Love, Marriage and the Baby Carriage: The Dating Dillema with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Alright, MetaCurch, how you guys doing?

Yeah.

Well, I want to welcome you in.

I'm so glad you joined us.

If you're here at our Holodus location, our Petranko location, or if you're watching with us online, I'm glad that you joined us.

If you're new with us, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at Meta, and we are in week two of our relationship series.

Each week, we are grounding our messages in a passage from the book of Proverbs.

This is the Old Testament book of wisdom that has guided how we view the world and how to be successful in the world for thousands of years now.

Now, you showed up today on our dating sermon.

So no matter where you're at in your relationship, maybe you're thinking, ah, I'm married, you know, I'm I'm past that, or like I'm so single, I'm not dating at all.

Wherever you're at, um, if you will lean in, the beauty of the wisdom of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit will help it apply to your life.

And so don't count yourself out of this message prematurely.

I'm so glad that you're here.

My message today is the dating dilemma.

The dating dilemma.

Now I want to let you know that as we're walking through all of these weekends, um, what we're doing online, if you follow us on Instagram or Facebook, is we are going through the book of Proverbs together, and you can join us on that journey.

It will be in our stories.

Every single day, there will be a prompt, there'll be a thought-provoking question, and there will be the chapters of Proverbs that we're gonna read together.

And if we lean in together, then we can fill our lives with wisdom and we can walk in righteousness.

Today we're gonna talk about the dating dilemma.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you, we thank you for your love for us.

Uh, we're here in part just admitting that the prescriptions for romantic life that the world has given us, they are failing us.

And so we are just coming to you, we're looking to the wisdom of your word, we are trusting you, Holy Spirit.

We are open to you, challenging us and convicting us and showing us a better way.

I thank you for every person that is here today.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And if you want to solve the dating dilemma, say amen.

Amen.

Now, uh I I've got to start by being transparent.

We lead with vulnerability here at MetaCurch.

This is a sermon on dating, and I have not been single and in the dating game for a very long time.

I met Katie when I was 20 years old, and we got married as fast as she would allow me to marry her, right?

Like, I got married at 22 years old.

We have been married for a while.

Our oldest child is about to turn 21 years old this year, right?

Like, I've been out of the game for a while, okay?

Also, to continue with some transparency, when I was a young man, I was terrible at dating.

I don't mean I couldn't get any dates, okay?

That's not what I'm saying.

Um, I struggled in that area as well sometimes, but even when I would date, I was deeply insecure, I was not following God's plans, I didn't know how to set appropriate boundaries, I made all the mistakes that you can make.

I just was not good at this.

And part of the problem is I was doing what the world was telling me to do.

I was following my heart.

This is what every movie tells you to do, this is what every song tells you to do, this is what every romance novel tells you to do.

By the way, don't read romance novels, right?

Right, we're all adults here.

This is the prescription, you know?

Dude, just follow your heart, you know.

I don't know, I don't know which one to choose.

Girl, listen to your heart, you know.

We write songs about this.

This is what we are told to do.

Now, I've shared my testimony many times.

You might know that uh around the age of 18, Jesus really got a hold of my life, and I was like, I'm gonna start following Jesus.

And I really, really tried to do that, to start following Jesus in every area of my life, except when it came to dating.

I was following Jesus with everything else, but in dating, I was following my heart.

And it was not working out well.

I remember learning this scripture, and it just jumped out at me.

Proverbs 17, 9 says, the heart is more deceitful than anything else.

Now, there are a lot of deceitful things in the world, and scripture says the heart is more deceitful than literally all of them.

And it just kind of struck me like the thing the culture is actually telling me is follow that thing in your life that is the most deceitful thing that you could possibly follow.

And it's just no wonder that we struggle so, so much.

Now, admittedly, I have not been single and dating for a very long time.

We're gonna talk about marriage next week, so don't get it twisted.

I'm dating.

I'm dating more than anybody's dating, okay?

