studying some

of the toxicity, the tragedies and the train wrecks that

some marriages epitomize. That's not you, though, right one of

us here in the room, right, Okay, real quiet. We've

already covered some of this when we talked about Ephesians

five earlier in the Husband and Wife sermon. But that's

the true North. If you really want to think about

what Christian marriage is supposed to look like, Ephesians five

is kind of the true North picture of it. In

the New Testament, husbands are sacrificially serving their wives, and

wives are sacrificially following their husband's lead. And there's this

kind of race to the bottom where we're mutually submitting

to one another. Who can get low or how low

can you go? That's what a Christian marriage is we're

seeing how we can outserve one another. It's not a competition,

but the heartbeat of it is that we're working towards

unity with one another by serving one another. In fact,

if you're married, or if you're dating someone, can I

just challenge you this week, or even if you're single

and you want to put a true north on your

prayer wall, go read Ephesians five this week. Go read

it and then kind of compare your marriage to what

you read in there, and talk about what you could

do to make your marriage or your dating relationship a

little better. And if he's ins five marriage demands, listen

to this that a husband continues to date his wife.

Any women want to say, amen, I'm just trying to

get points in the house today, all right. It demands

that a husband continues to date his wife. What do

I mean? That he pursues her, that he serves her,

that he seeks to know her. There's a wise old Texan,

a buddy of mine named Denny Alden. He was about

seventy five years old thirty years ago when he told

me this, and I've never forgotten it. Here's what he said.

He said, a man is built for the hunt, not

the kill. A man is built for the hunt and

not for the kill. What does that mean. It means

that the joy of a relationship for a man is

in the pursuit. It's in the planning, it's in the preparation,

not so much in the processing. Right, And that has

a different meaning if you're a hunter. Right, They're built

for the hunt. They're built for that exhilaration of the pursuit.

So we're going to talk today about this question what

does the Bible have to say about dating? And I

got to tell you, to be totally forthright, this word

dating is not in your Bible. And the reason is

because that language, that kind of a phrase was originated

in the year eighteen ninety. And what happened was people

specifically in America were beginning to embrace industrialization, which meant

that they were leaving their hometown to go find fortune

in different towns. And so what was the custom of

courting and families working together to build wealth amongst themselves

no longer was in place, and so people would literally

put a date on a calendar. And that's how the

term dating came about. Because people were saying, you're going

to be on my calendar. Therefore, we are dating. That's

where it came from. So it's not in the Bible.

But the idea of courtship and pursuit absolutely is. And

it doesn't just apply to single people. It applies to

husbands and wives. We should be still dating one another.

So I'm gonna give you these points. I've got four

of them. We need to get our order of operations correct.

Christian dating starts and continues with a man pursuing a woman.

Now think about I know that that might even sound

a little chauvinistic in twenty twenty six. Right in the world,

the idea is that anybody can pursue anybody. We're swiping left,

swipe and right. Anybody can do it. But in God's economy,

the idea is that a man would pursue a woman.

That's the idea. I don't have time to get into it.

But there's a movie that came out recently justice and

I went and saw it this week. It's a movie

called Obsession. It's a horror film. If you like horror films,

you'll love this. If you don't, stay away. But here's

the premise of this movie. There's a man who's in

love with a woman, but he's too scared to pursue her,

and so he makes a wish. He breaks this wish

thing and it comes true. The wish is I want

this woman that I'm in love with to fall madly

in love with me and love me more than anything

else in the world. And boy does she. And it

gets real ugly, real fast. Okay, these guys that made

this movie are not Christians, but even they know that

a man pursues a woman. We see this in Genesis

twenty nine. It's a beautiful story with Jacob and Rachel.

Jacob is looking for life, he's trying to figure life out,

and he comes across this woman named Rachel, and he

is immediately smitten. He is in love. It's love at

first sight. But he doesn't get to marry her right away.

There's this moment where his uncle Laban makes him basically

perform some task in order for him to get to

have Rachel's hand in marriage. Here's what it says, Jacob

loved Rachel. By the way, this is what love looks like,

Romantic love looks like in the Old Testament. Jacob loved Rachel,

so he answered Laban I'll work for you seven years

for your younger daughter Rachel. Any man in the room

willing to work seven years for the woman that you're

married to, don't answer that. Jeff Rudder says, yes, okay,

but think about that. I'm willing to work. I'm willing

to put in sweat equity because that's how much I'm

into you. Now, if you know the story, you know

that his uncle Laban tricks him right on the night

of his wedding. He wakes up and it ain't Rachel,

it's his sister, Rachel's sister Leah. And so then he

goes back to Laban and he says, what have you

done to me? And Laban says, well, listen, you can

have Rachel, but you're gonna have to work another seven years.

