Dating

All right, so I'll come to you guys can take a seat you guys can take a seat Man, what a video. Hey, who here in the room is planning on going as prom a night to remember who are the prom people in the room All right Really? Who is going as a medieval night to remember? What? Wow That's awesome. Was it the swords? No weapons allowed. Please. This is going to be a safe environment for everyone All right as HV said we are starting a relationship series tonight and tonight I have the privilege of teaching on Dating so if you got a notebook take it out. We're going to start cooking. There's a lot we got to get through But if you're around last fall, you know a lot of crazy things happen in the dating series shout-out to the parking lot unsafe environment very safe Very safe security wise, what I'm safe if you're looking to knock it on a date That was a great time lots of first dates all around aims You can always tell when someone's on one Guys look better than they've ever looked in their entire life. Oh my goodness. You take three showers before that, you know slightly awkward conversation delightful Every time you see someone you know you're like, you know, it's a great time But let me do some demographic research who here is in a dating relationship make some noise You're in a dating relationship, okay? All right Who here would like to be in a dating relationship you make some noise all right All right, well This one's from you. Let's cook all right. Let's get to it. Here's what we're headed We're gonna talk about what dating is Who you should date and lastly how the heck do you do the thing? What does it look like to date and a healthy way for those who are dating for those who are not dating? But would like to be this one's for you. I've already heard of a couple stories of Assouts from last service You might be lucky tonight. Let's go. All right Let's start it. What is dating? Let's get right into what is dating? Here's what here's a definition that I'm gonna be working with tonight Dating is the process of finding a godly spouse Dating is a process of finding a godly spouse real quick caveat before we get into it The Bible has a ton to say about relationships the great commandment is literally to love God and love your neighbor It's all about what it looks like to serve Jesus and love him and then to love the people around you But dating is a relatively modern function, okay? There was no dating back in the first century. There is no range marriage today All right, that could happen if you're lucky tonight in the parking lot But like unlikely unlikely that's gonna happen for you But the Bible doesn't explicitly teach on dating But it has a lot of principles and guardrails and gives us a clear goal on a path towards marriage So what we're gonna see in the word of God tonight is principles and a GPS for what does it look like to pursue dating in a healthy Way here a few verses that are gonna guide us tonight Proverbs 18 verse 22 a man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord Here's a simple idea the Bible has a wildly positive view on marriage You should get married the Bible calls you to that it says you can be fruitful and multiply You can have little ducklings running around everywhere. That's the goal, okay? I want to hold your babies one day. I don't know. I don't want to do that But generally speaking Someone will and corner some kids on a Sunday morning. You'll be fine But that's the principle the Bible has a wildly clear and healthy view of marriage Which is by the way different from our culture our culture is in a moment in history right now We're wondering does marriage still have value? Why not just live with the partner for 10 years and then you know do your whole thing Why not just have kids with your boyfriend or girlfriend the Bible doesn't view it the way culture does the Bible views it as a gift The Bible calls marriage a gift from God not a prison cell by man a good thing not a bad thing So the Bible is clear about the goodness of marriage the gift that marriage is but it also makes it clear that marriage and dating are not the ultimate thing Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 It was a memory verse in the spiritual workout plan a couple months ago But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be provided for you What that means is that though marriage and dating is a really good thing that we should aspire towards That there is a priority list of the Christian and at the top of your list It's not the person you're dating or the spouse that you have, but it's King Jesus He deserves first place in your heart and when you seek first his kingdom everything else will be added to you And the last verse I want to show you here is Romans chapter 12 verse 10 where it says love one another deeply as brothers and sisters Take the lead in honoring one another in other words the posture by which we're going to enter into relationships with Christians With our brothers and sisters in Christ and the people that you choose to date. It's a posture of honor Not of self-serving, not of making much of yourself, but honoring the people around you We're going to get a little bit more into how to do that in point three So from those biblical principles here's the work and definition of dating that we're going to continue to use tonight Dating is the process of finding a godly spouse Let's break down that definition first thing I want to show you is godly who they are in Christ is more important than what they look like We'll talk more about that in point two the second keyword I want to show you is process dating is a process through stages and people to figure out who the person you want to spend the rest of your life is And lastly spouse The goal of