I'm just dating my wife, right?

Like, I don't have to go looking, I don't have to ring any doorbells, I don't have to be on any apps, I've got a built-in date.

And if you're married and you're not dating, you're doing it wrong.

That's for next week.

I'd be dating, is what I'm trying to say, right?

But I'm not single and dating.

However, I've been pastoring for a long time now and walking with people in their 20s, in their 30s, in their 40s, yes, in their 50s and 60s and beyond, who are single and dating, and I do know how difficult it is.

You know, I got out of the game before, well, before there were apps.

Now it's not just online dating, it's app-based dating.

And basically, every dating app quickly transforms into a simple hookup app.

You know, we asked you guys on social media, if you guys are following us, uh, to help me write these sermons.

And specifically, I was looking for the tension, and we asked things like, what's the hardest part about finding love?

And what are the biggest red flags when you're dating?

And a common theme was technology.

That you're you're at a date and they're more interested in their phone than they are with you, or you're at a date and they are making plans for after the date.

And the hard part is the majority of people get to that first date through their phones.

You're interested in them on your phone, they're interested in you on their phone, and so when you're at the date and they're on their phone, it's not crazy to think, are they planning their next date while they're on this date?

One person said it, I thought, so clearly.

They said, in this world of online dating, it feels like you're just a number.

Like everyone has a million options.

You never feel like you're one of one, something special that someone is pursuing.

You feel like you're one in a million.

And if you don't work out, they can get another date by the end of the night.

And the data is revealing that this is incentivizing people to lie.

Now, let's keep it real.

People have been lying on dates since the beginning of dates, right?

Like, that's not new, but now that you feel replaceable, people are more incentivized than ever.

And so men specifically are incentivized to present themselves as more successful than they actually are.

Women are incentivized to show themselves as more sexually promiscuous or more sexually adventurous than they actually are, or maybe even than they believe in.

If a guy isn't successful enough, the idea is there's a million other guys on the app that might be more successful.

If a girl isn't willing to be sexually adventurous and promiscuous, then the idea is there's a million other women who might do that.

And so we are following our hearts right off of an emotional cliff.

It is not working, and we see this in the statistics.

We have more opportunity for connection, and yet we are lonelier and we are more depressed, and we're more anxious, and we're more suicidal than any other time in human history.

Something is not working.

We're rooting this series in the Proverbs today, our verses Proverbs 4, 23.

And it of course says, follow your heart above all else.

No, guard your heart.

Culture says, follow your heart.

Scripture says, guard your heart, for it is the source of life.

Now, in the ancient world, your heart refers to your internal life.

It's your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, your will, it's who you are internally.

And Proverbs says that your heart, this inner person, is actually the source of your life, which means if your heart isn't right, your life isn't right.

If your heart isn't healthy, your life isn't healthy.

If your heart isn't satisfied, your life isn't satisfied.

Here's kind of the trend that's happening in culture is we're told, follow your heart, follow your heart, follow your heart.

And so we do that, and our heart gets destroyed in the process.

And many of you heard this proverb, guard your hearts, and you're like, oh, that's what I'm doing.

I am about that.

I am protecting my heart.

But that's not what it says.

You see, we get hurt, and so we think the way to protect our heart, to guard our heart is to start building walls.

And that's why we lie.

Part of the reason we lie is because if we let the person know who we actually are, if we let them in, then we are now vulnerable.

And so we keep people at an arm's distance by building walls.

This is why we lie.

This is why we pretend like we're something we're not.

This is why we say on our profile we're six foot one when God knows you are 5'10 with boots on, right?

This is why women show up and they're more flirty and they they let guys say things to them that they're actually disgusted by, but they play along because they've had such a string of heartbreaks.

We think guarding our hearts is becoming invulnerable, keeping everyone out, not letting anyone get too close.

This is why we try to juggle multiple relationships.

If I have five options and one of them breaks my heart, they only break 20% of my heart.

