Relationship Goals Week 1

Hey, this is Zach with the City on the Health Podcast. I'm the youth director of Grace Baptist Church in Cotsville, Indiana, where this message was recorded live during one of our youth services. I hope you will find this to be a blessing, I hope it helps you, and I hope it will help you grow closer to our safe. Enjoy the message. [Music] Ephesians 6, 1 through 3 says this. "Children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is first commandment, with promise, and may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." We are starting a new series tonight. I haven't done a series in a long time. We're starting a new series tonight called Relationship Goals. Relationship Goals. All right, we're talking about, here's what I want to do with this series, okay? If you guys have been in church at all, mostly you have been in church for a long time. You've heard sermons on dating, you've heard sermons on all that stuff. My goal with this is not to discourage you guys from dating, okay? I don't want to spend the next three weeks telling you guys what's, if it's okay, if it's not okay, when it's okay, that's not my goal. My goal is to tell you if you date how you do it, what the Bible says how you should do it. Okay, that's my goal. Because I know a lot of you guys are dating, I know a lot of you guys are getting ready today, you have dated. And so what I want to do, I want to show you how to date as a teenager in 2020 from the perspective of the Bible. I think it's an important thing to teach. I don't remember a time, and all my time of being in church, and I heard a message on how you should date. Not only just if you should date or when you should date, but how you should date. So that's what I want to do in this. Now, let me start with this. So when we look at marriage, the idea of marriage, it's bringing two people together into one. Okay, everybody understand there by agreement with that? The idea in the Bible talks about taking marriage, taking two people, a husband and a wife, putting them together and making one. Now, when you date as a teenager, you should be separate but together. What do I mean by that? You are separate, emotionally, physically, sexually, in a relationship, but at the same time you are together. The Bible does not say, when you date, you become one. That is not at all the purpose of dating. You are separate, but you are still together, and that's why it's so hard. Teen dating is so hard because you have to be together in a relationship, but you can't be together in the way that a husband or wife are if you're following what the Bible says. If you want it to be successful. So a few questions for you. Let me start with this. Do you guys want your relationships to be blessed? Do you want your relationships to glorify God? Some of you may say yes, some of you may say I don't really care, but this depends on what we're looking at. And do you want a happy and productive relationship? I would say there's a few people in here that say, you know what? I want a terrible relationship. Like man, that would be so fun. We fight all the time. We hate each other. That would be great. If you say no to any of these questions, if you say, you know what? I don't really care about what I'm going to do. I don't really care about being blessed. Then when you guys get your hearts broke and you're depressed and you're sitting there all not listening to Taylor Swift, then come back, come back, and I'll tell you how to fix it the next time. Or when you're signing your divorce papers. Come back and ask me. If you say yes to these and listen up, I'm going to show you how from the Bible, how you can have a successful, happy relationship as you're dating, how it would be blessed and how to go or if I got. What do you guys want out of your relationship? And here, and I want you guys to understand this, I say relationship, not relationships. Big difference. Let me say something. This is going to make things mad. Don't look at each other when I say this, please. Every time you break up with somebody, it's a failure. Listen, listen. Because the purpose of dating, the purpose of this whole thing is not to simply have a boyfriend or girlfriend. That's not why you date. You don't want to just simply have somebody to have fun and to give by for fears. That's not what the Bible says that dating should be. And so every time you break up, it's a failure. Something has been done wrong. In this series, I don't want to condemn dating. I don't want to do that. What I would like to kind of make this is like marriage counseling for dating teenagers. That sounds exciting, right? Marriage counseling for dating teenagers. I want to show you how to do that and a pleasing way. Tonight, for the first week, we're going to look at how to pick the one, the one and only, how to pick. First of all, my goal is not to tell you when it's okay to date. Plain and simple. That's up to your parents. Let me say that again. Let me tell you something. God is against you dating if your parents are against you dating. Period. Parents are against it. God's against it. Why is that? Because God is on the side of your parents. And you say, well, my parents are crazy. My parents don't know anything. My parents don't even go to church. I don't even know God is. Let me read you something. Ephesians 6.1 says, children obey your parents. Does it say unless your parents are crazy? Does it say unless your parents go to church? Does it say unless your parents are good outstanding people? Does it say unless your parents are nice? It doesn't say. It says, children