dating is not to date a bunch of people for fun the goal of dating ultimately is to find the person that you want to marry and commit to So what is dating from a Christian perspective dating is the process of finding a godly spouse So if that's what dating is and the question is how do I know who to date What does it look like to find that type of person in this room in the park and not wherever you want to go How do I find that type of person three words that we're going to remember together mission friendship attraction You're going to say with me mission friendship attraction one more time mission friendship attraction. Let's cook mission Date a real Christian who wants to live on mission with god Because I want to be really clear here if you are a Christian if Jesus has transformed your life If you would say that Jesus is your lord your savior your god Then do not date an unbeliever Do not date a nominal person who would say oh my Christian by name But nothing has changed in their heart if you think that Jesus is the lord of your life Then do not date an unbeliever. It's not just bad. It's unbiblical and it's a bad idea St. Corinthians 614 through 15 says this Do not do not be yoked together with those who do not believe for what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship does Light have with the darkness what agreement does Christ have with belil or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever Okay, so many guys might have been around and heard the phrase do not be unequally yoked It's a principle that Christians use to describe the closest relationships Christians are to have with other people In particular the person that you marry and the imagery is that of a yoke It says two rams two oxen walking together through the field carrying something together and the imagery is that if one Oxen is going this way the other oxen is going this way You're going to be completely stuck if one person is trying to move towards Jesus and one person is trying to move towards the world You won't grow you'll stay stuck So let me be really clear here that principle of do not be unequally yoked applies to dating as well If you are born again Christian you believe that Jesus is your savior. It is unbiblical and unwise to date an unbeliever So who should you date a real Christian who's on mission with Jesus But here's the last thing I'll say on mission is what about a vanget dating What about a vanget dating? If you don't know what that means a vanget dating is when you date someone you really like or you're in a current relationship with someone Who doesn't know Jesus and your hope is that God would use the mechanism of your relationship to change their heart And I understand why you feel this way Is because you love Jesus and you care a lot about them and you want them to know Jesus too But let me be really clear on this Dating with hopes that your boyfriend or girlfriend were convert to Christianity for you is unwise and unloving to them Imagine dating someone and they want to change the most core principle thing about you flip the tables What if you were dating an atheist and their goal was to convert you from Christianity to atheism That wouldn't be wise or loving for anyone So the first thing that we need to look for in a dating partner is a real follower of Jesus not an unbelievable not an nominal Christian But someone who loves Jesus and wants to live on mission with him But here's the second thing we need to look for is friendship Friendship okay, here's my call for you find someone you genuinely enjoy Being around someone who makes you laugh someone who is a chill hang guys. Here's an application for point for dating Focus on having fun guys Christians are so intense It's like you do not need to talk about your life plan on your first date. Please don't do that You don't have to plan out your will like you don't have to give them 20% of your assets like don't do it Why would you do that? You don't have to be so intense. You're not asking them to marry you. You're asking them to burgeys It's okay. It's a great time And here's why friendship matters so much guys because here's a reality in marriage marriage is significantly less about sex And more about sitting around with that person I know that's not super romantic, but let me just paint the picture, okay? You got to find someone you like enjoy hanging out with Driving around with going to Wendy's late night getting spicy nuggets. I don't know what you like to do Playing board games, Monopoly, Katan, you know what I'm saying? It's a great time. You need to find someone you enjoy sitting around with, sitting at a dinner table with, sitting with other people around, talking with, that is super important. Who you are, friends with that person will determine the health of your marriage. Ultimately, my hope is that all of you would find someone that you really enjoy and that you enjoy laughing with. You know, yesterday morning, a salt student was over to her house, and Josie was discipling her. And Luca wanted me to read Horton, "Here's a Who" to him, and he Horton fans in here. It's a great book. It's like super long. I don't understand why it's such a long children's book, but he wanted me to read it for him, but I was pooping. Okay. I just want to be clear about that. That's a setting. I'm literally, he slams through the door. He's like, "Dad, read me this book." He's still in his sleep sack, and I'm like, "Luca, I love you." "I give everything for you, but not this moment." You know, I'm like, "I need to finish. I'm in my morning routine. I'm going to look presentable." So I was like, "Luca, go find mommy." So he heads out to the living room, and then I head out there a couple minutes later, looking like a normal person. There's