Relating to Dating 1

Luke 9:23-25; Isaiah 43:1; Song of Songs 8:4

Transcript

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You're listening to R UF at KSU podcast.

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Alright, so this is a time in large group where we uh read from God's Word. And normally what we do is we'll go through a book in the Bible. Uh but this semester we're doing something slightly different. We're doing uh a series on relationships. Why are we doing a series on relationships? Well, the Bible has a ton to say about relationships. Think of the greatest commandment: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Those are all about relationships. And we need a lot of help because relationships are tricky, they're complex. We bring our sin to it, other people bring their sin, and Jesus ultimately redeems us through relationships. So it's appropriate that we take some time to see how the Bible can shape us and how we think about that. And we've come to the part that I'm sure you are all so excited about. Because starting this week and next, we'll be talking about dating.

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Woo!

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So much excitement, right? Why are you all terrified of this? No, it's good to talk about this. I think the Bible has a lot more to say on this than maybe we may think. But let's turn our attention now to the reading of God's word. So if you follow along on here, we're going to start in Song of Solomon, then we'll read a passage from Luke and then end in Isaiah 43. So hear now the word of the Lord. Song of Songs, chapter 8, verse 4. I adjure you, O daughter of Jerusalem, that you do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Luke 9, 23 through 25. And Jesus said to all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? In Isaiah 43, 1 through 5. But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Sebov in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you. I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Alright, so like I said, uh the next two weeks we're gonna be looking at the topic of dating, how we relate to dating. Uh, and so tonight we're gonna focus on how we define dating. We're gonna be looking at defining dating. Because what in the world even is dating? Like it's this weird thing. Like everyone talks about it, you know. Oh, I'm going out on a date with someone, or oh, do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend? But like, what is it? What are we even doing here, y'all? You know, like when it comes to dating. So that's what we're gonna try to do tonight is focus on defining it. And I got two disclaimers on the front end. First up, uh, hey, uh, I'm not a genius, and a lot of the uh wise-sounding things I say is really a distillation of a lot of other pastors and ministers and mentors in my life. Uh, so I just want to give credit where credit's due. Uh, the second thing is uh be somewhat wary uh when people try to sell you like the Christian formula for dating. I do think the Bible has a lot to say about it, but when someone's like, the Bible says you have to do courtship, or the Bible says don't date at all, or the Bible says your grandma has to go with you on all your dates, I'm like, I no, uh it doesn't. Like, so just beware, like that stuff sells books, but it's not biblical. The Bible does have a lot to say about dating and relationships, but once again, it doesn't fit neatly into those formulas. Alright, well, with that being said, I'd like to start out with a story. And I want you to know that this story is 100% completely true. I've got it verified by another RUF campus minister uh who's at TCU. Uh this story is uh a girl that he met who was at Sanford uh back in the day, and she was dating this guy, and uh, you know, things were getting serious. They had been dating for a couple months, and so they they hit that point in a relationship where he was like, Hey, I'd love you to come and meet my parents. Big deal, right? Uh but like his parents were lived in New England, they were kind of like a rich New England family. Uh so they flew to New England to meet the parents, and she didn't really realize just how rich and like fancy these people were until they pulled up to the house, and it was not a house, it was a mansion. Uh and so, you know, she's like from Alabama and just like trying to, you know, put on her best, uh put her best foot forward, not embarrass herself, uh, you know, hoping that they like her and all that. So they're going through the motions, you know, they're having lunch at the house, and um the the family has this little like annoying little frou-frou dog uh named Mimi. It's kind of like they love the dog, it's like a family member to them, you know, like the mom's constantly like putting the dog on the table and like feeding it, you know, and it's like okay, that's weird, but whatever. Rich people stuff. Um so the girl, uh she's trying to be all fancy and proper, and she needs to go to the bathroom. And so, trying to be as fancy as possible, she says, Where is the powder room? So they like, oh yeah, the powder room is just down that hall to the left. So she goes to the powder room and goes in there. The dog follows her into the powder room, she locks the door and then realizes, uh, or closes the door and then realizes this is like an old-fashioned powder room, so there's no toilet in the room. Uh, and not wanting to go back like sheepishly and be like, hey, uh, where's the bathroom? She decided, hey, uh, I think I can make this work. Uh there is a little sink here.

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What's the rating of the side?