And Jacob gladly does it because he wants to be

married to this woman. He loves her, he pursues her.

That's what Old Testament love looks like. Hubba hubba. There

it is so king to me. Christian dating starts and

continues with a man pursuing a woman. And the word

that I want you to make sense of is this

word continues, not just starts, but continues with a man

pursuing a woman. That means, guys, that we don't date

to get married, we date to stay married. Amen. One

Peter three to seven gives us an incredible passage for

the husbands in the room. Let me pick on you

for a minute. It says, this husband's in the same

way live with your wives in an understanding way as

with a weaker partner. Now, when he says weaker there,

he's not talking emotionally or spiritually or mentally. He's literally

just talking about the fact that women are not as

strong physically as men. And what he's saying is, listen, men,

your responsibility as a Christian husband is to live with

your wives in an understanding way. This is amazing. Counsel

Men are meant to be prods and protectors, But in

order to be a good protector, you must first be

a good student. You must be a student of your wife.

You must be a student of this woman who you

are responsible for. You need to understand her limitations, understand

her dreams, understand her heart. And Guys, the way to

understand her is to keep pursuing her, to keep dating her,

keep putting time on the calendar. To be a student

of your lady. Many of you know that I received

a master's in theology last year. I just want you

to know that is cupcakese compared to the PhD I'm

working on with Dana. I am pursuing a PhD. I'm

trying to get a doctorate in Dana Pike and I'm

still working on it twenty six years in pursue her daily.

Any women want to say, amen, come on, I'm here

to help. I'm just here to help. Here's the thing.

The longer you're married, the longer you realize that the

person that you said I do to that wedding day

when you stood in an altar with a pastor and

a priest, that person that you said I do to

is not the same person that you're married to today.

Things have changed, things have happened in our life that

make us different people. There's some things that never change, like,

for example, the way that you approach toothpaste. How many

of you here are just careful dexter style rollers, I mean,

you are just like meticulous. And how many of you

Neanderthals are in here that just squeeze it right in

the middle right? I mean? And guess what you ain't

never going to change. That part of who you are

will never change. How about this, how many of you

are AM morning time shower people, how many of you

are PM shower people? These are just our preferences. That

kind of stuff doesn't change. I'll tell you this. Some

of you have very specific attitudes about leftovers. There are

men in the room who have very specific attitudes about leftovers.

I personally will only eat leftover tacos, and that iscred

in our house. If anybody touches the liftover tacos, we

won't have some furniture moving in the fight house. Okay,

and these things about us never change, but other things

absolutely change as we live. Our priorities adjust as the

seasons of life change. Right. Don't you notice that certain

things that used to matter so much to us don't

matter quite as much anymore. Life demands adjust as we

grow into our careers. I don't have as much time

as I used to have. Our capacity adjusts as we

focus on the value of child raising men. Everything changes

when we have kids and we realize it's on me.

I'm responsible for this little guy. Right. Everything changes our

physical limitations. I know we don't want to believe this,

especially men. But our physical limitations adjust as we age. Right,

we can't do as much as we used to be

able to do, and our emotional health adjusts as we

suffer loss and pain and disappointments. We are not married

husbands and wives to the same people that we said

I do to, which means you've got to decide to

keep saying I do over and over daily, consistently. And

when you think about this, this is why Paul says

that the husband is the head of the wife in

the same way that Christ is the head of the church.

That's a big responsibility for a husband to have to fulfill.

Here's what it means. When Jesus went up the hill

to Calvary, a sinless man who did not deserve what

he was receiving, and he was nailed to a cross

for you and for me, what he was saying to

the Father in that moment was he's saying, I've got

them there with me, I've got them. That's what it

means to be the head. It doesn't mean he was

wielding this authority. It means he's taking responsibility for you

and your sin and for me and for my sin.

And in the same way when you husbands stood in

front of a crowd of witnesses and a pastor and

an altar and the Holy Spirit and the presence of

God himself, and you said, I do. What you were

saying was I've got her. She's with me, so no

harm is going to come her way. I'm going to

protect her. In fact, I'm going to make sure that

she's healthy and that she's whole, that she has peace,

that she's doing well. I'm going to attend to her.

I've got her, She's with me. Now, don't get it twisted.

There's nothing you can do, husbands, to fix your wife.

Any husbands want to say, you better not. There's nothing

you can do to fix your wife. Only God can

do that. Amen, only God can fix us. I can't

fix you. You can't fix me. That's not what relationships

are about. But you are responsible to attend to her wellness.