a salt student in our living room, and turns out Luca went out there and said, "Daddy is pooping." That was his sentence. And I was like, "First of all, don't tell them that." Second of all, we have a social contract when I was supposed to expose each other. And the whole time, Josie and I were just cracking up. We're like, "This is hilarious. What a hilarious situation." It wasn't that funny to me, you know? But it was awesome. And guys, I actually won't remember that moment. Daddy is pooping is an absolute electric, but those are the moments that are real life. Your kids talking about your bowel movements. That's going to happen to you one day, and you're going to remember this moment, and you're going to think, "Thank goodness I was a part of salt company." But that's life. So much of life are those moments. And Josie and I were just cracking up. We're like, "This is hilarious." Now, this girl knows when I poop. I don't know what it was so funny about it, but it made sense in the moment. But I want you to find someone like that. I want you to find someone you can laugh with and enjoy, because that's the vast majority of life. It's not the high highs. It's not the honeymoon moments. It's just living life with that person. And if you're friends with them, it will be so healthy for your marriage. So here's some questions I want to ask you while you're dating, about am I actually friends with the person that I'm dating? Number one, do we laugh together? Guys, they do not have to be a stand-up comedian, but you have to think they're slightly funny. Life is just too hard and slightly lame. You need it so funny to do life with. You just need that. Two, do we enjoy non-sexual time together? I know. That's an awkward customer. But do you like board gangs? Do you enjoy just hanging out with them? It's going to McDonald's really, really fun. You got to think about that. It's very important. Don't eliminate from Chick-fil-A. That's nothing to do with my sermon. Next move on. Do we enjoy spending time in a group together? Do we enjoy that? When you go over to someone's house, are they just nice to you or are they a godly person? Because they're going to be nice to you because they want to date you. But are they kind to the people around them? Are they kind to the people in their life? They're their friends. Do people actually want to be friends with them? Okay, so that's mission, date a real Christian that actually wants to live on mission for Jesus. That's friendship. Date someone that you're friends with and the last one is attraction, attraction. Attracted to who they are most and what they look like second. We're going to get into being attracted to their soul in a second. But I do want to just say here, it is good to be attracted to the person you're dating. There is like nothing wrong with being physically attracted to your future spouse. Six years ago, right before COVID-19, what a horrendous year 2020, never go back. I saw Josie at Solcoming Conference in 2020. I looked across the room and I thought to myself, man, she is beautiful. She's hot, you know, I thought that. And I talked to my buddy, Khan, I'm like, do you think she's single and we were kind of like, I don't know. People in ministry get married when they're like 14 years old, so we're like, unlikely that she's single. Just roasting my own staff. I'm sorry, guys. Marriage is a good thing. I don't even know. That's the whole point of this sermon. Get married when you're 22, not 14, preferably. And so we're looking at her and I find her beautiful. And then I go and I start talking to her, start flirting with her. I wear a leather jacket which I don't recommend that. And then Sunday morning, I take her out of a worship set to ask her out. I mean, that's just so, that's so holy. You should try it. Second half of worship is a little shorter tonight because I have how long my message is. You've got about seven or eight minutes. So if you want to move quickly, just take them out to the parking lot and ask them on a date. But now we have kids. So it totally worked out. And guys, here's what I want to say. I find Josie beautiful. There is nothing wrong with being physically attracted to someone. You should be physically attracted to the person you want to date. Like some of you tonight, it's a slightly dark room. You're going to look across the way. If you're in the back corner, we cannot see your faces at all. So that's not going to work. But you're going to look across the way. You're going to see so. And you might think, man, they're beautiful. They're hot. They're handsome. Whatever you think to yourself. And that's a good thing. We want there to be a physical attraction between you and your spouse. That is a healthy thing. But even more important than the physical attraction, the way that you're physically attracted to them is that you would be attracted to their soul. That more than their face, you would care about their heart for Jesus. And here's why. Because Bible and life says the face fades. Proverbs 31 says this, "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised." A paraphrase would be everyone gets slightly wrinkly, unfashionable and smelly. That's just what happens to all people. We all know it. That's going to happen. But someone who loves Jesus will grow more beautiful day by day. Three years ago, I looked across the room at the Boyn Convention Center and I saw Joseph and I thought she was beautiful. But today, she's the most beautiful she's ever been to me. The truth is, Joseph has a couple more wrinkles now. That's just true about life. I have great hairs and I've gained some weight. It's just true. We all been there. But every single day, I've watched Joseph grow more beautiful. Because as she's aged, she's suffered with