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Uh so decides to climb up on the sink, grab onto the mirror to take care of business, and uh almost pulls it off until the mirror comes out of the wall, she falls, the sink breaks, crash, she blacks out, uh, and wakes up to her boyfriend, you know, like waking her up, you know, like pants down, everything, like the worst possible scenario you can imagine on first time meeting the parents. It gets better, y'all. Because when that sink came down, it killed poor Mimi. Mimi got crushed. So they get her cleaned up, they you know, try to figure out what in the world happened. And then this poor girl, uh, her boyfriend, the first thing he says to her is let's pack your stuff and go to the airport. Y'all, their relationship died with Mimi. That was the end. Uh I love that story because what a great example of dating, right? Like when I talked to you guys about dating this week, so many of you were like, uh, I'm excited but kind of nervous. I'm like, yeah, what is it about dating where, you know, like you go in with a lot of excitement, you know, maybe the jitters, then it ends with like tears and urine, and like just what is it about it that it's awesome and horrible at the same time? Alright, so our goal tonight, we're trying to define dating, why it's so weird and yet so beautiful at the same time. I've got three points. The first one is the confusion of dating, the second one is the conflict of dating, and the third one is the glory of dating. Alright, so let's look first at the confusion of dating, and let's look again at that verse from Song of Songs. So, uh, if you don't know, the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon is a whole book of the Bible about love and about romance. It's probably like the least preached on Bible book of the Bible, uh, because there's some spicy stuff in there. But there's a lot of good things we can learn. Most importantly, the verse that repeats throughout the book about romance and about love is this verse. Uh, do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Or another way you can translate that is until it's appropriate. That the reality is uh we have God-given desires and capacity for love, and that's a good thing. But because of sin and because of how our culture shapes us, we want that kind of love now. We want it now, we want it sooner than later, because when we feel loved, we feel valued. When we date, we look for someone who will value us, who will see us as worthy of their love. It's a good feeling, and so we want to get that feeling as much as possible. It's like those experiments, you know, where they're like giving sugar to rats, you know, it's like they keep going back, like, I want more, I want more. Like when we get a taste of love, we want more of it. It is a good thing. We are wired to have it and wired to want it. But the sad thing is, the confusing thing is that when someone leaves us or they reject us, we are left wondering, am I worthless? Do I mean nothing to you? Will anyone value me someday? That there's this highest of heights of feeling of love, and yet this lowest of low when we lose it, when we feel rejected, when we feel denied. Um, so a campus minister friend of mine, um, he's got this story where he was meeting with a student, and you know, it was a female student, she came to him, she's like, hey, so guess what? Like uh my boyfriend and I, we finally had the conversation. I was like, okay, what is the conversation? She's like, well, we finally talked and we are actually boyfriend and girlfriend now. She's like, oh, okay, like, congratulations, I'm so happy for you, you know. But trying to be a good like campus minister, he's like, okay, just hear me out. Like, what does that mean? Like, what does it mean now that you had the conversation? She's like, well, I guess that means that we're like going steady, you know, we're boyfriend and girlfriend. And he keeps kind of pushing her, okay, but like, what's the implications of that? What does it mean that your boyfriend and girlfriend and finally she says, well, I guess it would mean like if someone else came along, we'd have to break up. So if we wanted to date someone else. And he's like, ah, okay. Like, that's it, right there. That's the secret of it. Because when we're talking about dating, what we're hoping to get out of dating is we're treating it uh with this intense uh level of commitment, and yet the reality is it lacks that altogether. Uh, that when you start dating someone, when you have the DTR, the Define the Relationship conversation, it feels like something important has happened. You know, what are we? Uh but the truth is, like, nothing has actually changed just because you had that conversation. It feels like a commitment, but it's not. And that's what makes dating so confusing. Like, let's think about how people go about dating. Uh, let's think of kind of like the more traditional, like how people go about dating. So, you know, you like see someone, you meet someone, I don't know, in freshman orientation or in the dorm or in a class or you go to RUF or something like that. You talk to them, maybe you hang out in a group, you know, and you kind of keep catching each other's eye. And then you do the very normal thing and you stock them on Instagram for like two months. Uh maybe you build up the courage to DM them or snap them or something like that. Or you do the middle school thing and ask their friends, like, do you know if they like me back? You know, all that kind of stuff. Uh and you know, like, normally at this point, if you were serious about it, uh like a guy would go up to the girl and be like, hey, I would like to take you out on a date this Friday night. Uh that never happens because guys are cowards. Uh it's it's kind of like a platypus, like, you've heard of it, but you've never seen it, right? Yeah. Uh what normally happens is a lot more informal. It's a lot more informal. It's like, oh, we were hanging out after RUF, and then everyone left, and then we like went and got milkshakes at uh cookout or something like that, and that kind of counts as a first date, right? Yeah. So I guess we're dating now. Uh so you end up in that weird phase called talking, you know? Talking. What is talking? I don't know, but you're talking. All right. You can eventually have a DTR conversation, you start calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend, you meet the parents, you feel like you're bound to each other, but the truth is, even after all of that, you're not. You can end it tomorrow and pursue someone else. Like there's nothing that holds you together except for the words you've said, but there's no hard commitment there at all. That's what's so confusing about dating. Or if we take a maybe more modern, informal version of that. You meet at a party, you meet at a bar, you meet through an app, you