If I give all of myself to one person, they could destroy me.

We build walls.

We pretend we're more successful than we are.

It is amazing how us as men can reframe our success to make ourselves sound like an absolute baller.

She's like, so what do you do?

And you're like, actually, it's well, it's interesting.

I oversee assembly line logistics, and she's like, okay.

Now she doesn't know that the assembly line you're overseeing builds Crunch Wrap Supremes, right?

Like, she doesn't know you're running logistics at Taco Bell.

And I'm not mad at you.

I'm proud of you for being on your grind.

I'm not mad at Taco Bell.

I need a laxative sometimes, you know.

Like, I'm not mad.

I'm mad that you have to lie about your job to try and build walls around your heart.

You need to know this.

We're very honest about what we believe here.

There's there is a very real spiritual realm, and the devil is very real, and the devil is a liar.

And the devil wants to destroy your heart so he can destroy your life, and he's good.

He's not God, but he's good.

He's crafty.

We use sex to build walls.

We jump straight to sex within the first three dates because it keeps us from having to dive in to who we actually are internally.

The enemies of God have taken the very thing that was purposed to create ultimate intimacy, and we are now using it to try and block out intimacy.

And worse still, it will not work.

It's inherently emotional, it's inherently a spiritual act.

And so all of these prescriptions that the world has given us have just driven us into loneliness and isolation and depression and anxiety and questioning if life is even worth living.

The prescriptions for how to date that the world gives us, they have failed us.

At first, it says to follow your heart, and that just leads to heartbreak.

And so then we build walls around our heart.

And when you build walls around your heart, what you're thinking is if I build a wall around my heart, nobody can get in and hurt me.

But when you build a wall around your heart, you're also blocking out the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

You know what happens?

You you get heartbroken, so you build walls, and then your heart begins to atrophy.

It's a silly example, but I know you've seen it.

The Grinch that stole Christmas.

He got hurt, and so he isolated.

And what does it say?

His heart shrank.

Three sizes.

It's actually not a bad picture of what happens to us.

We build these walls and we build them with lies and with holding and with sex and with anger and with manipulation, and we keep everyone at bay, and our heart begins to grow callous.

And maybe you can even recognize this in your life because the first couple of times that you lied about who you are and what you do and what you believe, what your boundaries are, it hurts you.

Your conscience hurts you.

But by the 20th time you're telling that same lie, you don't feel it.

Your heart is atrophy.

The first time that you jumped into bed with someone that you didn't really want to, you felt away about it.

Your conscience hurt you.

But your heart grows callous over time.

So following our heart isn't working, and building walls around our heart is not working.

What does he mean when King Solomon writes, guard your heart above all else?

Here's our big idea for today.

You don't guard your heart by building walls.

You guard your heart by building wisdom.

Proverbs is the book of wisdom, it lays out how to live.

Now, in the remaining 20 minutes that I have, I cannot give you the full scope of wisdom for how you can live out your best life romantically.

However, you have the Holy Spirit-inspired words of God available to you every day of your life.

You can jump on IG with us every day and read the Proverbs and fill your life with wisdom right now.

You can read the words of Jesus, God in human flesh in the New Testament gospels.

You can read the words of the apostles of Jesus Christ throughout the rest of the New Testament.

You can gain all of the wisdom that you need.

What I'm gonna give you today is the big blocks.

If you are living your romantic life, if you are dating according to the ways of the world, I'm gonna give you the big blocks, and it's gonna be uncomfortable.

And for most of us, it's gonna require significant change.

But if you would only do these three things, your life would change significantly.

However, before we talk about that, we have to get one more conversation out of the way.

We have to talk about chemistry and compatibility.

Everything that the world pushes you towards, to follow your heart and to just hook up, you know, a lot of Gen Z has given up on finding like a real romantic partner, and so they're just having casual sex.

It's at times as high as 40% of Gen Z who says, I'm not really looking for someone, I'm just looking for hookups.