Jesus. She's walked with him. I've seen her carry Luca in an ER room in one of the worst nights of our lives. I've seen Joseph do incredible things for Jesus and I've seen her move forward in faith and disciple women and love people. And so truth is, one day, we're going to be 90 and smelly and wrinkly. I know that day is coming. And beauty will have far faded on that day, but on that day, I will find Joseph more beautiful than the day that I first met her. Because she will have a heart that's transformed by Jesus. I want you to marry someone like that. I want you to date someone that, yes, you look across the room and you think they're so hot. That's totally great. But their heart and their soul has been transformed by Jesus so that when you're at 90 years old, you can say there's never been a day that you've been more beautiful to me. So that's attraction. It matters what they look like, yes, but it matters who they are even more. Physical attraction is not bad, so level attraction is what you want. So who do I date? I date someone who aligns with mission, friendship and attraction. That's what we are looking for when we say, find who to date. The last thing I want to say here before we finish the "who" is a big miss I see in dating culture, where we're so obsessed with finding the right person that we use a magnifying glass to scrutinize everyone around us, but we don't pick up a mirror to look and ask the question, am I the type of person? Am I the person that's on mission for Jesus? Am I a real Christian who lives on mission for him? Am I a good friend to the people around me? Do I make life about them, not about myself, and am I growing spiritually? Is my soul becoming more attractive day by day even when my face fades? Before you pull a magnifying glass up to every single person in the room tonight, I want to encourage you to take a moment and pick up a mirror and say, who am I? Am I the type of person that someone that I want to be with wants to be with? Ask yourself that question. So quick review. What is dating? Dating is the process of finding a godly spouse. Who do we date, mission, friendship, attraction, but here's the million dollar question. How the heck do you do this thing? Okay. I don't know about you guys, but dating is so confusing. There's no guidance out there. It's got less instructions than IKEA manual. You're like, what do I do? There's this throw stuff at the wall, but the wall is your future spouse forever. You're like, how do I do this? Okay. Let's get into it. We're going to answer three questions on how to date. Number one, we're going to talk about how to start a relationship. Number two, we're going to talk about the stages and boundaries of relationship. And lastly, we're going to talk about how to end a relationship. Okay. So let's begin with how to start a relationship. Couple principles. Number one, listen to Taylor Swift. Come on. She's married. She understood the assignment. She got married, she got there with Travis. I don't think they followed a lot of this statement, but you know, I'm just saying, generally speaking, they got to the point of marriage. That's cool. Your friends talk to my friends, talk to me. All right. We're gauging interest. You know, we're like, man, are they interested, warm it up? You guys get what I'm saying. Number two, start getting good at organizing co-ed group hangs. Listen. It's not a bad thing to approach someone cold, but it's sometimes nice to have a 30 minute conversation just to warm up the relationship, you know. be normal. Ask them about their life. Great. Number three, stop being so afraid you're going to crash and burn your friend group. Stop it. Stop it. I hear this all the time, but what if I date that person? And we go on like two chill normal dates, and then we don't end up together, then we have to find new friends. I'm like, no, no, that's stupid. That's stupid. Just come by y'all with a friend group. Get everyone in a circle. Listen, raise your finger. Be like, we're not doing this. We're doing this. We're doing this. Anyone can go on dates with anyone, and then we're still going to be friends no matter how awkward it is. It's always fine. We're adults. You can do this. Number four, when you're ready to make the ask, here's the posture. Be chill. Relax is always the best. Number two, be joyful. This isn't you asking them to marry you. This is you asking them to go on a date with you. Be ready for a no. Boys, your identities in Christ, it will burn a little bit, but you'll be okay. And lastly, be bold. Guys in World War II, people are aged. You supply bomber planes. You know what I'm saying? You can ask your girl out on A to Hayden. You're going to be okay. People risk their lives for this country. You can risk a little bit of social credibility to ask your girl out on a date. Alright. I did not know the historical references would work so well, the service, but I got to say I'm pleased by that. Alright, moving on. So those are the principles of starting a relationship. Be bold. Listen to Taylor Swift, get good at organizing things, stop being so afraid of your friend group. They don't bite. Now I want to talk to you about what it looks like to move through the stages of a relationship. If you hear last year, Mark made Mark Vance or Lee Pastor made a graphic that he made for his children, but now we use it for us. And so understanding of what it looks like to move through stages of a relationship and boundaries of a relationship. So we're going to put it on the screens right here. On top, we got the stages of dating. