Stupid in Love: Situationships 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.

Welcome back to our relationship series, Stupid in Love.

If you are new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at MetaCurch.

So glad that you joined us.

Throughout the weeks of this series, you can kind of think of it like a funnel.

In week one, we took the broadest look at like what love even is.

And then in week two, we talked about attraction, like how to attract the right kind of person into relationship with you.

Today we're gonna talk about dating, and the next week we're finally getting down to marriage.

Now, we saw in week one that most of the cultural prescriptions for romance, dating, sex, and marriage just don't work.

As a matter of fact, when you really look at how our culture pushes us to act and react and make decisions, we decided a lot of it is actually kind of stupid.

And so then we end up stupid in love, and we see that in the data.

All the studies, all the research are showing that people are lonelier than ever, they're more anxious than ever, they're more depressed than ever, and that in their relationships they're less fulfilled, they're less sexually fulfilled.

And so what's going on, and what we're saying is we gotta get back to the ancient wisdom of Scripture.

Here at MetaCurch, we are a place where all people on all different parts of your faith journey.

At the same time, we're unapologetic in our beliefs.

We're here because we believe in Jesus, we're trying to follow him.

And a lot of people who are Christians try to follow Jesus in most ways, but for some reason we make an exception in our romantic lives.

And that might be one of the most important areas for you to really submit yourself to God's word.

So, what are some of the problems we've been diagnosing?

In week one, we saw that we tend to fall in love with the outer person before we know their inner purpose.

This is another way of saying we just don't know what love is.

We think it's all superficial, we think it's all emotion, we think it's all lust.

When really, if you want to build an enduring, fulfilling relationship, you have to have a common core purpose, an idea we come back to every week.

Last week we talked about how to attract the right kind of people.

And instead of looking at cultures prescriptions for attraction, we looked in scripture.

We saw you have to be three things.

Number one, you have to be real, you also have to be holy, and you have to be driven towards the things of God.

Now you can get caught up on those messages if you haven't seen them at youtube.com slash metachurch.

Today we're moving on, we're specifically talking about dating.

We don't know what love is, we don't know what's attractive, and when we finally do move from being interested to invested in a relationship, as a culture, we don't know how to date well.

We're gonna address that today.

My message is situationships.

Situationships.

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you for your great love for us.

Uh, Holy Spirit, we know that you're here and you're moving and you want to speak to us, and I pray we would be humble and open and hear from you today.

I thank you for MetaCurch.

I thank you for everyone who's gathered here, everyone who's with us online, and I pray today would be meaningful for us.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to get going, say amen.

Amen.

As a communicator, uh, I care a lot about words, care a lot about language, and uh I've said for years, one of my mentors used to say that words create worlds.

Words create worlds.

Now let me tell you what I do not mean.

I don't mean that the same way that Oprah means that, where you can just speak a Ferrari into existence in your life, right?

What I mean is that the language we use is often revealing something about the society that we're living in, and I think that's especially true when it comes to the language we use around romantic relationships.

Uh, if you go back past about 600 years, the way that marriage tended to work almost everywhere was a marriage would be arranged for you.

Now, as modern people, we absolutely do not like that.

So we're gonna look back to about the medieval times, and in the medieval times, we didn't have dating.

What we had was called courting.

And courting is a term that's completely out of fashion.

A lot of the younger people in the room may not have ever even heard that term, but it referenced something very specific.

It referenced the king's court, and this is where there would be banquets and social events and and balls.

You might remember the animated movie Cinderella, and everyone was pumped, right?

All of the like terrible stepsisters were pumped because they got invited to the ball.

And the ball is in the king's court, and this is where you find a potential suitor.

And if you find a potential suitor, then you begin the courting process.

And in the medieval times, this was very structured, very formal, and very supervised, not only by the parents of each respective individual, but also by the church, and also at some level by the state.

And so noblem were expected to pursue courtly love.

It was a long, structured process.

Both sets of parents were involved, and there was a formal code of conduct that you had to follow.

The man would be expected to use chivalry, to even write poetry, and to impress the woman and her dad with different daring acts of bravery.

Now things started to shift, and what you'll see over time is romantic relationships becoming more and more individualized.

So by the 16th century, uh courting was no longer under the supervision of the church or the state, but it still was overseen by the individual families.

Now, by the 19th century, courtship looked a lot like modern dating.