Also, Gen Z has a mental health epidemic like we've never seen in human history.

Okay, make of that what you will.

So that's chemistry.

Chemistry is instant.

Chemistry is how I pick up your vibe, it's it's how I feel, it's how you fit my preferences, it's it's fast.

And we make our decisions based off chemistry.

Off that initial reaction, am I gonna take the next step?

Am I gonna cross the next line?

It's amazing to me how many people who are believers in Jesus make their relational decisions based off of things that are completely unbiblical.

I I can't preach today from a seat of judgment.

This was me.

This was me trying to follow Jesus in everything but my relationships.

How many people decide how they're gonna navigate their romantic relationships based off the advice of people who are not believers in Jesus?

I can't believe how many people decide if they're going to take the next step relationally based off of pagan zodiac signs.

Well, he's a Sagittorius and I'm a Jim and Omena, and so obviously, you know, we should be together.

It's like, dude, if that's your idea, I have a better idea.

Carry around a Pokemon card in your pocket and find someone else carrying that same Pokemon card.

That is as much based in science as your zodiac signs.

And yet we are like, mm-mm, the stars and Jupiter's in retrograde, and so now we gotta get married.

Dude, we have the words of God available to us, you know?

We have to like grow up and grow out of that.

Someone's gonna never come back because I made fun of zodiac signs and I don't know what to do about it.

We need something deeper than chemistry, we need compatibility.

Chemistry is instant.

Compatibility takes time.

And the reason it takes time is because chemistry can carry you for six months.

If you're really into them, it can carry you for 12 months.

If they're a sociopath, it can carry you for 18 months.

But you start getting close to two years in, and who they are will show up.

You can't hide for two years.

You can be on your best behavior for a year, maybe longer.

Within two years, you will see.

And all the little lies they told at the beginning start getting ironed out.

And all the little lies you told in the bill in the beginning, you have to come clear with.

And so it's like, you know, you're 20 months in, and you're like, bro, man, I think I love her.

She's so hot, she's so much fun.

I did find out she does rob banks sometimes, you know.

So it's like, I don't really know.

Like the truth comes out if you give it time to come out.

I I've shared these statistics from the stage so many times because they just they're mind-blowing to me.

People who date at least two years before they get married, their odds of divorce decrease by 30%.

People who date for at least three years before marriage, their odds of divorce decrease by 50%.

50% less likely.

Because you have given time not to just see if we have chemistry, but to see if you're compatible.

You need to know this.

You will have chemistry with exponentially more people than you are compatible with.

I'm gonna say it again.

You will have chemistry with exponentially more people than you are, in fact, compatible with.

Now be warned, we're gonna talk about three areas of compatibility you have to look for if you are going to guard your heart with wisdom.

This is going to push us past the superficial, past the lies, past the misleading Tinder profiles and the perfectly angled pictures.

The first area of compatibility, I'm gonna jump right in and let you know, uh, this is wildly unpopular.

It's unpopular with the secular culture, and I have even found that this idea is wildly unpopular among believers themselves.

And yet, I don't know what to do about it other than preach the word and tell you what it says and gain our wisdom from here.

The first thing you're looking for is compatible beliefs.

Compatible beliefs.

Now, there's layers to this, right?

Because we have beliefs about all kinds of things.

You have political beliefs, you might believe in like a really small, limited government, and they may want kind of a big government with lots of programs, and that could cause conflict, you know, so you gotta figure that out.

Not necessarily a deal breaker, right?

Uh they may believe in Sasquatch, and you might be an adult, right?

I don't know.

Different beliefs, I don't really care about that.

You may believe the Spurs are the greatest sport franchise in the world, and they might be wrong, okay?

Like, also Dean Aaron Fox, welcome to San Antonio.

You need a church, right?

We we got you.

Um I'm talking about your transcendent beliefs.

Who is God?

Who is Jesus?

What has he done for you?