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Let's move through them. 0, you have a crush. You see them across the room. It's slightly dark and you don't have lace-sake, your heart flutters a little bit, and that's good. That's a crush. Stage 1, you've asked them out on a real date. Boys, you didn't just assume they could sense your desires. You didn't just assume that you could talk to them once and they would suddenly imagine being married to you. You said, had love to take you out to coffee and you went on that date. Girls, let me just speak to you. If they are a kind, godly dude, can you just say yes? They're not asking you to marry them. They're asking you if they can buy you an $8.50 cent latte. If I'm a girl, I'm like, I'm having caffeine anyways. Why not let's just do this. I'd ask for an iced oat milk meal with honey, cinnamon, two pumps of vanilla. You can do whatever you want. That's not your money. You want to save $8.50 a day. You know how much that is? Compound interest wise when you're 60. You get three dates a week. That's $25.50. That's $100.00 and $4.00 a month. That's a lot of money. That's $1,200 a year as long as you're single throughout that whole time. They just want to buy you a latte. I'd consider saying yes. Think about these words. If you're asking or being asked, lighthearted, exploring, fun. If they're no more nice, maybe you go on another one. It can be like that. You don't have to get married to them. You're just saying, I'm open to the idea of going on a date with you. Stage two, you are now officially dating. There is a label. You are now exclusive. It is the 4th of July every day in your soul. I mean, this is the best. I mean, oh my goodness, the sun shines bright. All the aches and pains you've had in your body are suddenly gone. I mean, it is amazing what dopamine can do for your body, am I right? Okay. That's stage two. You are actively pursuing each other and starting to ask, is this the kind of person I'd be open to marrying? You're not saying, hey, I'm in all the way. There's no ring on this finger. You have not signed any documents. You're saying, I'm open. You're the type of person I think mission French attraction might be aligning with. Stage three, you are in serious dating. You are steady. You are thinking about the future. You're probably about one to two years in. You're starting to think about engagement. You're starting to talk about the future. You're starting to think about marriage. Stage four, engaged. This is relatively simple. You are wedding planning. You are in the time between dating and marriage, which by the way is one of the hardest times to fight for purity. So you're fighting with a holy fire to honor Jesus with your body and you're not going to move past the stages physically until you are married. Now, here's the point that I want to make here up until this point. At the end of stage four, you are not married. One of the things I've heard so many times in college ministry is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand boundaries are wise for other people, but we're going to get married. And I've heard so many people who said that that broke up. So up until this point, you are not married, which means doing married like stuff before this point is only going to hurt you, not help you. Stage five, you are married. You have not made a covenant with the person you'll be with through sickness and health, through prosperity and pain, till death do as part. That's when the pastor says you can kiss and then we'll go, it's a great time. It's a great time. Here's why the stages of dating are so important. The word dating is used for stages one through three, but the problem is stages one to three are like fundamentally different. Stage one is like, I'm getting free lattes from this person, which is a good deal. And stage three is like, I might spend the rest of my life with them. Those are two different things. Okay, so here's a reality. We understand the word dating. I actually think it's an unhelpful paradigm or framework, but instead you should think about stages. What stages our relationship in and the stage that you're in will impact the boundaries that you pursue. So here are the categories of the boundaries. We got physical, emotional, and spiritual. Let's go down at physical stage zero, none. Stage one, none. Stage two, hands and hugs, hands and hugs. No doubt. Side hugs until then. I'm just kidding. Do whatever you want. Not whatever you want, but you know what I'm saying. Stage three and four, wise limits, clear avoidance of sexual activity. Stage five, sex. It is true that that is true, but when it came out at that time, fault funny. Here's a question a lot of people ask, how far can we go, right? That's the question that we're asking in physical boundaries. How far can we go? Another way to phrase that would be, what is the line of sin? What is the line of sin? This is a heart. That was hard to recover from. I'll say that. It's all right, Ben. Because this series helped you so much last year, I'll forgive you. All right. Ben is on gauge of Chloe. It doesn't matter. Let's keep moving. Let's keep moving. Here's one verse that we're helpful to think about with physical boundaries. Verse Corinthians 6, 18. "Fly sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the one who is sexually immoral sins against his own body." Yeah, I'm about to get awkwardly specific for the next 30 seconds. Just stay with me. Here's the biblical definition of sexual morality. Any sexual activity outside of marriage. Which includes intercourse, oral sex, touching private areas, taking off of any clothing, kissing while laying down, and any activity that would charge you up sexually. I want to be clear, any sexual activity outside of marriage is sin. And because of that, the question and physical boundaries in your relationship should shift from how close can we get to how far can we flee? That's the principle. I understand the temptation