obey your parents and the Lord. For this is right. And not even obey them. Honor your father and mother. Unless they're crazy, right? No. Unless they don't go to church. Now honor your father and mother. And even says this. That, it may be well with you. And thou mayest live long on the earth. A lot of you, I've heard it all. I've heard it all. Why do you teenagers have this like Romeo and Juliet in mind? Do you guys have to read that in class, Romeo and Juliet? So it's this play about a Shakespeare. It's this play about these two people that their parents don't like each other, the families. And the two kids, they want to be together, but their parents won't let them. And so they date and they die. Yeah. You guys don't have to read Shakespeare anymore? OK. What? Hold on. OK. A lot of you guys have this mindset. You're like, well, I'm supposed to be with this person. They are the person for me. I know it. But only if my parents would just let me, because they're trying to suppress my love or whatever. Listen, if your parents aren't allowing you today, God's not allowing you to date either. If you're going to date outside of it, you're sending-- and not only that, but he's saying, I don't care if I send. Your relationship won't be blessed. You guys understand that, right? If you want a good relationship, you're not going to date somebody when your parents won't let you, because God will not bless your relationship. You'll be unhappy. You'll be unsatisfied. And it won't be blessed. So you can say, well, I don't really care. I don't really care about pleasing God. I don't really care about pleasing my parents. But you're not going to have a good relationship. Point and simple. Me and Alex, we started dating when I was a junior and she was a senior. And every time I say that, you guys are-- yeah, no, I get those-- what? I was a junior. I was a junior, she was a senior. Now, both of our parents allowed us to date. And by the way, you guys want to know how I know that, because I asked her dad if I could. Yeah. Girls, let me tell you something. Girl, I was going to have you guys split up today, so I could focus on you. But girls, let me tell you something. You guys want to know if a guy is really worth it to you? Tell them to go ask your dad first. Girls, you want to know if a guy really means all the things he text you? Tell them to go ask your parents if they approve of you. That's an old thing. Is a biblical? Is a biblical not necessarily? It's culturally biblical. But I think it's a good rule to follow, girls. Try that. See, if they still care about you as much as they say. Anyways. You know, your parents-- your parents-- listen up-- your parents should know about you guys dating. Why? Well, I think one reason-- for accountability. It's OK to be accountable. When you're in a marriage, you're accountable to your spouse and to God. You make that covenant to them when you get married. When you are dating, you should be accountable to God and your parents. That's biblical. So the Bible says, your parents should know why you're dating. And you say, why don't want my parents to know that I'm dating? That's probably because you're doing something you shouldn't be. If you don't want your parents to know you're dating, it's most likely because there's something they wouldn't like about you dating. And if you're doing that, once again, you're just pleasing God. And once again, you'll have a bad relationship. All this goes back to, do you want to have a good relationship or not? You can take it even further and take it on the right approach and say, why I want to go or if I got. But even on practical level, do you have a good relationship or a battle? Because if you're disobeying God, it's going to be bad. Plain and so forth. He's not going to bless it. Ephesians 6, 1 through 3. Children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. So moving on just a little bit. What is the purpose of dating? Let me talk about two words. You guys probably heard this before. We have dating and courtship. He's never heard of the word courtship. And I feel old. Let me explain this to you. So back in the day, there was this word called courtship. Now, let me explain what this means. Courtship is basically this means that people used to find husbands and wives. It was usually shaperown. They had adults go with them on dates. They-- it's very superficial. That's what I'm going for. It's very superficial. It was basically this. This person's goal is this person's characteristics. They match this person pretty well. And the families both like them so they get together. And they get married. It's pretty superficial. And then we have dating. Dating is sort of the opposite. So you have courtship, which is superficial. It's very surface level. And then you have dating, which is self-centered. Because what dating does is it says, what can I do to get a boyfriend or girlfriend? What can I do to get somebody that makes me happy that supports me, that I like, that builds me up? That's sort of what dating is. And so which one is right? Well, I think it's really sort of a mixture of the two is what we're looking at. It's not self-centered, but it shouldn't be superficial is what this Christian dating looks like. What are some wrong reasons today? Listen up, first of all, peer pressure, peer pressure. You should never, ever go date somebody just because your friends are dating somebody too. That's such a wrong reason, such a wrong reason. Listen, if you don't wanna end up like everybody else, don't act like everybody else. You know how many people get divorced a lot? I think