You would pick a spot, you'd put a date on the calendar, and you would go out, but it was still very different.

Uh, you would always be chaperoned, which we're just like, we can't even imagine that.

In our 20s, being chaperoned on a date, you'd be chaperoned, and there were formal expectations for you to follow.

It actually wasn't until the early 1900s that we quit talking about courting and we started talking about dating, and words mattered.

What is a date?

Well, it's literally a day on the calendar.

It's no longer a formal, supervised, structured process.

It's now very informal and unsupervised and unstructured.

You pick a date and you pick a time, and just the two of you go and you go on a date.

Now we like that, and that's really all that we've ever known.

But by the 21st century, we don't really talk about dating in order to marry.

We started talking about dating in order to hook up.

And now we've progressed to the point where we've even inverted that.

Now we hook up to decide whether or not we want to date.

And so everything has been reversed.

And there's a part of us that really likes that because we get our rights and we get our freedom, and no one can tell us what to do, and we don't like being supervised.

But again, when you look at all the data and all the research, we are lonelier, and we are less satisfied, and we're more anxious, and we're more depressed, and we're less fulfilled.

And so something about how we're managing our dating lives is not going right.

Now, if you know Gin Z, lovingly called the Zoomers, you know that like every young generation, they have their own entire language.

And if you're over 30, you don't know how to speak it, right?

I have two, a teenager and a young adult in my house, and they have their own language.

And I try to stay up to date just so I can have a conversation around the dinner table, but we have in this beautiful congregation, Zoomers all the way through boomers, right?

And when you have boomers and zoomers trying to have a conversation, it can get very interesting.

And what does their language around dating and sex and relationship, what does it tell us about our culture?

Well, I don't want to just tell you, I kind of want to show you.

We thought it would be fun to play a little bit of a game show.

This game show is called Boomers versus Zoomers.

So I'm very excited about this.

And I asked a good friend, he has been with MetaCurch from before day one, uh, one of our beloved resident boomers.

Y'all help me welcome Tom Fisher to the stage.

All right, so Tom is uh a boomer.

I didn't ask him to dress like this.

This is how boomers dress.

This is wonderful.

So he's here.

I know, I know, I know.

We'll switch shoes later.

He's doing great.

Um, now, he is a resident uh expert at Zoomer sling, right?

We'll see.

Yeah, so backstage, I asked him how he's gonna do.

He said, no cap, I'll be busting.

That's what he said backstage.

So uh how how it works is very simple.

Uh we have our stupid in love wheel.

We're gonna give it a spin a couple of times.

This is Zoomer sling on every one of these spots.

I'll pull it off, I'll give you an ABC option, and we'll see if you can get it right, okay?

Here we go.

Hopefully our wheel stops at some point.

We're gonna go right there.

Awesome.

All right, your first term is breadcrumbing.

Bread crumbing.

Is it A, leaving a trail of notes for your date to find, B, a cooking date where you make bread together, or C, leading someone on with small amounts of interest.

What do you think?

A, B, or C?

I'll go with C on that one.

And C is correct.

Let's go! One for the boomers.

We'll give it another spin here.

Killing it.

Killing it.

Zoomers, you must be impressed, I'm sure.

Here we go.

Number two.

We have simp.

Is simp A someone who does way too much for a person they're attracted to?

Is it B, an abbreviation for super intense movie partner?

Or C, a slang term for someone who enjoys simple low-key dates.

What do you think, A, B, or C?

I'm gonna go with C again, because that's the same.

And C is incorrect.

A simp is someone who does way too much for a person they like, often to the point of being overly submissive.

Why don't you give us our last spin here?

Now, while he's spinning, I want to tell you what's on the line.

I did some research, and he's gonna win to what the internet says, Boomer's favorite restaurants, you can choose either Lubies or Cracker Barrel.

It's on you.

Here we go.

Tommy, your good sport.

All right.

Last, we have orbiting.

Orbiting.

Is this A, taking a date to an observatory to look at the stars?

Is it B when someone stops communicating directly but continues to engage with your social media?

You know, social media is right.

Okay.

C, a phase in a relationship where both parties are unsure of their feelings.

What do you think?

A, B, or C?

I like I like B.

He's going with B.

And he's correct.

You know what?

Restaurant of your choice.

Two out of three.

Tom Fisher's big winner.

You guys help me thank him for participating today.

Awesome.

I love pastoring a multi-generational church.