What happens after this life?

When it comes to your transcendent beliefs, you must be compatible.

Here's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians.

He said, Do not be yoked together with those who do not believe.

For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?

What fellowship does light have with darkness?

Now, this seems really harsh.

Paul is not saying that every unbeliever is as lawless and evil as they can possibly be.

He's not saying every Christian is perfect and holy.

What he's saying is so much simpler than that.

He is saying that these are ideas moving in opposite directions.

Righteousness, lawlessness, light, dark.

He uses this metaphor of being yoked together.

This is an agrarian term.

A yoke is a large device that puts two large animals together, like oxen or large cattle, and it ensures that they are moving in the same direction.

And I I want you to actually see what this looks like.

So I've asked uh some of my friends to help.

Janet and Dylan Delgado.

You guys welcome them up to the stage, Janet and Dylan.

It's always nerve-wracking to be the example, and uh and they should be nervous.

Um, all right, so you guys come on up.

Uh I know Janet and Dylan really, really well.

Um, love them, love their family.

You guys come like right here to the center, okay?

And y'all, y'all just stand there.

Now, um, I don't have a yoke, okay?

I'm not a farmer, right?

I don't know farmers, I didn't know where to get one from.

But I do have something that I think might be able to kind of do the same thing.

And uh, you know, some of you are like, why do the tiners just have handcuffs lying around?

And to you, I say, mind your own business, all right?

Um, do not be yoked together.

And so uh these are real, so we're gonna go soft here, but um, nice, all right.

So just nice and easy here, and then we'll push this around.

Uh, this is the picture of being yoked together.

Um, now, both of these people love the Lord and they're leaders in our movement, and uh, but for the sake of our demonstration here, we're gonna say Dylan is following Jesus.

Now, scripture says Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith.

That is in a metaphor about running the race of life.

So for Dylan, his finish line, where he is headed in life, is Jesus.

That's everything.

That's the orienting principle of his life.

Now, for this demonstration, Janet also loves the Lord in real life, but for this illustration, we're gonna say that Janet is just unconvinced.

She doesn't believe in Jesus, she's not sure what she believes in.

That doesn't mean she's a terrible person at all.

As a matter of fact, we have all known people who are like hardcore atheists and unfortunately are seemingly more moral than a lot of the Christians that we know.

It doesn't mean she's a bad person.

What it does mean is necessarily her finish line for life is not Jesus.

Now, what her finish line is, is up to her.

It could be wealth, it could be fame, it could be status, you know, it might just be kind of a nihilistic view.

It's like Carpe Diem sees the day, we all end up six feet under, we all end up worm food at the end of all of this, so let's just live for today.

Well, if you're following Jesus, you don't live for today.

You live for eternity, which means, according to scripture, that they will be headed in two different directions, and yet they are yoked together.

Now, here's how we think this is gonna work.

We call this missionary dating, okay?

Missionary dating, where it's like, look, I know she doesn't believe in Jesus, but I'm just gonna go ahead and like lock her in, you know?

I'll marry her, and then over time I will just wear her out and I'll just move her over here towards Jesus.

Look, I'm not saying that has never happened.

I'm sure, I'm sure it has.

What I am saying is there is a reason scripture says this is a bad idea.

And I've been pastoring for a very long time.

And so what actually happens is either you end up standing still or you end up getting led away from your faith.

Because if you both try to go towards your own goals, there is conflict.

She works out.

I actually know that about her.

That's crazy, because those are real handcuffs.

Hey, you guys think Janet and Dylan, thank you guys so much.

I do have a key.

I'm like, what do you?

I do have a key, yeah.

We'll see if the key actually works here.

You see, what ends you gonna break that one?

Yeah, what ends up happening, thank you guys.

What ends up happening is there is unnecessary walls that must be built, which leads to unnecessary resentment, which leads to unnecessary conflict, and you are yoked, you are tied, you are cemented to someone, and you're incapable of moving together.