hook up, you have some kind of physical connection, you have a sense of being bonded, and even though you've been told like you can divorce sex from romance, the reality is you still feel that way because you're hardwired for that. And you might continue on for that for a while, you know, okay, we're just gonna do this with each other, but you still lack any sense of clarity. Because the other person could still leave at any time. This is why dating is so confusing. Like, dating is by definition an exclusive commitment that is something that is inherently not exclusive and not a commitment. But we treat it like it is. We treat our dating relationships as if they're mini marriages. And then when we break up, it's like a mini divorce. We crave this kind of commitment because it ultimately says to us and to the other person, I value you, I will not change my mind about your value to me. But dating has none of those guarantees. A great movie on dating, uh, 500 Days of Summer. Anyone see that one? Kind of an older one now. Um it's kind of sad, but it's great. The character Tom, he's dating a girl named Summer. Surprise, surprise. Uh, and he says to her, Look, we don't have to put a label on this. That's fine, I get it, but you know, I just need some consistency. Like, I need to know that you're not gonna wake up in the morning and feel differently. And Summer turns to him and says, I can't give you that. Nobody can. That we need to recognize that we have been shaped by our culture to date in a particular way. If what shapes our approach to dating is just swiping left, leaving people on red, ghosting them, then of course we're gonna be confused because we're not treating them like people, we're treating them like a product so that we can buy or sell or take or leave. We're being treated like a commodity or a temporary tattoo, whereas if you change your mind, you could just wash it off. When our hearts long for commitment. So that's the confusion of dating. Let's look at the conflict of dating. Let's look again at Luke 9, 23 through 25. Uh Jesus says, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his soul? But like we've been saying, we are hardwired by God for love in relationships, but because of sin, we long for and crave for it so badly that we tend to jump into relationships that we know will take us further from God. And I can't tell you how many times I've sat across a table from a student, and I can see the way it's going. I can see their spiritual life withering on the vine as they tell me about this new person that they're seeing, and they're like embarrassed to admit that they are not a Christian that they're dating. The minute someone comes along offering us the love we crave so bad, then we will sacrifice our faith on the altar of the God of romance. And because dating is confusing, and because our desires for love are powerful, we put an unholy amount of pressure on the dating relationships we do have, which leads to further conflict. Conflict with our faith and also conflict with the person we're dating. Let's think about some of the expectations that we put on dating. Uh, we think about like our right, our sense of like we have a right to other people's time or attention or body. Let's think about time. Uh maybe, you know, you've had this experience, you're dating someone, uh, and you're like, yeah, I think I'm gonna like go home this weekend, visit my parents, you know, and they're like, well, what about me? Like, you know, what am I gonna do when you're not here? Like, that's so unfair to me that you would leave me for the weekend. Because there's this expectation that I have a right to your time, and you can't make decisions about your time without me. Or what about attention? You know, you're hanging out, you go to R UF Together, or something like that, and then afterward, you know, you're walking out or you're driving home, and it's like, hey, why are you upset? It's like, well, you were talking to like so many other guys all night and not to me. You know, like, what the heck? Well, it's this idea that I have a right to your attention, that you have to pay attention to only me and no one else, because that's what it means to be dating. Or even our bodies, right? Giving of ourselves physically to try to maintain that sense of commitment and closeness. Or the even more manipulative versions of people saying, hey, if you love me, then you'll do this. These are all false expectations that we're putting on to dating. They belong appropriately in a marriage, but dating can't bear the weight of it. It's like an 18-wheeler truck trying to drive across a rickety bridge. It's not gonna be able to hold it up. It's gonna fall apart. And because we can't handle that weight, because we'd rather, you know, sell our soul for the benefit of this relationship, we become insecure and start to do things to try to try to maintain it, to try to keep it from further conflict. We become controlling, paranoid, manipulative, overly dramatic, constantly fighting over things. And because we don't want to lose that sense of love, because we value, uh because the relationship is telling us that we're valued, right, uh, then, sorry, I messed up. Because we don't want to lose the sense of love and value this relationship provides, but no dating relationship can truly handle it, uh, then our temporary feelings can't last. It won't last. It ultimately falls. Once again, 500 days of summer. There's a scene where summer, the girl, turns to him and says, Oh, like, I love you like a friend. And Tom is like, No, don't pull that with me. This is not how you treat friends. Kissing in the copy room, holding hands in IKEA, shower sex, come on, friends, are you kidding me? There's this reality where, you know, we're putting all these expectations that only belong in a marriage onto our dating relationships, and it can't handle it. It's a structure that's not meant to hold it all. In an attempt to gain the thing you long for most, you try to control it. You live in fear of every fight because you're worried they might leave. They won't give you all their time, attention, and body anymore. You're paralyzed at the thought that they may just consider you a friend. This should tell you something important. You are treating your relationship, your dating relationship, like a marriage, and an unhealthy one at that. One where you are not truly valued, which is the thing you long for most. You might gain the world and gain a relationship, but you are leaving yourself living in the anxiety of this world with no hope, because there is no long-term commitment. And the truth is, there is only one true lover that can offer the kind of commitment that shows how much they value you, and that can only be found in Jesus Christ. So let's look in the final section here: the glory of dating, Isaiah 43. Uh, did y'all catch that we sang this earlier?

