Abundant Living Family Church

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Well, praise God. We're so excited and we're
so glad that all of you could be here today
and that we're all here together, whether you're in the
courtyard or you're in this room. You know, we started
a series last week and Pastor Nathan launched us Off,
which is an incredible conversation, credible message about what it
means to raise our kids in a godly home, what
it means to be a biblical family and marriage and

(00:21):
also towards our kids. And so if you missed that
for some reason, you can go to our YouTube channel
at any time and you could be able to tune
into that message. And we call this series the Circus
because doing life with your family and your friends and
starting a family is a little bit like a circus.
It's not a Broadway play. If you go to a
Broadway play, those things are perfect. It is cute. Everyone

(00:45):
is talented and gifted and the best at what they do,
and everyone has a part to play, and no one
makes mistakes, and the music is wonderful and you walk
away and you say, that was the best show I've
ever seen in my life. But when you go to
a circus, you expect it to be a little bit janky.
You expect it to be not everything working right. Some
things are gonna be broken. You may go on the

(01:07):
ferris wheel and it's gonna be crack lee and shaky,
and you may see someone one perform and they may
trip and stutter, and you say to yourself, I came
to the circus, what did I expect? You know, the
clown may offend you, someone may hurt you, whatever it is.
Your kids may get lost. You're at a circus, you're
at a carnival. That's a little bit about what a

(01:29):
family is like having, you know, like we're all a
little bit imperfect. We're all a little bit like clowns,
or we're all a little bit like one of the
characters in a circus. But either way, it's our circus.
That's my circus. That's my family, as imperfect as we are,
as maybe sometimes we argue, maybe sometimes we get into it.

(01:49):
That's my circus. That's my carnival. And and my kids
are really good at acting like clowns, and I say,
those are my clowns, those are mine. And so today,
what we're talking about today, because we know it's the
beginning part of a circus is starting a circus, because
starting a circus is so important as a young person.

(02:11):
Or maybe you're out an area in your life where
you say, hey, I want to get to a place
where I want to start dating. Or maybe I've dated
before and I really feel like I didn't do it well.
Or maybe one time I was married once before and
I feel like as I go to look for a
future partner one day, I want to make the right
biblical and godly decisions around picking the right person for

(02:32):
me more than anything. Additionally, as well, if you're a
parent in this place and you have kids, a lot
of times too, we want to say I also want
to raise my kids for them to understand that the
choice they make of who they choose in their life matters.
It's amazing how we prepare our kids for so many

(02:54):
things for life. We prepare our kids for college, We
prepare our kids for sports. Some of us, every single day,
all we think about is the day that our kid
goes D one in college football, in college soccer, in
college baseball. All we think about is what my kid's
gonna be. They're gonna be a lawyer, they're gonna be
a doctor, They're gonna be a manager, they're gonna be

(03:16):
a counselor they're gonna be this, they're gonna be. We
prepare our kids, some of us here for their diet.
We tell our kids when you're diet and eating, you
can't have any sugar, no soda, no candy, no this.
We all, we all have these things that we say,
I'm preparing my kid for this, but you realize the
majority of people, no one prepares their kid to date.

(03:39):
I know, like even for me when I was younger,
I was told don't have sex or you go to hell.
That's about as far as it went. They taught me
about STDs, they taught me about unprotected sex, you'll get
a kid before you want one. And then in the
church they told me and above all, you do it,

(04:01):
you go to hell. Tried to scare me into obedience.
But the problem was is none of us were listening
to it. And so if God's word is real and
the scriptures are true, then to me, it's not an

(04:21):
issue of the scriptures. To me, it's the issue in
which the church delivers the scriptures for us to understand
what dating is. I was recently talking to one of
my friends who has a teenager. Teenager wants to start dating,
and he's a godly man. He's someone I love in respect.
He said, Men, to be honest, I don't know what
I'm doing when it comes to my kids dating. I

(04:43):
just don't want them to do what I did, which
was rebel and keep secrets for mom and dad and
make decisions like I made. And so they said, so, really,
I don't know what I'm doing. To me as a pastor,
I took a personal hit to that. I said, if
you have teenagers and we've not helped you understand what
the Biblical view of dating is, then I failed. We failed.

(05:05):
There's no way that you shouldn't know how to at
least know sometime. Now everyone here is gonna see dating
differently and marriage differently. But the Bible does have some
facts around it. So there is some black and white
areas and then there is some gray areas. And hopefully
this was meant to be just one message. But I
was meeting with Pastor Herron on Saturday asking him to

(05:27):
help me cut stuff out of my message, and he said,
you cannot cut nothing. So I said, well, the only
option is I'd have to do a part two. The
following week, he's like, you gotta do a part two.
Then he's like, our kids, near parent's, our youth pastor
So I'm telling him, hey, tell me what our kids
and our parents don't need to hear and hear. He's like, no,
you got to do it all. And so I'm like, okay,
so next week we're gonna have a part two. So