I've got her, she's with me. Live with your life

in an understanding way. Peter says it's incumbent upon a

Christian husband to encourage his wife towards spiritual intimacy, to

make sure that she's connected to Jesus, to make sure

that her heart is yielded to him, and you can't

make her do that, but you can encourage her, and

you can pay attention to how well or how poorly

she is. There are husbands in the room right now

who have wives in the room right now who have

experienced things like trauma and depression, anxiety, abuse, history, chemical imbalance, grief,

spiritual warfare, or relational wounds unrelated to their husband. And listen,

trained Christian counselors would spend years and years just to

scratch the surface of some of these issues. So you

are not responsible to fix these things in your spouse,

in your wife. However, you are responsible to put war

watch care over these concerns. All of us are complicated creatures.

And here's the point, husbands. You can't fix your wife.

Only Jesus can do that. But you can't look the

other way either. Amen. Her wellness is under your watchcare,

So partner with her, Encourage her as she does the

hard work of moving through her own healing. Be with her,

don't let it be her battle. Get in the fight

with her, not against her, and not to fix her either.

You may not be responsible for everything that's happened to her,

but you are responsible for how you steward her heart.

I've got her. She's with me. That's not an easy job.

It's going to require a PhD. You with me, It's

going to require you to pursue her daily. This is massive.

I'll tell you where I learned this. In twenty twenty,

we had a tragedy before our family. Dana's dad, Gerald Cotton,

who was sixty seven years old, got COVID on a

Tuesday day and died on a Friday. It was that fast,

and we had never in our home experienced grief. We

had never experienced the weight of it, the surprise of it,

the shock of it, the intensity of it. Danna got

to hold her dad's hand right as he died. She

was with him in the hospital, but he was on

a ventilator, so there were no words spoken back and forth.

I remember so vividly. For that next eighteen months, randomly

I would just come home and she would be sitting

at the dining room table in a puddle of tears,

just broken, just absolutely stuck in this moment, couldn't get

out of it. A sound or a memory, a smell,

something would remind her of her dad, and she had

nowhere to put it. She had no where to put

that love that she felt, and so it just poured

out of her. Let me tell you something, This woman

was no longer the woman that I said I do

to all those years ago. This is a new woman.

Something is happening in her heart. And I, as a husband,

have to learn, had to learn what it looks like

to walk with her through that, not to shove her

out of the abyss into joy, but to say I'm

with you in this, I'm with you in this. I

had to keep loving her, learning her, leading her, pursuing

her daily. This is what it looks like men. So

leadership is less about authority than it is about responsibility.

And so the question is are you taking responsibility for

the wellness of your wife's soul? Husband's I give you

permission to tune out the rest of the sermon and

think about that question. Think about what it would look

like if you did a better job at that. Think

about what it would look like to be the kind

of husband that pursues your wife daily. I mean, I

want you to listen to the rest of the sermon,

but I give you permission. Okay. There's a great book

in the Bible called Song of Songs. If I ever

read this book, and nobody ever wondered, how did this

sneak gets way into the Bible? Anybody like, what's going

on here? What it fallens? What's happening? Like? It is

a wild book, but it's a beautiful book. It's a

book about a young farmer girl and a king who

fall in love and have courtship and walk their way

towards marriage. It's beautiful. Solomon has some wonderful things to

say about the object of his affection, and we're going

to keep it PG today. But he says this a

garden fountain, is my wife a well of living water

and flowing streams from Lebanon. My man is saying that

my wife is like a well watered garden. Mm come on, somebody,

She is like a well watered garden. And throughout the

book she responds to him by telling him how smitten

she is by him. She is just as enamored with

him as he is with her. And Solomon's had a

hand to play in this. And here's the point, Husband's

your wife is your resume. Your wife is your resume,

her joy, her peace, her passion, her love, her wholeness,

her sense of place in the world is a direct

reflection of how well you're husbanding. Somebody ought to say

amen today, because the longer she's married to you, one

of the two things is gonna happen. She's gonna wear

her sorrow on her face or she's gonna wear her

joy on her face. Right. So, husband's your wife is

your resume? And listen, you want your wife to talk

about you the way she talked about him. She says,

his mouth is sweetness. Come on, somebody, he is absolutely desirable.

He still got a little bit of that six pack

from back in the day. This is my love and

this is my friend. Oh man, if you would circle

that in your bible, this is my love and this

is my friend. That's the true north, that's the standard.

If your wife is talking about you like this, you

are doing it right now. And here's what some foolish

men do. Once they get down the road and this

woman who they said I do to is no longer

the woman they're married to, they start doing stupid things

like they stop pursuing, they stop serving, they stop leading,

They abandon intimacy, they abandon excitement, they halt the hunt.