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Yes.

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Pretty cool, huh? Uh all right, I love this passage. It's rich with the language of God's love for his people. Let's read it one more time. But now, thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom. Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you. I give men in exchange for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, I am with you. What a beautiful declaration of God's love for his people. And look, I think after the last two points, you may be sitting there thinking, okay, like, the way we normally date is uh maybe not all that great, so should we just like not date? Is that kind of the Christian answer? Should I just like love God and you know, don't worry about the rest? Well, no, that's not actually what we're saying. And next week we'll get into more like the how of dating. But I think what this does, uh, if you are a follower of Jesus, if his love is the foundation of your life, then it actually means that you can now approach dating with a certain level of confidence and gratitude that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Because you have a source of love that's not gonna change, that loves perfectly, that pushes out anxiety that comes from seeking love in all the wrong places. If you have been shaped by the love of Jesus, then you can treat dating with the dignity it deserves, because you can treat the people with the value they deserve. So, here's my definition of dating. Uh, thinking of all we've talked about from scripture. Dating is ultimately two friends trying to figure out if they should or should not get married. Dating is two friends just trying to figure out if they should or should not get married. Two friends figuring out should we commit to each other long term or not. And the answer either way is a good answer. If you find out yes, praise God, to his glory, that's great. And if you find out no, as much as it sucks, that's actually a good answer because you've eliminated one possibility now. You have clarity and you can move on with your life. Now, look, sometimes as Christians, we can kind of treat dating like this nonstop marriage tryout, you know, of like, let me know everything about you, tell me all your theological views, tell me everything about your family, you know, like let's get all this checklist stuff done now to make sure we're perfectly compatible and then we can get married. Uh, you don't need to do that. You don't do that in friendships. That would be a weird friendship if you're like, before we can be friends, let's go through all of your past, all of your theological views, tell me about your family, your dating history, all of that. No friendship operates that way. And if dating is truly two friends trying to figure out if they want to commit long-term to each other or not, then it doesn't have to be this constant marriage trial. That you can understand that the other person is not yours, that they are ultimately God's. He created them, he loves them, he has redeemed them. Sometimes we teach sorry, my mouth. Sometimes we teach, treats, sometimes we treat dating like a the way like a dog marks their territory, you know, it's like they go and like pee on something, and it's like, this is mine. And it's like, oh, dating is like, I found someone, you're mine now, and that's the end of the story. And that's not at all what God wants for his people. That you can glorify God in dating by seeing the other person is made in the image of God and so loved by him that he would give his son to die for them to redeem them. That if they are in Christ, they are his. And you get the joy and privilege to get to know them. And if it doesn't work out, you can learn to trust in God's love for you and its sufficiency for you. Ultimately, Isaiah 43 says that God will be with you in your dating and in your breakups and in your singleness because he loves you. Because you are precious to him. And look, maybe you're here tonight and you've been through some hard stuff in relationships, maybe you feel abandoned, maybe you feel left behind, maybe you were told straight up that you aren't worth being loved. And that's brutal, and I'm sorry to hear that. But look, Jesus, he sees the sewer in us, he sees the depths of our brokenness, he sees our neediness for love and our desire to be valued and feel special, and he still loves us and still pursues us. And uh the other night I was watching this rom-com movie called The Materialists, and there was this beautiful moment at the end, which I thought illustrated this really well. Because there's this couple, Lucy and John, and they kind of keep going back and forth on you know whether they're gonna be together or not, and John is like poor and you know doesn't have much to offer. Uh and you know, Lucy loves him, but like knows it's gonna be a hard life to commit to him. And she finally tells him, Look, you don't want to be with me. I'm not a good person. I'm judgmental, I'm