Now, if you have bought the world's prescription on how to date and how to have romantic relationships, then it's just about living in the moment, and it's just about instant gratification, and it's just about hedonistic self-pleasure, and so who cares?

But if you're trying to follow Jesus in your romantic life, if you're trying to follow Jesus in your dating, it means you are looking for someone who you could enter into the ultimate human covenant with, marriage, which is meant to bring both of you closer to God.

And that doesn't start like at the moment you get engaged, it doesn't start at the moment you say I do, it starts with every decision you make in dating.

Dating is what prepares you for marriage, and dating touches your heart every single time.

Now, the next area of compatibility, it's linked to the first.

You cannot separate them.

Once you have compatible beliefs, you then are looking for compatible blueprints.

You hear this every week at Medichurch.

We believe God created you on purpose and with purpose.

And part of being in this movement is so you can meet Jesus, discover your purpose, and live that out.

You need to know this.

Just because someone believes in Jesus does not mean they are actively submitting and trying to follow Jesus.

And you gotta be warned because remember, we are highly incentivized to lie in the dating world right now.

And so, ladies, when you show up to date number one, first of all, we have a new filter for how we're dating.

You're looking for compatible beliefs, which means everyone here who's single in dating, it's a it's a date number one conversation that your relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in your life.

That's a date number one conversation.

We are breaking the mold.

Now, this could go either way, but ladies, if you sit down and it's like, yeah, this is who I am, and this is what I do, and here's what I like, and the food is so good, and you get to the point and it's like, hey, I do need you to know my relationship with Jesus is the priority in my life.

The incentive for the guy across from you is going to be to respond like this.

Oh, oh, okay, okay.

I don't know why.

Single guys do this.

They do this, they rub their mouth a lot.

Don't do that.

I don't know what, like this.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, Jesus, right?

Jesus, okay, Jesus.

Actually, I'm uh I'm really big on Jesus too, actually.

Actually, I got like I've got a cross chain here.

Now, if you have been trying to find love in a hopeless place, you might hear that immediately, and and you're like, Well, there's my husband.

And what you need is time.

See, this isn't chemistry, this isn't about catching a spiritual vibe.

What he needs is time to prove compatibility, to prove his walk.

We all need that.

We need time to see if all the claims we make on date number one are still true in year number two.

We need time.

And the incentive is to go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, yeah, I believe in Jesus too.

Believing in Jesus and submitting your life to him as the blueprint for your life, those are two different things.

Here's what Paul said to the Ephesians: he said, pay careful attention then to how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise.

Let me just let me tell you, you need to pay careful attention to how you walk, and if you are dating, you need to pay careful attention to how they walk.

Not just what they say, how they walk.

He says, making the most of the time because the days are evil, so don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.

Paul is saying, we don't have time to play games.

Your life matters, it matters to the Lord.

Your time on earth is here to build the kingdom of God and set yourself up well for your experience of eternal life after this life.

We don't have time to play games.

We need people who believe like we believe, but that's just the price to play.

Then you need time to see if you are walking it out together, if their blueprint for their life is informed.

The incentive in most dating situations is what do I have to say to get them back to my house?

It's like, oh, Jesus, totally, totally, Jesus.

I like Jesus, you like Jesus.

You know what?

Let's go to my place.

Hallelujah, right?

You need time, you need wisdom.

That leads us to our third idea.

You need compatible beliefs, compatible blueprints, and once you have that, you need compatible boundaries.

Now, you may think that because they believe and you believe, and you both are following Jesus and submitting to him, that you don't even need to have this conversation.

Obviously, you're gonna have the same boundaries.

And that's not quite true.

You see, if you do have common beliefs and you do have common blueprints, the beautiful thing is you are set up well to have the conversation about your boundaries.

But the conversation has to come beforehand.

And you probably know this.

And look, I am not preaching from a place of judgment.

I'm preaching from a place of wanting you to get this and to thrive.