No more hunting for me. They start getting bored, they

start looking for a new model. You've heard the phrase

the grass is greener on the other side. This is

what foolish men start thinking. Can I just tell you

the truth. The grass is greener where you water it. Amen.

The grass is greener where you are. She is a

well watered garden. The grass ain't greener somewhere else. So

date your wife, study her, serve her, lead her, choose

to be continually fascinated by her. Get your PhD. And fellas,

can I tell you why this is really important? I

read the first part of first Peter three seven. Do

you know the second part? It's pretty serious. Peter says,

husbands live with your wives in an understanding way as

with a weaker partner, showing them honor as co heirs

of the grace of life. And check this out so

that your prayers will not be hindered. So that your

prayers will not be hindered. I mean, if you're sitting

there praying God, do something, fix this woman, Help me Lord,

He's like, listen, I'm not listening to your prayers until

you do what I told you to do. Right. God

is not inclined to hear your prayers. Why Because you

stood on an altar in front of a crowd of

witnesses and a pastor or a priest and the Lord himself,

and you said, I've got her, She's with me. And

if you don't live up to that standard, he ain't listening.

That's heavy, dude. And you might wonder is that same

standard applied to women, Like does God not listen to

women's prayer? Nope, that's not in the Bible anywhere. God's

listening to your wife's prayer. She ain't listen to yours.

If you won't do your job, He's not inclined to listen.

It's heavy and it's real. So the questions that I

want you to think about is what's it gonna take

to water her garden? I love that question, keep it PG,

but that cracks me up. What's it gonna take to

water her garden? What's it going to require for her

to feel loved by you? What does sacrifice look like

for you? Okay? And I just want to say that

Christian wives have responsibility too, It's just not as weighty

as it is for Christian husbands. All right, I will

say one last thing to you, husbands, and this is

just I'm just here to help. It's like a little PSA. Okay,

and wives, if you could do me a favor and

not listen to this next part because I'm gonna give

them something to say to you. So if you just

la la lah for the next like four minutes, that'd

be great. All right. A lot of guys don't know

what to say on date night in order to experience

a meaningful conversation, like they just don't know how to

kind of take it to a deep place. So I

just want to give you a real simple question. Ladies.

Don't read it, don't listen to it, because I don't

want you to say you only asked me that because

he told you don't do that. Okay, here's the question. Okay,

here's the question. What are three ways I'm blessing you

right now? Honey? What are three ways that I am

blessing you right now? And then the second question is

what's one way? Do you see the ratio right? Men

can't handle more than one? What's one way I could

bless you more? Three ways I'm blessing you? One way

I could bless you more. By the way, this works

for dating relationships and for marriage relationships. This is a

great question to ask your wife on a date night. Okay,

the principle is true either way. Here you go. So

Christian dating starts and continues with a man pursuing a woman.

Now let's talk about ladies for a moment. Boy, I've

just been pilot on you dudes, and now I'm just

gonna take a brief moment and speak to the ladies

who I love. I want you to know how much

I love you. I'm for you. This is I'm here

to help. So number two in a Christian relationship, a

wife makes it fun to be pursued. Wife makes it

fun to be pursued. If it's true that men are

built for the hunt and not for the kill, then

make us chase you a little bit. We want to

chase you a little bit, not too much, because we're

tired a little bit. Okay. Listen to how Solomon's bride

responds to her man. This is so beautiful in Song

of Songs too, she says, Listen, my love's approaching. Look

here he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.

You should try that. Just go over mount Hermon and

just start leaping all your way down right, My love

is like a gazelle or a young stag. Come on,

somebody and listen. If you call me a young stag,

say less. Okay, See he is standing behind our wall,

gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice. Now, at

first read, you might go, is this dude like a

peeping tom? What's happening here? Right? What's happening is this

guy is excited about their date. He's coming to pick

her up on a date. And this is a three

thousand year old problem. She's not ready for the date.

That's what's happening in this moment. But here's what I

want you to notice is that she's excited that he's

excited to see her. She's excited, and so she wants

to make herself even more beautiful. She wants to wow him,

and he's excited to be wowed. This is what's happening

in this moment. He's pursuing her. She's making it worth it.

Now the same guy, Solomon wrote a bunch of things

in proverbs. I'm not sure that this relationship worked out

for my guy, because he said some things in proverbs

that made me wonder, how did you get to this

level of wisdom? Here's what he said, and endless dripping

on a raindy day and a nabbing wife are alike. Okay,

Solomon had several wives, so maybe it wasn't the little

farmer girl that he's talking about. Maybe this was better

to live on the corner of a roof than to

share a house with a intentious woman. Okay, all right.