(05:48):
this week is just the introduction, all right, and then
additionally as well, next week we're gonna get that's when
we're gonna get into the meat of stuff. Okay, this
is just the introductory thought on what date is, is,
what dating is meant to be in the Bible, and
what our culture speaks about dating today. So it's just
to prime us. So next week we could dive in.
So if there's any week that you say you need

(06:10):
to go back to back to church, it's gonna be
this week. In next week, either tune it online or
coming in person. You don't want to miss either or Okay,
here's the first thing I want us to understand. When
I want you just for this week and next week,
we're gonna start it off early. If you give me
permission to get in your business a little bit would
you raise your hand today? Okay, because we're all gonna

(06:30):
feel a little bit lely personal shot between the next
two years, including myself. Okay, And so you gave me permission.
So if you come up to me afterwards and say
something I'm gonna say, if you raise your hand, none
I could do about it. Here's the first thing we
have to understand when we talk about starting a circus.
And like I just said, this next two weeks are

(06:51):
dedicated to two types of people. Either you're a young
person in here, you're a teenager, you're a young adult
and you say I want to date well, or maybe
your parent you say I want to raise my kids
around good biblical dating. This message is gonna be for you.
Or you're a person in here and you're a little
bit older and you're ready to settle down, or maybe
you were once divorced and you're ready to now get
into a new relationship that's gonna be healthy. This is

(07:14):
really who I'm gonna hopefully be able to help today
so that you can have a successful marriage. You know,
like I was saying, is we put so much emphasis
our young people on their career and what they're gonna
do for a living. But don't you guys know, and
you know if you've been through a divorce, that one
of the worst things you could ever go through is
a divorce. It's one of the most hurtful things that

(07:38):
can happen in a family. And so what happens is
is we don't put any value on one of my
things I want to teach my son is divorce prevention.
That that would be one of my goals because I
could teach him how to be a lawyer one day.
But I'll tell you what, if he loses his job
as a lawyer, he could find a new one. If

(07:58):
my son goes to play d one foot in college
and he doesn't make it as a pro, he could
do something else. But if my son goes through a
divorce one day, and that's gonna hurt all of us.
And if you've ever been through one, you know that pain.
And just because you want to teach your kids to
avoid what you went through doesn't mean you're a hypocrite

(08:20):
in any way. It just means that you've met the
love of God and you've allowed Jesus to transform and
radically fix your life and your heart. And you're saying, kids,
I don't want you to go through what I went through,
So there is a way to do this. The first
thing I want us to see is that dating biblically

(08:40):
is missional. If you're gonna date, there's a mission behind it.
So if you're dating, you have to be able to
answer what the intent is for I can tell you
today what the biblical intent of dating is because here's
the thing, and we'll get there in a moment. The
term dating or boyfriend or girlfriend is guess what, it's

(09:00):
not in the Bible. And so this is a custom
in a culture we've created, which we'll get you in
a second, and I'll tell you why we created it.
But here's some scriptures I want us to read first
when it comes to the importance of being missional and
dating which ultimate leads towards marriage, finding the right person
for you. Hopefully that's what we're intending for. If you're

(09:24):
dating just because you want to test out the menu
or you want to test out the pond, then that's
a world way of dating. That's a worldly view, because
guess what, if you start tasting the menu and testing
the pond, you're always gonna say when you get married.
One day, I like the French fries that are served here,
but the burger that I used to get over here

(09:46):
was a little bit better. It's dangerous. So that's why
the Bible said you better find one person. And there's
this there's this phony view of manhood today that goes,
oh man, you ever just go find whoever you want.
Oh man, that is setting you up for marriage failure
if you say you never want a family and you

(10:07):
never want to be married by all means. But a
biblical view of relationship. I want us to look at
five scriptures real quick that are gonna launch our thought today.
I want you to first look at Genesis, chapter two,
verse twenty four. Relationship is at the very start of
the Bible. It's one of the first things that said
in the Bible is relationships, dating and marriage. Therefore a

(10:31):
man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast
to his wife, and they shall become what one flesh.
So there is a day that you and I are
all to leave our mother and father, our mommy and daddy.
No more involvement, no more raising us. We are adults.

(10:51):
We now find someone that God has called us to
and we become what one flesh. And then we look
at Hebrews chapter thirteen, verse four. Let marriage be held
in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled,
for God will judge the sexuary, moral, and adulterys. Now

(11:14):
here's what we'll get to next week. This verse in
Hebrews thirteen four is not God's control, it's for our benefit.
So next week what we're gonna look at is the
effects of what happens if we let the marriage bed
be defiled, because there are practical effects to that, just

(11:35):
like we know of circumcision. We say circumcision is a
covenant in Judaism between God and man. But scientists also
discovered it was also a sanitation thing for their day.
It was a way of being sanitized and clean. That's
why they did it. And so there was a spiritual component,
natural component. A lot of these verses were reading today.