If you don't have the conversation beforehand, by the time you have put yourself in a position to mess up, the end of that story is already written.

Here's what Paul said to the Corinthians.

He says, flee sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against their own body.

Flee from it.

It's not like set a boundary and then constantly like, how close could I get to this?

It's like set it and stay away from it.

Walk with wisdom.

We live in a world where most people have gotten this wrong.

And so what do you do?

You fail forward.

You learn, you repent, which means to change your mind.

You pick a new pathway so you can begin to thrive in your relationships.

We need common, compatible boundaries.

Right before this, Paul's talking to the Corinthians about a very specific sexual sin that was rampant in their region.

He makes the point out of both Genesis, what God said in the beginning, and the words of Jesus, what Jesus says in Matthew 19, that when the two become intimate, the two become one.

You are prematurely becoming one.

And we have deceived ourselves that this act of intimacy is simply a physical entanglement, and you know it's not.

You know it's not.

It's deeply emotional.

And whether you recognize it or not, it's deeply spiritual and it follows you.

It becomes baggage that you carry into your next relationship and your next relationship and your next relationship and eventually your marriage.

Here's the beautiful thing about dating in this way, up front.

Common beliefs.

If you show up with your full self, willing to be vulnerable, willing to let them know that following Jesus is the path for your life, you're gonna scare off a lot of people and good riddance.

Like that's a litmus test for you.

If they are like, no, no, no, cool, cool, cool.

She's like, you know, I'm gonna put it on the girls finally.

She's like, no, no, no, yeah, no, Jesus for sure, right?

And then she's like, hey, why don't we get out of here and go back to my place?

Like, that's a litmus test.

Those are different blueprints.

If they have beliefs and blueprints and you lay down some boundaries and they don't respect your boundaries, if they don't respect your boundaries, they don't respect you.

It's easy, and the best thing that you could do before you spend three and a half years with someone just to find out that they're not a good fit is to find it out immediately.

And so lead with boldness.

Know who you are as a child of God and show up with your full self.

I promise you, you know who doesn't want you to do that?

The devil.

The devil is alive, and the devil is a liar, and we defeat a liar with the truth of who we are in Jesus Christ.

Show up with your full self.

Here's our verse guard your hearts above all else.

It is the source of life.

We need compatible beliefs, compatible blueprints, compatible boundaries.

I'm gonna tell you two stories.

I'm gonna tell you a sad story, I'm gonna tell you a good story.

Sad story.

The book of Proverbs was written by King Solomon.

When he became king, God said, What do you need?

And he said, I need wisdom.

And God gave it to him.

Before Jesus came, Solomon was the wisest man to ever walk the earth, but he ended up living in very unwise ways.

And it wasn't money that turned him, and it wasn't power that turned him, and it wasn't status that turned him, and it wasn't the throne that turned him.

We learn about his demise in 1 Kings 11.

It says, When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods.

He did not have compatible beliefs, and we can see that from jump, because homie had like 500 wives, alright?

He didn't have a compatible blueprint with the people he chose, he had no boundaries.

The man who had all of the wisdom, but couldn't walk it out because he didn't guard his heart, he did not take his own advice.

Now I want to give you the conclusion to my story because God got a hold of me at 18.

For the rest of high school, I kept dating poorly, poorly.

Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all else.

And I thought, that's right, that's me.

And I felt convicted to stop dating.

I didn't really know what that meant.

I didn't know for how long.

Some of you, your mind is so warped by the culture that that is actually my advice to you today.

Take a sabbatical from seeking a partner.

Just stop.

Delete the apps, get off social, stop showing up.

Give the Lord some time to rewire you.

You see, it's like we trust God, we trust God with our finances, we trust God with our career, but for some reason we're like, I've got to find my wife.

Why can't we also trust God with our relationships?

After a season of just cutting it off, just getting in the word, just trying to get good people around me, seeking wisdom.