materialistic, I'm cold. I broke up with you because you're broke. But John looks at her and he says, Look, you asked how I could love you. I just do. It's the easiest thing in the world. I love you now like I loved you before, and I'll love you till the day I die. It's a lifetime guarantee. I'll be your certainty. It's my final offer. You can't negotiate because I don't have anything else to offer you but my love. Then in a similar way, Jesus is looking at us, and we're trying to give him all the reasons why he shouldn't love us, why he shouldn't be with us, why he shouldn't pursue us. And he's saying, the reality is I just love you. I created you. You're mine, and I'm gonna keep pursuing you with my love, and that love is not gonna change. But unlike what we experience often in dating, Jesus is not gonna wake up tomorrow and change his mind about you. He loves you with a covenant commitment that will not let you go. What should this do for us? What should lead us to relating to one another in like a normal way and not a weird Christian-y dating way? Uh, we can see each other as friends who are investigating whether we should commit to each other long term or not. We can see the other person uh not from a place of expectations, but of the great privilege it is just to get to know them. Uh that look, there's your my free piece of advice. If you are dating someone or thinking about dating someone, you owe them nothing else that you wouldn't owe another brother or sister in Christ. Until you get married, that is all you owe them. So think about that. Alright, finally, look, dating uh can be a joy because ultimately we get to see God at work in different people. We get to see God's glory at work in them and consider whether we could see God's glory more in one another together long term. To wrap up, uh another RUF campus minister is a good friend of mine. Uh, he told this story and I thought it was awesome. So he was going on a first date with a girl, and he'd only become a Christian in college like a few months before this. Uh so everything was new to him, and he was like trying to, you know, date the right way this time. And he was so excited, like, alright, I think I'm gonna do it the right way, I'm gonna do it right this time. This is gonna be great. Jesus is gonna love me for all this. Uh and everything went wrong on this date. So like his car wouldn't start, so he had to borrow his roommate's. His roommate's car was a stick shift, and he had never driven a stick shift. So he stalled it out with her in the car three times on the way to the restaurant. Uh they get to the restaurant and he realizes he forgot his wallet. So she had to pay for dinner. Uh and he said, like, he literally went to the bathroom and was like shaking and sweating and was just like, God, I don't know what's happening. Like, I need your help. I'm a mess. And he said it was in that moment he realized, man, up to this point, every time I've gone out on dates with girls, I have worked so hard to impress them. I have gone above and beyond to impress them that they would only see my best qualities. And yet, God in this moment is humbling me so that this girl actually sees me at my lowest right now. And if she wants to commit to me when like clearly I'm a mess, then maybe this is the one. And if she's not, that's okay, because I have Jesus in my life. So he goes back out there, they finish dinner, she pays. Uh they walk because driving isn't working well, to a park. And they end up sitting there for hours, and they talk and talk and talk, and they end up talking like old friends. And eventually they get married and have children, and they're living happily ever after. And look, y'all, I can't guarantee that that exact same thing is gonna happen to you, but I do know that the same Jesus who can meet my friend at his lowest is the same Jesus that can meet you wherever you're at tonight. And whether you've gone through terrible experiences of dating or you're excited at new potential in it, that Jesus is with you, he loves you, let him be your foundation and pursuing it all. Dating is confusing, dating is difficult, but if you have Jesus, dating can be to the glory of God as he shows you just how much he loves you, both in the waiting and in the bringing someone at the right time in your life. Amen. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for the good news. We thank you that you love sinners like us. Lord, uh, we so often want to impress people. We want people to love us for our best qualities, and yet the most amazing thing of the gospel is that you love us while we were sinners, while we were far from you and in rebellion against you. And Lord, we pray that that would actually shape us, that if you could love us then, then Lord, that we could enter the riskiness of dating, that we could get to know people when they're not at their best. And Lord, that you give us wisdom on when we should commit and when we should say no and walk away. And Lord, we pray all this in your name. Amen. Let's stand and sing.