He also says this in Proverbs twenty one, better to

live in a wilderness than with a nagging or hot

tempered wife. Woo. All the men are just restraining their amen.

They have never wanted to say amen more than this moment,

but they know better. I'm proud of you. Men. Listen.

If men are built for the hunt, this feels like

a kill. Right to live with a wife who treats

life like this is not enjoyable, and Proverbs is telling

us it's not good. It's not good for any of us.

So listen, women, wives dating girlfriends in the room. When

you are in a relationship with a man who is

making an effort to pursue you, will you just show

some gratitude, some appreciation. Will you just let him know

that you appreciate it when he makes efforts notice them

show appreciation. Encourage him. Even if he doesn't ask you

the whole day question. He only asked you the first part.

He doesn't want to hear the second part. Right, Even

if he only does that answer the question, encourage him.

Here's the truth about men. We are simple creatures. Okay,

that was allowed in it. That's right. And listen, if

we do something that makes you happy, it was a

happy accident. That's what happened, and we don't know how

it happened. And so tell us just say I liked

when you did that thing. I liked when you said

that thing. I liked when you opened my door. I

like when the crazy dog from the neighborhood came out.

You stood in front of the dog. I liked the

way that made me feel. The guy's like, I'll do

some more of that, right, Like appreciate and make it fun. Men,

pursue your partner. Ladies, make it worth it. Make it

worth it. Now, here's what I want to make sure

you understand. We're talking a lot about husbands and wives,

and the reason is because the purpose of Christian dating

is exploring the potentiality of marriage with the person you're dating.

So let's kind of focus now on single people. Okay,

just single people. I'm gonna come back to that thought

in a minute. But here's number three Christian singles. You

should focus on becoming and not finding. Focus on becoming

and not finding. Here's what I mean by that. There's

this terrible myth in the world. I don't know who

started it, I don't know who came up with it,

but there's this idea that there is a soulmate out

there just waiting for you, and your mission, should you

choose to accept it, is to scour the globe until

you find the one and only one person that God

made just for you, and then when you find them,

marry them quick. Can I just tell you there's not

a single passage of scripture that supports that idea, not one.

You can go look for it all day long, you

will not find it. Here's the idea. If one person

gets it wrong, it sets in motion and irreparable chain

of events. If John was supposed to marr Sally, but

Sally married Jimmy, and then John mary Susan who was

supposed to marry Billy, then we're all screwed because none

of us are married to the right person. We're all

married to the wrong person because one person got it wrong.

It's not in your Bible. It's not in your Bible.

So we've got to change our mentality from finding the

right person to becoming the right person. This is the

gift of singleness. The gift of singleness is you don't

have another person that you have to compete to get

lower than. While you're single, you don't have a person

that you have to figure out, why does he hate

certain things about me? Why does she hate certain things

about the way. You don't have to do that in

this season. You can focus on Jesus. When you're a

Christian single, your primary concern in life ought to be sanctification.

It ought to be the process of God setting you

apart for sacred use. That's the idea that God is

healing you, redeeming you, restoring you, helping you to make

sense of what happened in your childhood, helping you to

process the things that are happening in your world right now.

That's the gift of singleness. When you're a Christian single,

the mission isn't to find your person. The mission is

to become God's person. Amen. Again, If you go looking

for that verse, that says, Okay, there's one person out

there just for me. I promise you you're not going

to find it. But if you're looking for verses that

talk about you becoming more and more like Christ, just

open the page and pick a verse. Every verse in

the Bible is telling us that our job is to

yield ourselves to Christ, to become more and more like him.

And that's the gift. That's the beauty of singleness. And

by the way, God loves to prove how genius he

is because when we choose to focus on this. I've

seen this over and over in twenty seven years of ministry.

I've seen this over and over is that when you

become the right type of person, you attract the right

type of person. Is that true? What's the opposite? If

you be the wrong type of person, what happens you

attract the wrong type of person. Anybody ever had a

relationship where you attracted the wrong type of person? Hopefully

not the person sitting next to you. But listen, I

want to make sure that you don't hear this as

a formula. If you're single here today and you go, okay,

thanks Vike. So what you're saying is if I want

to get married. What I need to do in order

to get married is I've got to become the person

that God wants me to become, and then he'll bring

me the person that I'm looking for. That's not what

I'm saying. I'm not telling you that personal growth is

a formula that will guarantee you marriage. Plenty of godly

people I'm talking about the best people on the planet,

saw to the irt light of the world. Great people

never get married. Plenty of people live that way and

found peace in their life. And they didn't just have

to become a priest. They found peace in singleness. So

I'm not telling you that the formula for you to

get married is to become more and more like Christ.