I'll tell you that right now.

From the zoomers to the boomers, maybe some great generations still in here.

So grateful to be your pastor.

Listen, words create worlds, and every generation comes up with their own slang, and nobody ahead of them can understand it.

But what's really important is the slang is revealing something about the culture that that generation is coming up in.

So let's look at some of the popular slang.

We saw some of this.

Some of you know ghosting, this is suddenly cutting off all communication with someone you've been hooking up with.

Benching, this is keeping someone as a backup option while you're dating someone else more seriously.

A situationship, that's the name of my sermon today.

This is a sexual relationship that is not formally established as a relationship.

Bread crumbing, we saw, leading someone on with small amounts of interest.

A thirst trap, this is putting a provocative photo on social media or sending it as a message to try and get sexual attention.

A synth is someone who does way too much for a person they like, you know, like doing chivalrous acts and writing poetry and doing acts of bravery like the knights used to do.

A sneaky link, this is a secret sexual encounter, typically kept hidden from everyone else.

This is the language, and if you'll notice the language is revealing the culture of dating, and the culture of dating can be described in three ways.

It is selfish, it is sexual, and it is senseless, meaning it has no direct purpose.

It's selfish, it's sexual, and it is senseless.

Think about it.

Benching, keeping someone as a backup, leading them on, breadcrumbing them, making sure that they stay attached to you, it's selfish.

You don't want to let them go, but you don't want to be with them.

A situationship, having a sexual relationship but not being willing to make it an established thing, that's senseless.

It has no purpose.

Ghosting is selfish, breadcrumbing is senseless.

A thirst trap, sneaky link, this is selfish and purposeless, and it's meant for sexual pleasure.

So these are the three things guiding our relationships, both for people who are dating as well, married people you aren't off the hook.

Most marriages are also described in this way because you got married in the same culture where people are dating, where a lot of people in their marriage are living very selfishly.

They have sex as their number one priority, and they don't have a direct sense of purpose for the relationship that they are in.

And this is leading us into misery.

So if we go to scripture, what does it have to say about these prescriptions?

We're first gonna look at being selfish.

We're gonna go back to the garden narrative.

These are the chapters that open up our Bible, Genesis 1, 2, and 3.

I love this section of scripture because it gives us deep insight into how God intended for the world to operate and how he intended for relationships to operate.

And if you remember throughout the first two chapters, chapter one tells the creation story from a broad perspective.

Then in chapter two, it tells the creation story again from a ground level perspective.

And in both of them, God will create like the sun, moon, and stars, and he'll say it's good.

And then he'll create the land and the sea and he'll say it's good.

And he'll create the plants and the animals and he'll say it's good.

And he creates humanity and says it's very good.

And it's not until chapter two, verse 18, that something's not good.

Then the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper corresponding to him.

They're in the garden, the world is perfect at this point, and yet there's something that's not good.

And what's not good is that Adam is alone.

And maybe you're thinking, well, there it is.

I'm not being selfish, I just want someone.

I don't want to be alone, I don't want to go through the summer all by myself, I don't want to fly soul, I'm not being selfish.

There's a deep desire for companionship, for relationship, just in the heart of mankind.

And you know, you see this right now, there's like a viral social media trend of women who are filming themselves actually crying, complaining about how they cannot find a good man.

And it's like half the people are laughing at these videos, and half the people are crying about these videos.

And if you are one of those women, please go back and watch last week when you'll learn how to attract the right kind of person.

It's like this is the state of things in our world, and it's common to hear among single people they want something and they want it so bad.

The problem is, once we get into relationship, we take a very selfish approach.

If it isn't convenient, we don't want it.

If there's too much expectation or formality, we'll find something easier.

We want it to be easy because we are wired to be selfish.

Now, it was not good for Adam to be alone, but I want you to see how Adam got his eve.

In verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man and he slept.

And God took one of his ribs and then closed the flesh at that place.

And the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

Now, what does that even mean, right?

Like, I can't explain to you scientifically what that means, but I can tell you on a deeper level what it means.

It means for Adam to have a significant partner, for Adam to have his Eve, it was going to cost him.

He had to give up a part of himself.

I don't know if you've ever like bruised a rib.

It is a pain, unlike if you bruise a rib and you sneeze, you will give up on life, okay?

Like he lost a rib to get his Eve.

Now, Gen Z has their slang.