I was a worship leader at my hometown church when Katie walked into service for the first time.

I didn't have to go looking.

God brought us together.

And I'm telling you, I know me and I know the track I was on, and I wouldn't have not been in the place to be the man that Katie needed me to be.

I needed space.

I needed to guard my heart not by building all these walls, but by building wisdom.

You don't guard your heart by building walls.

You guard your heart by building wisdom.

And the wisdom of Scripture is available to you.

Now, here's my guess.

The older you are, the more you have already screwed most of these things up.

You've learned so many hard lessons.

And so what you do now is you repent.

You change your mind.

Maybe you take a break and allow God to rewire you and fill you with wisdom.

Some of you are married, and I'm at the end of my message, and you're like, bro, I did literally all of this wrong.

And maybe for real, you're like, maybe this is why things are so hard.

There's like so much tension, we fight so constantly.

Maybe you're thinking, I don't actually know if we're compatible on all these things.

If that is you, you can't miss next Sunday when we talk about marriage.

You can't miss it.

We're gonna talk about what to do with these walls that we have brought into our marriage.

For the young people in the room, do not squander the opportunity to do this right from jump.

You could just go to anybody who's at least mid-30s in here, and they will just literally get down and beg you, just do it right from jump.

If we do this, if we seek God's wisdom, God will bring healing to our life and give us hope for our relationships.

Let's close right where you're at, across our venues.

If you'd bow your head and close your eyes, there's nothing magic, just some space for reflection.

I wonder if you've realized that you've been building walls in your life.

You followed your heart and that got you hurt, so you started to self-protect.

What would it look like to trust God enough to be vulnerable again?

To bring your whole self to the world and your whole self to your relationships.

What would it look like to navigate relationships with wisdom, to find people who are compatible in their beliefs, in the blueprint for their life, and the boundaries around relationships?

As always, I want to acknowledge that there may be people across our venues who are here and you haven't taken the first step of finding hope for your relationships and for your life because you haven't yet started your most important relationship with Jesus.

See, dating can be very hard because you gotta like find the person and find the right spot and do all the right things.

It's not like that with Jesus.

Jesus came down to us.

He doesn't expect perfection, he knows us exactly as we are, inside and out.

He knows our best qualities and our worst sins.

And yet, Jesus demonstrated his love for us when he took the price of our sin on himself and died on a cross.

See, the bad news is our sin, all the ways we miss God's design and desires for our life, it separates us from God.

And yet, God came into our earth, stepped into our reality in the person of Jesus.

He took the sins of the world upon himself, and he erased them by nailing them to a cross.

Jesus, who we believe historically three days later rose again, did so to prove that he could give you life after death.

The first thing you need to thrive in your relationships is hope.

And our hope is found in Jesus.

If you're here today at one of our venues or you're watching with us online and you have never started a relationship with Jesus, I want to tell you how you can do that.

There are no hoops to jump through.

Jesus didn't come to start a religion, he came offering you a relationship.

And all he asks for us is to put our faith in him.

When you believe that Jesus is who he says he is and that he's done what he says that he has done, a few things happen.

Number one, all of your sins are covered with the righteousness of Christ.

Everything wrong you have done, past, present, and even future sin, is covered.

Because of that, you are adopted into the family of God, and as a child of God, you are given the gift of eternal life.

Something that no one and nothing can ever take away from you.

And so if you're here, I want to ask you in this moment to put your faith in Jesus and to acknowledge it symbolically by very simply just lifting your hand up in the air.

With everyone's eyes closed across our venues, if you would just raise your hand.

By raising your hand, you're saying, today I choose to put my faith in Jesus.

Amen.

For those who raised a hand, I want you to know that God sees and accepts your faith.

And I want to help you acknowledge this moment through a very simple prayer.

And so for those who raised a hand, I want you to repeat this with me.

And so you don't feel called out.

I want all the believers at our venues to pray this out loud as well.

Pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys and I hope you have a great rest of your day.