What I am telling you is this what you should

focus on in this season of singleness. Is this, become

the type of person that the type of person you're

praying for is praying for. Become the type of person

that you hope your spouse one day will be. Have

a season of growth and development. Allow the Lord to

do surgery on your heart in this season. Let it happen.

And here's why this matters so much. The Bible tells

us that marriage is this moment where the two become one.

Here's what it doesn't say, the two halves become whole.

That doesn't work. In fact, two halves become hell in

most relationships. And so get hole. Find who God made

you to be. Live as a whole human being. Find

who the Lord is calling you to be. Become the

person that the person that you're praying for is praying for.

We have been sold a lie, you guys, and it

happened in this movie. If I know what movie this is,

I'm just gonna show you the clip. We've been sold

a lie. It's not the Bible's message. Now, it's very sincere,

but you can be sincere and sincerely wrong. What's this?

I just love you? You complete me. M long. I've

been waiting so long to use that sound effect in

a sermon. I really have. Anyway, The point is, no, no, no,

there's not a person in this room that can complete me.

And there's not a person in this room that you

can complete. That's not the message of the Gospel. Jesus

Christ came to give his life for you. He is

the one that completes you. He's the author and the finisher,

the perfector, your faith. So in your season of singleness,

single people, I just want to tell you, And I

know that this sounds easy to say from a person

who's been married a long time. I know you're thinking

about companionship and partnership and intimacy and all those things

are good, But can I just tell you listen, you

are in a beautiful moment where God can do incredible

things in your life to prepare you for the life

that you're dreaming of. So invest this season of your

life into becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. We hear

at the Movement Church have gone about the business of

trying to define what we mean by that phrase a

disciple of Jesus Christ. And here's what it means. A

person who grows in groups, who has Christian fellowship. A

person who is living on mission, who understands that their

life's not an accident, but they were put on purpose

for a purpose right where they are. A person who

gives in generosity, not a miser because they're miserable, but

a person who has generosity. A person who serves in sincerity,

trying to be anybody other than exactly who they are.

And a person who practices the presence of the Lord.

I'm telling you, if you become this person and that's

the person that you want to find one day and marry,

work on this. Just allow the Lord to develop you

in one of these ways, or in all of these ways.

Get covered in the dust of Christ's sandals. Be fascinated

with the presence of God. Learn what it means to pray,

Learn what it means to open the Bible, Learn what

it means to have Christian relationships. Learn what it means

to dig deep into the mission that God's calling you on,

and watch what happens in your life. Become the type

of person that the type of person you're praying for

is praying for. Amen. So Christian singles to be focusing

on becoming and not finding. And here's the last point.

Christian dating is a process to move through, not a

status to live in. It's a process to move through

and not a status to live in. Back to Song

of Songs, that book is not just a song about

romance and sex and intimacy and wham bam, thank you, ma'am.

That's not what the book is about. It's a book

about a couple, a young farmer girl and a king

who work their way from interest in one another to

marriage to one another, and it's a process. Now, this

is very different than the world that we live in.

We live in a world where relationships are cheap, where

sex is cheap, where intimacy is commoditized, and where people

are swiping left and right all the time to try

to just fill up their calendar. We live in a

world that is contrary to what the Lord wants for you.

Let me ask you this, fathers of daughters in the room,

mothers of daughters in the room, if a young man

were to knock on your door and say something like

this to you, if you were to say, listen, I

want you to know I've got no intention of ending

up with your daughter, no intention of any up with

your daughter. But can I just have her for the

next few months. She's gonna give me all her attention,

parts of her heart, and maybe even parts of her body.

But again, I just want you to know I got

no intention of marrying her. Are there any girl dads

in the room that go, yeah, sign me up for that.

Are there any dads of sons that would be proud

of your son for asking a question like that? It's

rhetorical the answer is no. Of course, Christian dating is

a process to move through and not a status to

sit in. The proper purpose of Christian dating is moving

towards marriage. That's the idea. So do not date someone

that you see no future in. If you do that,

you're not dating them, you're using them. You're just filling

up your calendar. Now listen, I'm not saying you got

to be super serious, like if you're nineteen in dating somebody.

I'm not saying you better get married right now. That's

not what I'm saying. So don't go tell the mother

in law my pastor said, don't do that. What I'm

saying is it's a process of exploring, of being purposeful

and intentional with your relationship. Yes, you can have fun,

You're supposed to have fun. You're supposed to have fun

in marriage. But the process of dating is about do

I see a future with you? Do I see a

future with you? So, men, while you're dating, practice the

art of spiritual leadership. Practice it because if you don't

do it while you're dating, you probably won't do it

while you're married. Protect her heart, protect her soul, protect

her body, even if that means that you're protecting her.