it's 50% emergent or end-in-divorce. Does anybody say here, I wanna divorce. I love a divorce, it'd be so great. I can't say that. (laughing) Nobody says that, nobody says that. If you want to end up in that road, then do what everybody else does and ends up in that road. They date for the wrong reasons. Benefits, receiving attention, sexual intimacy, feelings, meaning, perceived happiness, just fine. All the things that have nothing to do with the person, nothing to do with you, but what you get out of it. If you date somebody simple for the benefits of what you get out of it, that's where it's gonna end. It's gonna end with what you get out of it and listen eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore. And you're gonna go through five, six, seven, boyfriends, girlfriends until you think you found the person. Your emotions, makes you feel good, right? Somebody likes you, somebody likes you enough to date you. That's not a good reason to get together. You know that feeling you get when somebody asks you out or you ask somebody out and they accepted that feeling is enough for a lot of people to go give themselves away to somebody and it shouldn't. And then this, trying to find completion in somebody else, trying to find completion. There's this old Greek mythology thing. You got steady Greek mythology at all in school anymore. Greek mythology. So in Greek mythology, they used to say this, that people were originally created with four, oh, I'll read this, so make sure I get it. So with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. In Greek mythology, they say that's how people used to be, used to be created. And then it says that Zeus, the God of Greek mythology, fearing their power, he split them into two separate parts. So you get what we have today, people with two arms, two legs in one face. And according to Greek mythology, Zeus split them apart so that they would have to continually for the rest of their lives search for their other half. Okay? It's a good story, right? You can't find completion and something that's incomplete. If you're trying to make yourself complete with somebody else that's incomplete, doesn't work. You're never going to be complete trying to search and somebody else that isn't complete either. I was gonna do this example, I don't have for a second time, but picture if I were to have two or a paper plate up here, and I were to cut it in half. You take those two halves, you put it together, you have a whole plate, right? No, you have two halves that are put together. What happens when you drop something on the plate? Goes right through, right? Falls right through. You have two halves. Two halves don't make a one. Unless you take something that's whole and you support it. So if I take those two halves of a plate and I put a full plate underneath it, then does it support? Does it hold up? What's that thing underneath? Anybody take a guess? God, right? Because he's the only thing that is complete. You can't take two incompletes, put it together and expect yourself to be complete. Why do I say that? Too many of you are dating because you feel like something is missing and you're going to search to fill that with somebody else who is also missing something. And when you put that together, you get two people that are facing their battles alone, but now they're facing each other's battles and it doesn't work and you're still incomplete. The only thing that can make you complete in dating, in marriage, and any relationship is God. And until you realize that, you're going to struggle over and over and over and you're going to break up over and over and over because that person didn't complete you. There was something missing when you were together. Something wasn't complete. So what's the correct reason to date? Well, listen, you should date because you believe the person you're dating has the qualities of somebody to marry. Why do I say that? I don't expect you guys in high school to be looking for a marriage partner. Okay, I hope you guys are getting married in high school. Because of that, because most of you in high school are not yet marriage material and that's okay. You don't have to be. You're in high school. But if you're going to date, you should be looking for somebody that has the qualities of somebody you may marry or you could marry. Let me talk for a little bit about the difference in these words, priorities and preferences. And priorities and preferences. Preferences are superficial. They're surface level. They're desires. Well, priorities are character centered. They are deep. They are needs. Okay, choosing based on preferences. If you pick a husband or you pick a boyfriend or a girlfriend based on preferences, those things are superficial, incompatible, and that's kind of what I should be able to have. Let me put it like this. Some of you girls, I want a guy that's six foot two. That's 160 pounds with brown hair, a place football in the guitar and he adds a beach house and malibu. And if I don't get him, I'm not dating anybody. (laughs) Any of you girls ever thought anything like that? You should have a break up, right? You're like, I'm not dating anybody unless they're absolutely perfect. That's preferences, okay? That's preferences. Hey, you can prefer all you want. Good for you girls if you have preferences, okay? And you guys too. But priorities, priorities, listen, priorities, are character centered, they're deep, they're needs. There are things that you say, I will not date this person unless they have these priorities. Let's say, imagine. Priorities are things like this. They