I'm a millennial, we had our slang.

One of my favorite things is you would call your girl your rib.

That's my rib.

And I loved that.

Because you know what, and I know Gen Z is like, oh, cringe, because everything's cringy, because millennials are losers, I know.

But I love it because when Adam saw Eve, he said, Look, bone of my bone and flesh.

Of my flesh.

Like it cost me something to get her, and it was worth it.

I'm hers and she is mine, we are one, and to be in a significant relationship, it will cost you.

And when you escape being stupid in love by following the culture's prescriptions, and you find out what real love is, which is rooted in a common core purpose to glorify God and bring others to Christ, then you will be more than willing to pay the price to be in that kind of relationship, true relationship, always cost you.

For Adam to get eve, he had to give up a part of himself.

And so while culture says that you have the right to be selfish, scripture says if you want it to be right, you have to be selfless.

And Jesus is the ultimate model of this.

He said, I did not come to be served, God in human flesh, the power of heaven at his finger's tips.

I did not come to be served, I came to serve others and to give my life away.

That's the model of how to be in proper relationships, selfless, not selfish.

I can't tell you how many single men and women say the same thing.

If they think they're gonna come in here and change me, they've got another thing coming.

If she thinks she's gonna come in here and tell me when I have to show up at my house, she's got another thing coming.

If he thinks he can tell me how to spend my money, then he can head on down the road.

On and on it goes.

If they think they can tell me how to dress, if she thinks she can tell me what to eat, if he thinks he can she thinks she's trying to.

It's like I'm who I am, and they're not gonna change me.

And I promise you, that same person has a list 17 pages long of what they need to change to be in relationship with them, but they're not changing a thing.

You know why?

Because we're selfish.

And I've got news.

You need to change.

You know, people are like, you wouldn't mess with the engine on a Ferrari, folks.

We are Ford Fiesta at best, alright?

You are not a Ferrari, you are not Jesus, you need to change.

And this is why it matters that you're not just falling in love with the outer person, that you're getting to know their inner purpose, because when you when you come into relationship with someone who has the same purpose as you, ultimately to glorify God, to be a witness to the ends of the earth, to bring others to Christ, to build God's kingdom, then it's not you trying to change her for you.

It's not her trying to change you for her.

It's both of you coming together, helping each other reach your potential for the glory of God and the spread of the gospel.

That is what a strong relationship looks like.

Culture calls us to be selfish.

Culture thinks about your rights.

But you got the right to do whatever you want.

They don't have to talk to you like you have to.

You have rights and you have responsibilities.

And even if you shirk all responsibilities during your time on earth, when this life is over, you will stand before Jesus.

And you will be held responsible.

How did you live your life?

Did you submit to God?

Did you follow his word?

Culture calls us to be selfish, scripture calls us to be selfless.

Culture also focuses dating and relationships primarily on sexual satisfaction and sexual compatibility.

If dating is the vehicle, then in our modern world, sex is the destination.

If dating is the transportation, sex is the destination.

And that's very different.

For most of human history, dating, courting, whatever you wanted to call it, the destination was marriage, and then the marriage was consummated through sex.

That's how things worked almost forever.

And then in the 1900s, dating was the vehicle and sex was the destination.

And now we're in a world where sex is the first step to decide if you want to date.

We have gotten things completely in reverse of how scripture asks us to do them.

And we like it as modern people because no one can tell us what to do.

I know my rights, I know my freedoms, I have liberty, nobody can step on them, and that's great.

Until you realize that scripture isn't just a 2,000 year old document that's trying to get in the way of all of your fun, that it's actually the inspired words of God.

And the more time moves on, and the more you mature in your faith, and the more you start paying attention.

And what you will find is that every area and every discipline continues to show that the ways God has called us to live are empirically the best ways to live.

And the further we get away from how God has asked us to navigate our relationships, the more miserable, more depressed, more lonely, more anxious, less fulfilled we become.

That's not a coincidence.

This is an uphill battle because we are inundated with sex in our culture.

It's an uphill battle because the ethic of our day is selfish, sexual, and senseless.

In contrast to that, here's what scripture says: flee sexual immorality.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth and says, flee, run away as fast as you can.

Flee sexual immorality.

Here's why.

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

Why does Paul tell us to save sex for marriage, as God calls us to?

Is it because God's gonna be super mad at you?

Is it so you don't get someone pregnant?

So you set a good example?