and the emotions and the moment and the way that it's so hard to fight for those things. So you might need to plan with your community. What does it look like to not put yourself in situations where you're going to be tempted to pass physical boundaries? Next, let's move on to emotional boundaries. The question that we'll be asking here is the age old, when should I tell someone I love them? When do you use the L word in the context of a relationship? Here's some helpful language. Stage 0. You think, "I could like you." Maybe. Stage 1. I may be like you. Every latte you get me makes you like me more. We're now up to $45 of lattes. I think I could like you. Stage 2. Puppy love. Man, this is a fun stage. It's electric. Stage 3 and 4. You have now entered into the stage where you're really actively thinking about making a commitment to them. It's not the full commitment of marriage, but late stage 3 or even the moment of engagement is often when you should start saying the phrase, "I love you." Stage 5. Love as a commitment for a lifetime not a feeling. Here's the principle I want to give here. Don't let your heart move past the stage that you're in and be careful with the words that you use. If you're in stage 2, do not say, "I love you," unless you say, "I puppy love you," and then that's just cute. They know you're not being serious. But if you say that I love you at an early stage and you let your heart get there, if you break up without the commitment, it's going to be really, really painful. Don't let your heart move past the stage and be careful with the words that you say. Okay, last type of boundaries that we're going to see here are the spiritual And the emphasis I don't want to give here is often times people think, man, the spiritual boundaries I have is like, oh, we shouldn't do too many Bible studies together. Like we shouldn't interweave our emotions together that much or our spiritual thoughts. And that's true, like generally speaking, I wouldn't recommend intertwining your small, you know, your time with God too quickly, it's not a good idea. But actually the most important thing about spiritual boundaries is not necessarily if you do Bible studies together or not, but it's asking really clear questions about where they're out with Jesus. That's the spiritual boundaries that I actually want to focus in on here. Stage zero, are they a Christian? That's what you're trying to figure out when you're looking across the room. You're like, hmm, they're hot. But are they a Christian? You want to ask that question? If the answer is no, hard-stop. Stage one, are they a committed Christian? You got the free latte or two or three. And you're asking the question, are they for real? Do they actually love Jesus? No? Hard-stop. Stage two. How committed are they? Are you aligned on things like mission, and theology, and big issues? Have you guys talked through a little bit like, okay, this is how I view God, and this is what I want my life to look like. Stage three. Do our spiritual depth and rhythms match? Do they want to be committed members of the same type of church together? Does the person you're dating read their Bibles faithfully or are they just attenders? Stage four. No more questions about who they are. You should know for a fact that at this stage they deeply love Jesus. You have a similar vision for your life. You want to serve the Church of God together. That should be clear here. Stage five. Build a kingdom, be fruitful, multiply, make disciples, and babies. That's rock. Great time. Here's what I want you to understand, that these questions are more important than how cute your divos are together, or if they can pray out loud together, you need to understand the condition of their soul and their commitment to Jesus. Engagement is not the right time to ask, does this person love Jesus? These dating is not the right time to ask, I wonder if they come to Salt with me one day. These are not the right times to ask those questions. You need to ask those questions early and get answers on them early as you move through the stages. Okay, here's the overall principle that I want to give you for all of these boundaries, is that paths lead to places. So if you keep going down the path of pushing an emotional or spiritual or physical boundary, don't be surprised when the place that you land is a place of sin and brokenness. So for physical, be slow and flee sexual morality. You don't have to be terrified, but you should be so reminded about how the paths of physical boundaries can often lead to sexual sin. Emotionally, don't let your heart move beyond your stage. Guys, guarding your heart isn't the same thing as being guarded. You can open up and be authentic without giving your heart away before there's a real commitment. Spiritual. Asking questions about who they are in Christ is more important than doing Bible studies with them. Okay, here's the last thing that I want to address in this. Beyond this chart is something that we call break up pain. And break up pain is this idea that at different stages of different relationships, you're going to have different amounts of pain when they end. So for an interest or stage zero, it's going to be like a bee sting. It's going to be a little bit of a bummer. If you look across the way, you ask people how she says no, which girls you shouldn't. But you know, the principle of that, it's going to be a little bit of bummer, but you're going to be okay. Stage one, it's like a bummer bruise. Stage two, it's a serious brain. Like, that's going to take you some time. If you're dating someone and there's a label and you're exclusive and you break up like that, that is a hard thing. Stage three, serious dating, think one year plus. To break up with that person is