love God. They go to church, they're kind. They are a decent person. So if you guys don't even match up that when you're picking people, they're character centered. Okay, the world, you see the world puts a preference on the priorities. How many of you guys have maybe said something like this to go to church? You know, they're really good looking. Oh, and they go to church. Yes, or something like that? It really should be the other way around, okay? It should be, hey, this guy or girl, they love God. And they're good looking, right? It should be the other way around. So let me do this. Let me do this. Let me help you guys out a little bit. You say, what should my priorities be? What should my priorities be? Man, I'm going to, if you guys listen to me and you're dating people, I hope you don't, I hope you don't all go break up with you. I hope I don't cause a mass like depression tonight. Here's, here's your priorities to be girls. Guys, listen up. First of all, write these down. Do they love you or care for you more than themselves? Okay, that's first of all right. If you guys think, dang it, just gonna break up now. Do they love or care for you more than themselves? Second, second, listen up. Do they love God more than themselves? They love God more than themselves. Do they love God more than you? They care more about God than they do you. Do they love you or care for you more than others? Is there family members? Is there friends? Is there sports? Is there something else that they can, they can just put before you? Cause listen, listen, if they put it before you now, they'll put it before you when you're married, okay? Do they love care for you more than others? And then finally, do they love God more than others? If you guys can check all that off and you say, you know what, that guy or that girl that I'm looking today, they really match that up. They're not perfect, okay? They make mistakes and that's okay. But are they generally following this? If I look at them, when I describe them in this way, then you got somebody good. And that's somebody that God may have designed for you. And if it's not, listen, God didn't create them for you. And you know what happens when you marry somebody, God didn't create for you? It's not good. It's not blessed. And you'll be unhappy. Is that what you guys want? Like is that what you want? You say, that's how I want to live my life. Unhappy for the rest of my time with somebody that's not designed for me. So ending off here. What's this kind of final picture of an available teenager? You guys know the app Tinder. I hope you guys are on Tinder. Please don't be on Tinder. But picture like this, on Tinder. You have these like bios, right? Like you try to find people and you have these bios. Your bio, if you're following the Bible, if you're following the Bible and what it says, you should date like, your bio should look something, something like this. I hold to high standards. If you want to be with me, I'm going to hold you to high standards, OK? First one. I only date people that love God. You can just see your guys is like all the inbox messages gone. I find completion and satisfaction in God. I'm looking for someone I can marry. Right then. They're all just gone. Forget it. And then for girls, listen, listen. You have to ask my dad first. I would love to go on Tinder and see somebody put you have to ask my dad first. And then the last one, listen, listen, the last one. I won't sin with you. I won't do it. Listen. If you have this bio in your dating profile, if you have this lifestyle, you're not going to get a lot of dates. If you're living like this, you're not going to get a lot of boyfriend's or girlfriends. And that's OK. It's perfectly OK for you guys not to date somebody. Because when everybody else is throwing their lives away with every person they can find, you guys are actually doing something meaningful. And you're finding somebody that's actually going to help you in your life and not just drag you down. This bio won't get you out of date. But you know what it also is not going to get you? It's not going to get you a ton of heart breaks in your high school years where you don't need it. It's not going to get you involved in sin that ruins your life. It's not going to get you in a bad relationship with God and your parents. It's not going to most likely get you in a divorce. Hopefully, it's not going to get you in an unhappy relationship. It's not going to wait. Give you wasting years of your life with people that don't deserve you Does that sound good to you guys like that's kind of life I want I kind of want to go through all this Godly day and get you happiness and get you spouse get you love care joy all these wonderful wonderful things Well, we're the happiness get you the exact opposite girls girls. I want to talk to you guys for a second I care about you guys a lot. Okay. There's some of you guys. I don't know but I care about you guys a lot. I'm listen Don't waste your life with some loser that doesn't deserve you Okay, no listen. I'm serious. Don't waste your life with some loser that that doesn't deserve you guys You guys are already at a super high standard because you're here tonight and Because maybe you're here for the games or for the friends or whatever but for those of you that are here because you love God You're already Bounds above most of guys That's trying to go after you guys Don't ruin your life. Don't get caught up in sin. That's gonna destroy your life. Don't ruin your relationship with your parents Girls you guys are better than that and for the girls that do