Is it because God doesn't want you to have any fun?

No.

What Paul says is that sex outside the boundary of marriage is actually you sinning against you.

Other sins are external and the consequences are primarily external, but sex is much more than physical.

It is a level of intimacy that gets all the way down to your soul.

Sex before marriage is stealing from you and from your future spouse in the future.

It is you taking something away from yourself.

And so here's the lie that culture is pushing all of the time to try to make you stupid in love.

The more sexually liberated you are, and the more sexually promiscuous you are, and the more sexual partners that you have, the more fulfilled you will be in life.

This is every movie you watch, this is every music video, this is almost every social media influencer, everyone is pushing this, every advertisement, the more promiscuous and the more partners you have, the more fulfilled you will be.

You shouldn't be surprised to find out that's the exact opposite of every study and all the research and all of the data.

You would be shocked looking at how culture pushes sexual liberation on us to find out that the absolute, on every study, the absolute highest level of sexual satisfaction comes from faithful married people.

The highest.

And so what does scripture ask us to do?

Philippians 2, 2 says, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united in spirit and intent on one purpose.

Paul emphasizes the importance of spiritual cohesion in our relationships.

How much more important is that spiritual cohesion in our romantic relationships?

We have to begin to shift our priorities.

So instead of pursuing uh sexual compatibility, we should first be pursuing spiritual compatibility.

Who are we at the deepest level?

Who are we at like our worldview, our beliefs, our purpose, do we actually match for the long run?

We don't do this.

We jump into bed so quickly in our culture today.

And here's the real danger.

The real danger is that you are sexually compatible with far more people than you are spiritually compatible.

Like, to be sexually compatible, here's your checklist.

Do you both have a pulse and do you both have bodies?

Check, you're sexually compatible, right?

Like you've done it, congratulations.

You're sexually compatible with almost everyone.

Far fewer number of people are you spiritually compatible with.

And the number one thing that will keep you from properly assessing your spiritual compatibility is quickly engaging in a sexual relationship.

We talked in week one about red flags.

The number one thing that will keep you from identifying and calling out red flags is once you become sexually intimate.

And so you don't really like the way that they talk to you, but you don't want to start that fight because it might ruin your plans at the end of the night.

Or you start realizing they may have some dependency issues, start realizing they drink like a lot, like they're coping with their drinking.

Or you find like a lot of porn on their computer, or there's like a lot of pills that you know nothing about in their bathroom, and you really want to ask about it, but you don't want to ruin the mood at the end of the date.

And so it's like you have a bad date, end it with good sex.

You know, you don't have anything in common, have a common sexual experience.

You are neurologically hardwired once you start a sexual relationship to not do anything to impede having sexual intercourse.

That's how your brain is built to function.

And it's why it is the end of the road to consummate a marriage that went through a careful dating process where you got to know the person at the deepest levels of who they are first.

Think about this, and I know I'm like really driving this point home, but it's so prevalent in our culture.

This is a scenario that's incredibly common today.

People who begin a sexual relationship, they've been hooking up for two months, six months, a year, they don't really know each other, they don't know if they have the same beliefs, they don't know if they have the same worldview.

They've never even talked about if either of them wants to have kids someday in the future.

So they've been doing the thing for a year that makes kids and don't know if each other wants kids.

This is like lighting matches and just throwing it at dry wood and going, like, I don't really know if I want to fire, you know?

This is how our culture dates.

When you slow down and think about it, it's like that's stupid.

And yet, to not fall in line with a selfish, sexual, senseless dating protocol, you will stand out as the one who is seen as different.

You will be the one with the weird dating habits.

We've seen all series long that true love is built on inner purpose, someone who is real and holy and driven towards the things of God.

And if we don't break free from culture's reliance on sex as the end-all, be-all, we will struggle to find those spiritual connections that could set us up for lifelong commitment.

Culture calls us to be selfish and sexual and senseless.

What I mean by that is a relationship that lacks purpose, that's devoid of meaning.

So outside of just the selfish pursuit of companionship and our drive for sexual fulfillment, there's no greater purpose to dating in our society.

And that's a real problem because if it's about your selfish convenience and it's about your sexual satisfaction and you marry for that reason, then when the marriage becomes inconvenient or someone else becomes more sexually compelling to you, what keeps you in your marriage?

And we know the answer to that because we see people who date following this prescription, and a lot of those marriages end in divorce.