What's this from? You be the person that sets the boundaries,

young Christian men, Hey, we're not going to hang out

past eleven PM? Why it's not good for us. It's

a bad idea. Bad things happen after you can pick

a time. It's arbitrary, right, Bad things happen after. My

papa used to say, there's a huge difference between naked

and naked. Okay, And this is what he used to

tell me. He said, naked is when you don't have

clothes on. Naked is when you're up to something. All right,

So we ain't gonna do that in this relationship. We're

not going to even flirt with the line. How close

can we get to the line without crossing it? Nah,

I'm going to be a leader in this dating relationship.

We're going to stay far away from the line. Right,

practice that, practice that until you say I do to

that woman. She is not your wife, she's somebody's daughter.

All the ladies said, amen, I appreciate that. Good job,

all right. So Christian dating is a process to move through,

not a status to sit in. So three times in

the Song of Songs he makes this comment. He says,

do not arouse or awaken love. In two seven, he

talks about an early attraction. In three five, it's this

longing and this searching for it. In an eight to four,

it's about a mature covenant love. What Solomon is trying

to communicate is, listen, there's a time for arousal. There's

a time to say I love you. Don't do it

too soon, and don't do it out of order, don't

build backwards. Song of songs is wildly pro romance, wildly promance.

This dude gives some vivid descriptions of how much he

is in love. He is ensourcelled by this woman. He

is enchanted by this woman, and she is him. But

he also understood that this beautiful farmer girl was not

yet his wife, and so he treated her with dignity

and respect. Our modern culture says, go find the one

who's going to complete you and just indulge right now.

That's not the message of the Bible. The Bible says

that love is beautiful and potent enough to require wisdom

and patience and restraint. So there's a proper order by

which your Bible advocates for you to build a Christian marriage.

And I'm gonna show it to you. Okay. So if

you're building a house, a relational house, you want to

start with spirituality. Can everybody see that spirituality? What do

we mean by that? You asking questions as you get

to know this person. Do they love Jesus? Do they

serve Jesus? Do they value moral purity? Are they the

same person in public as they are in private? Do

you see them living out the distinctives of a disciple?

What does it feel like when you pray with them?

You're asking spiritual questions and you're starting from that place

you're with me, and then after that you add on

social engagements. Social engagements. Now, what's interesting. In the Book

of Song of Solomon, in chapter three, the young farmer

girl invites the king to come spend some time with

her family, and she's watching to see how he interacts

with them. She's watching to see is this a fit?

Is this going to work? Do the things that your

family value? Does my family value these things? Is there

a Venn diagram between the way we think about life.

You bring your new girlfriend or your new boyfriend around

your friends, right, you want to see how that interaction works.

I mean, we're in I think I'm in I think

I like this guy, I think I like this girl.

But what do my friends think about this? So you

start there, so you go spiritually, then socially, then the

next By the way, I'm going to give you a

pro tip about that. If you're single here today, especially

if you're young and single, go find a mentor. Go

find a married couple mentor who knows you really well,

who will tell you the truth when things get a

little emotional. Because here's what happens when when things get

kind of deep and real logic goes out the window.

It's all about your emotions and how you feel. But

a person who really knows you can tell you this

guy's not right for you, or this girl she's got

some problems. I see the problems, right, So find a mentor. And,

by the way, in the same way that you need

to pursue men, pursue a relationship. If you want a

mentor and they're humble, guess what they're not going to do.

They're not going to walk up to you and say

I'd like to mentor you. And if they do, run away.

If you see someone that has admirable qualities, you've got

to be the one that says, hey, will you mentor me?

Will you be a voice in my life? And if

they say no, then they were the wrong person in

the first place, right, Okay, so find a mentor. And

then after you've gotten what do we say social? The

next one is personal. Now we're getting deep. I really

want to get to know you. What's your story, what

are your dreams, what are your fears? Who do you admire?

What makes you tick? How do you handle conflict? How

did your parents handle conflict? How do you feel about debt?

How you doing on debt? We're going to get deep, right,

We're got some real conversations. Very often in premarital counseling.

I'm looking across the table at a couple who have

never had these conversations, and boy, is that a bad moment. Okay,

have these moments early in the relationship you can prevent

some land minds. And then the next one is emotional.

We're getting smaller, but the fonts stayed the same size. Okay, emotional, emotional,

This is where marriage starts to into the process. Is

this the one? Is this a guy that I can

say I do to for the rest of my life?