like a broken leg. You've learned at some level to walk with that person through life and you've actually built relationships with their family and it's really, really painful to break up with someone after a year. What is going on right now? Kind of a bump in music, very good, okay. Stage four, the break up pain for engagement is paralysis. You know, when engagement is break off, it completely changes the life of that person. For like a while, it's going to take a while to heal from that. And stage five, with marriage, the break up pain is like death. It's like a funeral in someone's life. And some of you guys know that because you're from divorced homes and you've had parents that have broken up with each other or divorced with each other and you know that it might have taken them years to become who they were before. It's like dealing with this grief of death. Now, the reason why I share this story is because, or the reason why I explained the break up pain for you guys is because if you do marriage or like stuff in a relationship that's not marriage, you might still experience the break up pain of marriage. So, if you're crossing boundaries, if you're having sex, if you're given your heart over to that person and you no longer have any spiritual boundaries, and by the time that you get to marriage, level commitment without the commitment of a ring, without the commitment of a life, if you break up in that stage, it might feel like death. And that's something that I've seen so many, so many people walk through is a break up that doesn't feel like a bruise, it doesn't feel like a broken leg, it doesn't feel like a sprain, it feels like they died because you gave away parts of yourself and your relationship that made it seem more like marriage than like dating. So, when you got broken up with, or you broke up with that person, it felt more like the pain of divorce than it should have. So that's why it's important that you understand that. These stages are not meant to scare you, these stages are meant to protect you, to give the wisdom on what it looks like to move forward in a healthy way. And so, throughout your dating process, my encouragement for you is to think about the stage that you're in and pace well with the boundaries that God has given you in a really healthy way, to live a wise way in your relationship. Okay, so now that we've discussed, what does it look like to start a relationship and what does it look like to live in a relationship? Here's the final thing I want to show you here is what it looks like to end a relationship. Okay, this is really, really important that you learn how to do this well because the dating is a process, it might not just be that you date one person and you get married, although that would be awesome, you shoot your shot, you get a bull's eye, but for a lot of you, you're going to date a couple different people. Have a couple different serious relationships before you find the person that you want to marry. So what does it look like to break up with someone in an honorable way? Number one, in person, please do not break up with people over text, worst case scenario, face time if you're flight away. Number two, clarity. clarity is kindness. Listen, if you don't feel romantically interested in them, just tell them that. It's better than having them guess about what the reason could be. Number three, honest but not brutal. You need to be clear, but please don't nitpick every single thing you don't like about that person and that conversation. That's not honoring to them. They need to know your honesty, but not the brutality. They don't need to beat down. Number four, don't blame God. Do not tell them that God told you to break up with them unless they were out of alignment with the mission, unless they weren't real Christians. And at that point, you do have to tell them that your belief system is different than theirs and you don't want to live in a relationship with someone by trying to drag them into your belief system. You want them to figure it out on their own, but for this time, it would not be healthy for you to continue dating. And outside of that, please do not blame God and tell them that you broke up with them. That God broke up with them. Don't do it. Number five, let yourself be sad. Guys, grieving is a normal part of the human life. Whether you're the one who got broken up with or the one who broke up with them, it's incredibly normal to be sad about the experience. And here's a bonus one, ask for help. Have one to two people who know when you're going to break up with them or you can call right after you're being broken up with where they can take you out to dinner and just give you a night off to be with people that you love and can hold you accountable to not go back to that person and rekindle something if your reason was legitimate. So what does it look like to break up with someone in a healthy way in person with clarity, with honesty, but not brutality, please do not blame God and let yourself be sad and ask for help. Okay, so as we transition back in a worship, every dating relationship that you'll ever be in will end in breakup or engagement. So for some of you in the room, based on what you just heard in this message, if you're a follower of Jesus and you're dating someone who's not a believer or you're dating someone in a way that's not healthy, you might need to break up with that person. And my encouragement for you is to bring that to community, to bring that to mentors in your life and say, "Hey, this is the condition of our relationship should I end things with this person." That'd be a really healthy next step for you if you're living out of alignment with God's wisdom through his word on relationships. But for some of you in this