those things and just grab any guy you can it's not empowering It's not it doesn't make you anything But ashamed Hold yourself to a higher standard and guys like guys. Let me talk to you guys for a second too Same thing guys don't ruin your life by getting some girl. It's gonna drag you guys down guys are better than that You boys are better than that. You don't deserve to spend your life ruined because you made a bad decision in high school Pick a girl that loves God pick a girl that's going to push you closer to God rather than pull you further away from them To both of you raise your standards Raise your standards So how do you guys respond? Well that guy or that girl that you guys have your phones? There's probably text messages sitting there from them Maybe they're telling you how much I love them. Maybe they're asking for inappropriate things Maybe they're whatever they're doing If they don't follow the priorities that you set that I mentioned tonight The best thing you can do is go home tonight and stop dating them And you don't want to hear it listen. I know you guys don't want to hear it and I get it But do you care more about you and you care more about God or do you care more about the Simple happiness and the satisfaction that you're getting from this person that's temporary You say well, what about those of you that your parents don't allow you today and you're dating Here's here's what this looks like okay, what you guys should say Something to the effect of hey, I care too much about you to ruin this relationship Because listen if you're dating and you're not supposed to your relationship will be ruined Quite in simple and you know what God may have even the person that you're dating the your parents don't earn allowing you to Your parents don't allow you to date that person may be the one that's got the God is designed for you They very very well may be but you may be ruining it because you're dating them too early and You should say to that person hey, I care too much about this I care for you so much that I want to do this right and I don't want to mess it up and When the time comes we'll get together and I'm telling you what girls and guys if you say that to them and They actually care about you the weight and then you get together when it actually matters Plain and simple guys this your relationship honoring God is it honoring your parents is it honoring God and if it's not It's gonna be a rough road. So once again when you guys are you guys are heartbroken Come back and I'll tell you how you can fix it the next time okay When you guys are when you guys are sending those divorce papers come back to me I'm probably still be here in like 30 years and you guys are married come back to me and I'll tell you how you can fix it the next time okay glorify God and glorify your parents. Let's pray. Heavenly Father. What I thank you for this night What I ask you be with these teenagers help them to make the right decisions when dating help them to pick the right person Lord, we live in a time where People just date for the sake of dating they date for the wrong reasons and they ruin their lives because of it Lord I asked you to help these teenagers these girls these guys that they would make the right decisions That they would glorify you and they're dating everybody keep your heads bow eyes close for a few minutes here I want you guys to understand that not only disobeying your parents and dating and Disobeying God and being married or dating by disobeying God not only will that result in a terrible and a terrible marriage terrible relationship But if you want to know the best way to ruin your relationship Well, first of all for you don't be a child of God Don't ask him in your heart don't ask him to save you if you want to not be a child of his Face it on your own. You better get another way to ruin it is to go date somebody that's not a child of God Listen, keep your heads bow eyes close. Listen if you're safe tonight There's a time where you've asked Christ to come into your heart and save you as the Bible says Bible says Jesus down on the cross for you to Consens all you have to do is believe in him pray to him ask him to come into your heart and save you If you've done that and your boyfriend or girlfriend hasn't Relationship will be Plain and simple that's not my worst. That's actually the Bible. I love to show you from the Bible if you come asking Ask God into your heart ask Christ come into your heart and save you if you haven't if you haven't the Bible says you were to die tonight You'd open your eyes in a place called hell and you'd be there for eternity That's the Bible's words not mine. Please don't leave here tonight if that's you say I've never done that I don't know even what you're talking about. I don't know about this Jesus. I don't know about anything you're saying come talk to one of us We'd love to show you from the Bible. That's the reason we do this whole thing We came and picked you up on the bus tonight So the first of all you know Christ as your Savior and second of all so that you could grow in a relationship with him That's if that's you come talk to us one of us before you leave now We father what I thank you for this night as your beauty teenagers and help them to date the right person Help them today who you've created for them We thank you for all you do for all your name. Amen Thanks for listening if you enjoyed the message check out our other podcasts Share us with your friends and check out our church at Grace Baptist Coatesville.org. I hope this was a blessing to you. Thanks again for listening