Is this a lady that I'm willing to serve and

pour my life out for the rest of my life.

It's getting emotional. And this is again where you're going

to need some good guardrails because listen, fascination is not love.

Infatuation is not love. Attraction is not love. You with me,

love means something. Let it mean something. Don't arouse it

too early. After we get through love. The last step,

did you hear me? The last step is physical. That's

the last step. What does the world tell us? It's

the first step. You've got to test drive this sucker,

right like, that's what the world tells us. No, physical

is the last step. The Bible uses a word that

we don't use in common language. It's a word called fornication.

I feel very Baptist even saying the word, are you

a fornicator? The Bible uses this word to describe any

sex outside the covenant walls of a marriage, any sex

that happens outside of a marriage. The Bible says, that's fornication.

And by the way, it's bad for you. It's not

just that God doesn't want you to do it. It's that

he knows it's going to hurt you. And if you've

been in a relationship where you've fornicated. Again, I hate

that word, but it's the word. You've been in a

relationship where you've done that. You know what it felt

like on the back end when that relationship fell apart

and you gave a part of your heart away. Right,

it's bad for you. It's not just that it's bad.

It's bad for you, all right. So the modern culture

that we live in advocates for the opposites. So let's

do this backwards. First, we're going to start with sex.

We're gonna get physical right away, okay, And then after

we get physical, then we're going to get a emotional

I caught feelings for this person because we had sex,

of course I did. All right, Now that I'm starting

to feel emotional about this, maybe we should go like

on some dates or something. I don't know. Uh So,

let's get personal and let me just kind of tell

me some things about who you are. Okay. And now

that we're getting personal, I guess I mean it feels

like maybe the next step is maybe I should bring

you around my parents and let them kind of meet

you and and find out if maybe you're a fit.

And then the problem is that they're gonna say he's

not a fit, but you're not listening because you've already

built this structure. And then at the very end, you go,

do you anybody know a pastor you might know like

a preacher or somebody. Let's get let's get spiritual here

and start. Oh you can see it already. It wants

to fall. Let's try to add Jesus into what we've

already built. What's gonna happen to this kind of relationship.

It's gonna fall, It's gonna topple. We'll make it topple

just for fun. There it goes. It's gonna topple, it's

gonna fall. It won't it won't stand. That's right, Loton.

It won't stand. It won't stand the test of time.

That's not the way to build a relationship. And so

I just would encourage you if you are here today

and you're in a relationship that you built that way,

and you're like, yeah, that's why I came to church, man,

because I'm trying to figure out how to fix it,

trying to figure out how to redo it. I just

want to tell you that if your relationship story carries

pain or failure or betrayal or regret. The grace of

Jesus is still sufficient for your future. Your windshield is

so much bigger than your rear view. No matter what's

happened in the past, God can absolutely help you to

reverse the way that you form your relationship. Whether you're

dating here today or you're married here today, and you go,

I want to build it the right way. I want

to start over. And if that's you, I just would

encourage you. First of all, before you try to rebuild

your relationship together, you've got to make sure that you

really rebuild your relationship with Him on a one on

one basis. And there's a real simple way to think

about that. If you're not a Christian here today and

you're kind of exploring this, we use these words to

kind of describe what it looks like to turn our

hearts to God. The first word is repent. All that

word means is you're stopping the direction that you're walking

and you're turning in the other direction, and now you're

walking towards God. You were walking towards Hell and now

you're walking towards Him. Amen. That's all that word means.

Repent And then relent, What does that word mean. It

means to release, it means to surrender, It means I'm

willing God to do things your way. And this is

what this whole series is all about. Relate. God wants

to have a relationship with you. He doesn't just want

a bunch of minions that he controls. He loves you

and he wants to have a relationship with you. He

wants for him to be the pre eminent factor in

every decision you make moving forward, and he wants for

you to have that kind of a relationship with him. So,

if you want to rebuild your dating relationship the right way,

you got to start. You got to start relating personally

to God the biblical way. So I'm going to pray

for us and give you an opportunity. If you're here

today and you've never done that, I'm gonna give you

a chance to do that. It's very clear what the

Bible has to say about dating men, pursue your partner,

get a PhD. Women, make it meaningful for him to

do that. And if you're single, focus on becoming the

person that the person you're praying for is praying for. Amen.

So what's God leading you to do next and how

can we help. Send us an email to info at

momentchurch dot com and tell us how we can pray

for you and help you to take the next step

in your spiritual journey. If you like to contribute financially

to our ministry, you can text the amount you'd like

to give to this number A three three seven two

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two five zero one three two, or just look us

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that you'll give us a follow. God bless you, and

remember God is for you, and so are we.