You need something deeper.

We need the ancient wisdom of scripture.

And so let's just ask the question what is the purpose of dating?

And if every single person wrote down an answer in here, we might get every single answer unique, and that's fine.

And people are in different places in their life.

You know, you're like, I'm young, I'm not trying to settle down, I just want to have fun, I'm kind of just seeing what I like.

Some of you are further along and you're like, man, the clock is ticking, I am trying to find someone, I need to settle down.

Some of you, you've gone through a divorce and it's very painful, and you're trying to pick back the pieces of your life, and you're wondering, what's next?

What is the purpose of dating?

As much as our culture tries to focus on sex and convenience and tear down any institution and any kind of religious norms and all the things that guided our relationship for thousands of years, we still love love.

The whole world still stops when uh, you know, some of the royal family gets married over in Britain.

I don't understand that actually at all.

But the whole world stops.

I watched the whole world stop because we love love and we love movies about love, and we love TV shows where we feel like we can relate to the characters on their romantic journeys, and we love marriage, even though we pretend like we hate marriage.

We love marriage.

You see, marriage matters because how you date today will affect your marriage someday.

How you date today is not divorced from what your marriage will be someday.

And people think like this because we're thinking selfishly and senselessly.

Like, you know, what do we say?

I'm gonna sow my wild oats.

In other words, like I'm just gonna try to have sex with as many people as possible, and then someday I'm just gonna be able to hit pause and be faithful for 40 years.

It doesn't work like that.

How you date today will affect your marriage someday.

So date with a purpose.

Date with a goal in mind, date to find someone who you can build a life on that's deeper than just physical attraction, that's deeper than your convenience, that's deeper than your sexual urges, something that is built on a purpose that is eternal and lasting, and then you have a foundation that can weather the storms of life, and there will be storms.

If you're single and you think that you can have a fairy tale, just go find anyone married and ask them if there's storms in marriage, okay?

There are storms in marriage, there is turmoil, there is tension, there is conflict, and whether or not you can get to the other side a better person or not depends on what you are rooted in.

If you're rooted in convenience, at inconvenience you'll run.

If you are rooted only in sexual attraction, then when the attraction fades, you will run.

But if you are rooted on becoming one with someone, that's what happens in marriage.

You become one with somebody, and together you help each other reach your potential to the glory of God and the spread of the gospel.

That is what marriage was meant for.

And when you begin to understand that and understand that how you date today will affect your marriage someday, it changes the game plan for how you go about this.

Genesis 2, 24 says, this is why a man leaves his father and mother in bonds with his wife.

This is why.

And they become one flesh, one flesh, a true partnership.

And so listen, if you're married, this is a good inventory for you to walk through.

Because in marriage, we get selfish as well.

In marriage, we don't want to find out what's real when we're arguing.

We just want to win the dang argument, you know?

We just want to come out on top because we're selfish.

We want our way, we want our schedule, we want our technique, we want our form of discipline.

We get selfish in marriage too.

Often marriages lack purpose.

They're senseless.

You can't even really answer why you're in your marriage.

Often in marriage, all one or both partners are worried about is sexual fulfillment, their own sexual fulfillment.

If you're single and you're dating, society will try to convince you that to even have a shot at finding the right person, you will have to lower your standards, you'll have to change your boundaries, you'll have to make sex a normal part of your dating routine.

Culture will try to convince you that you need to be selfish, sexual, and senseless.

And if that is how you've been dating, here's my suggestion.

My suggestion is to take a season and stop dating.

To stop looking for the right person, and just for a season, to become the right person.

You want to attract the right kind of people, you gotta be the right kind of person.

Maybe for you that looks like a month, maybe for you it looks like six months.

Maybe it looks like signing up for the Meta Movement Academy this fall and going through our program for three months to determine what your purpose actually is and to learn who you actually are.

Pastor Andy Stanley says it this way: Are you the person the person you are looking for is looking for?

If you're not, then maybe the worst thing that could happen is for you to find your dream person because you won't be the person ready for them.

Are you the kind of person, the person you're looking for, that checklist where you want them to be real and authentic and healthy and holy and driven towards the things of God and set apart and financially stable and emotionally healthy and dealing with their worst ways and not living in their sin patterns and kind to people and loving that person that you want, are you that person?

Are you the person the person you're looking for is looking for?

Here's the template.