room, you need to take your shot. You need to go after someone tonight in a healthy, non-creepy way. Just talk to them. Get to know them. Have a 20 to 30 minute conversation in the foyer and as long as the vibes are decent, ask them out on a date. Buy them an $8.50 latte and if you're like, "That's too much." You just get a T, you know, like a $2 T and it'll offset it to be like $10.50, it won't break the bank. No on dates, we want Salchimney to be one of the healthiest dating cultures in Ames, out of our state. We want people here to be free to pursue other people in a healthy way knowing that if you know how to date well and you know how to break up well, if you know how to honor that person. then it's all gonna be okay. Just pursue each other. That's a great next step for you. Guys, we enter back in a worship. This whole message was about how to pursue a healthy dating relationship. With wisdom and honor, Jesus had its center and pursuing that in a really beautiful way. But for some of you, you might have gone to the point of this message and you might be thinking, what if that's not been my story? What if my story's not a healthy relationship but a broken relationship? What if my story isn't purity, but it's sexual brokenness? What if my story's that I have watched so much porn that the mental images in my mind just can't go away? What if I'm not, I'm too broken? Does Jesus actually want to love someone like me? One of my most core college hinge moments was after freshman year, I was leaving a dorm of a girl that I wasn't even technically dating and we had crossed almost all of those boundaries. You know, it was like 2 a.m. that I was walking back to my dorm and I just felt the shame and brokenness and frustration and sadness of that moment. And I remember wondering, would Jesus want to love someone as broken as me? And to answer that question, I actually want to tell you a story from a pastor named Matt Chandler, who talks about this moment. It was kind of a critical moment in his life where he was sitting in a room much like this and he was watching a pastor talk, preach on sex. And there was a little bit of fear, mongering of all. There was like, hey, like don't have sex. You're gonna get a bunch of this stuff. It was kind of a dark old school message on how to talk about this. But then this pastor takes out this rose. And it's this beautiful rose and it smells great. He's like smelling it. He's like, man, this is incredible rose. And then he gives it to a person in the crowd. And he's like, hey, everyone's smell the rose and they smell it and it moves through a crowd of like 1,000 people. And at the end of his message, he asks for the rose back. And he gets back the rose and he can imagine 1,000 people have touched it. So there's like petals have fallen off. It's like broken. There's pieces of it that are off. And the kind of the crescendo of this guy's messages, who would want the rose? Who'd want someone that has been passed around who's had a broken past with a lot of sexual sin and brokenness and shame? Who in the world would want that? And Matt says, it's really beautiful sentence. He says, Jesus wants the rose. Jesus wants the rose. Like that's the gospel. If you're here and you have a story of shame and brokenness like I feel when I was a freshman in college and all the stuff that I wish I didn't do, Jesus wants the rose. If that's your story, Jesus wants the rose. He wants you. Jesus died for the rose. He bled for the rose. He was broken for the rose. The thorns were pressed into his head for the rose. That's the good news of the gospel. It's not that only perfect people get, there are no perfect people. So from here on out, I just want to make it clear. Grace covers history. So whatever you've done, whatever your story is, whatever shame you're carrying into this room, Jesus wants the rose. Grace covers it all. So from here on out, no matter what you've done in your past, we now move forward. And we say, Jesus, if Jesus is the Lord of your life, you're saying to him, Jesus, thank you for loving the rose. I want to move forward in faith. I want to grow. I want to pursue holiness in my relationships moving forward. I want to pursue wisdom. So I want to encourage all of us in the room tonight, no matter what you've done or what your story is, Jesus wants the rose and he's calling you into a better life. A healthier life, a life of wisdom and holiness that we saw here in the world. Let me pray for us as we enter into worship. Jesus, I love that story. Who would want the rose? Who would want a rose with its petals that have been broken off and the stem that's a little bit broken? Who would want that rose? And Jesus tonight, I'm grateful that when I was a freshman walking back from that dorm and I was a broken rose, you wanted the rose. You wanted me. So tonight, I want to ask you, Jesus, to lift shame from this room. Whatever history that people are bringing in, I pray that your grace covers it, that the shame is lifted, that the beauty of the gospel was made clear that Jesus, you died for the rose. You bled for the rose. You took upon a thorn, a crown of thorns for the rose. That's what you did. And I pray that from here on out, a new story, a new chapter would be written in all of the people's lives in this room. Not a story of brokenness and sin and shame, but a story of wisdom and hope and holiness as they move forward in relationships. We pray that 30 years from now, generations would be changed because of the people in this room that chose to date in a way that honored you. Thank you, Jesus. So as we worship you tonight, Jesus, we raise our hands high, we lift up our voices and we say thank you that even in our worst moments, you wanted the rose. And you're mainly pray, amen, amen.