Paul laid it out in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love is patient, kind.

It does not envy, it's not boastful or arrogant, it's not rude or self-seeking, it's not irritable, it does not keep a record of wrongs.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, love rejoices in truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

This is your new standard, this is your new list.

This is what you're looking for, but first, this is what you're seeking to become.

And if you're not becoming the version of yourself that God created you to be, then you're not yet ready to find someone else.

You have to be real, be holy, be driven.

If you're a believer that is caught in the stupid in-love version of dating, quit dating until you have found your confidence, not in your own strength, but in what Jesus wants to do through you.

See this season as an investment into who you are, which will be an investment into who you and your eventual partner will become.

You'll then be ready to give of yourself selflessly, to pursue spiritual health together, and to date in the most significant way, the way that sets you up for a great marriage and a great relationship with God.

Let me remind you, we are called to be selfless, not selfish.

We are called to pursue spiritual compatibility, not sexual compatibility.

We are called to live significant relationships, not senseless relationships.

Would you pray with me?

As we close, you can bow your head and close your eyes just to create some space for reflection.

Like we always do, I'm gonna ask you to be honest and take inventory of your own life.

Whether you're married, dating, single.

In what ways have you had a selfish outlook towards love?

In what ways are you demanding of others?

What would it look like to truly be selfless, to give yourself away, to put others first, to put your spouse first, to put your boyfriend or girlfriend first?

To always assess their needs, to always look for ways to serve them instead of looking for ways to be served.

As you're looking for connection, are you just looking for sexual connection?

Is that your first priority?

Is that the first thought you have?

Or are you looking for spiritual connection?

Cohesion in your worldview, cohesion in your beliefs, a common core purpose that animates your life.

Are you living realizing that how you date today will affect your marriage someday?

Do you see your relationships as a significant part of the purpose God has placed on your life?

Or do you just see them as kind of a senseless side project?

As we've said every week, to have great relationships here on earth, you first must have a great relationship with your Father in heaven.

And if you're here today or you're watching with us online right now and you've never started a relationship with Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity to do that today.

See, Jesus was the perfect model of a selfless life.

He left behind the riches of heaven to come down to our brokenness.

He gave of himself so much that he gave his own life.

I'm sure you know the story of the cross where Jesus died, but did you know that that was actually your cross?

Did you know that that was actually the death that I deserved?

Scripture says the penalty of our sin is death.

And we all sinned.

We have all gone astray of God's design and desire for our lives, and that cost was paid by Jesus on our cross.

Jesus had the most significant purpose, and he lived it out to a T.

And he did it all to give us new life and to offer us his spirit, the first step in being spiritually compatible.

If you're here and there's never been a point in your life where you've put your faith in Jesus, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to do that today.

What that means is today you choose to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he has done what he says that he has done, that he's God, that he died for your sins, and that he rose from the grave.

If you're here today and you've never made that decision, but you are ready to make it today, I want to ask you, with everyone's eyes closed, to just lift your hand up in the air where I can see it, where I can see who I'm talking to, who I'm praying with.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Praise God.

Amen.

Listen, for those who raised a hand, I need you to know that Jesus sees your faith and accepts it.

Those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

That is a promise in Scripture.

What Scripture tells us is that on the eternal level, you have been moved from spiritual death to spiritual life.

That the Holy Spirit of God now lives inside of you, guiding you, and you will access that spirit by walking in obedience to Christ.

I'm so proud of the decision that you've made, and I want to help you acknowledge it through a simple prayer.

So, for those who raised a hand, I want to ask you to pray this with me, and I'm gonna ask all believers in the room to pray this with me as well.

Let's 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 that you rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me and forgiving my sins.

Now let me pray over you.

Jesus, we continue to celebrate the work that you're doing here, week after week, service after service, touching lives.

Heavenly Father, you calling your children home, back into relationship with yourself.

And I pray that today would be the first step of a life spent finding out what it means to follow you.

We believe there's a life of purpose and power and significance waiting on that journey of submitting to you and following your commands.

I pray they would take their next steps.

Later this year, they'd get baptized, get plugged in, and go on the adventure of a lifetime with you, Jesus.

I pray for our relationships that we would learn to be selfless, that we would look for that deep spiritual common purpose, and that we would see our relationships as a significant part of the purpose you've given us to live.

We love you.

And we pray these things in your name, Jesus.

And everyone said, Amen.

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.