(11:55):
There is a spiritual component, but it's not of God's control.
It's God's desay for you to have a healthy relationship,
for you to one day have a healthy marriage. So
I want us to look at the next verse here
Proverbs eighteen twenty two. He who finds a wife finds
a good thing and obtains favor for the Lord. You'll

(12:15):
notice finds not stumble upon, not trip on, not have
one night in can coon, and all of a sudden, oh,
I'm committed to something finds, which means a man is
supposed to be actively looking and actively making a commitment
to get favor from God, to find the right person

(12:37):
for them. And you'll notice how it's not the opposite
for the woman. So men, men who find a wife
is a good thing for us. For them, it's I mean,
it's okay. But for us men find a good wife
as favor. She finds a good husband, good for her,

(12:58):
it's good. But the men, man, we know you got
a good wife. You know you got favor. First Corinthians,
chapter seven, verse two. But because of sexual temptation, because
of the temptation of sexual immorality, each man should have
his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.
In other words, what he's saying is he saying, if

(13:20):
you begin to just start sleeping around, you're gonna get
in some trouble. So if you find yourself doing those things,
then you should find someone for you to settle down with.
But additionally, First Corinthians, chapter seven, the next verse Apostle
Paul says this because many of us don't know. The
Apostle Paul was a single man, so singleness was a

(13:40):
blessing and is a blessing. Apostle Paul knew that. In fact,
he wished that everyone would be single. But he knew
because of our flesh, it's not possible for all of
us to be single. That's why us in the Evangelical Church,
we believe pastors need to be married because there's too
much temptation. There's this push to say a pastor, if

(14:03):
you got a desire, you should not be single for
those same reasons. First Corinthians, chapter seven, verse six to nine.
Now as a concession, not a command, so he's not
commanding us to singleness in the Bible. He says, I
say this, I wish that all whereas I am, but
each one has his own gift from God, one of
a kind and one of another. And then he says

(14:25):
this to the unmarried and the widows, I say that
it is good for them to remain single as I am.
He's saying single season is a great season. And he says,
but if they cannot exercise self control, they should marry,
for it is better to marry than burn with passion.

(14:45):
So this is Paul's encouragement, and he continues, I encourage
you to read all of First Corinthians seven. He continues
to say, when you're single, you have a great opportunity
to not only serve God, but to grow yourself, to
grow a lot of reason why single people when they
go into relationships, they're unhealthy because when you were single,

(15:07):
all you were trying to do was get in a relationship.
But when you're single, you're actually meant to work on yourself,
discover who you are in Christ, find an identity in God.
That's the season that that's meant to be done. Then
when you get to a place of strength in that
knowing who I am, who I am in Christ. I'm
serving in the church, but I have these passions, but

(15:30):
I desire to be in a relationship, then you move
into that area and you move into that desire. Here's
what it's important for us to realize right now. So
we're gonna break it down a little bit further because
this is just remember this is just just the introduction.
So what we have to remember first is we have
to dig a little bit deeper because we're reading the Bible,

(15:51):
and so we're saying. Okay, Paul encourages us that dating,
this relationship, this courting phase is meant to lead to something.
It's missional. It's meant to be a place where finally
you find one person that you make a commitment to
life with. Right. But we have to understand also, we
have to put the Jewish culture in play, and really

(16:13):
the Biblical culture in play. And we have to understand
in America we have a little bit of a different culture.
So let's just look at the biblical culture real quick. Okay.
Within the Biblical culture, you have a young man right here,
a young Jewish man. Here's my Jewish boy. Put a
little yamic on his head, give him a smiley face.
So I'm a young Jewish boy from age one to eight.

(16:37):
Here's what his life looks like from heres one to eight.
And even if it's a young girl as well, whether
it's a girl or a boy. From age one to eight,
they spend time with mom and the mother's community every
single day. From age one to eight. It's the formative growth.
So from age one to eight, this is where they
start to teach them the alphabet, the letters. They start

(16:59):
to teach them how to read how to write, and
it's the community the child's back. Then they even had
school systems, so they would go to a school, they
would go to class, and so the mom would do
that while the dad would work. He would have his trade.
He would be a craftsman, he would be a builder,
he would be a fisherman, whatever it was that he
did to provide for the family. Then what would happen

(17:20):
is you would come over here, and from age eight
eight to twelve, the boy and the girl, whether you
had a father or son, would split off. Okay, so
they would split off from each other. So if you
had a young boy, a young son, or a young daughter,
what would happen is the daughter from age eight to

(17:42):
twelve would go with the mother. And now the mother
would begin to teach the daughter what it means to
be a young woman, and so she would take her.
If you read Proverbs thirty one, actually the wife, the
woman was the one who was in charge of the
finances of the home. He was the one that would
go out in the city and make purchases. So she

(18:03):
was a business woman. So she would act on behalf
of the family on a business side. And so she
was well talked about in the community. So she'd bring
her daughter and she would teach her. This is how
you know that a watermelon is ripe. This is how
you know chicken isn't stale. This is how you know
beef it. I mean some of us were fifty still
learning out how to pick a good avocado. Right Like,

(18:25):
the mother would take the daughter and prepare her to
be a young woman for one day she will be
on her own and she will have to make these
decisions herself. This she'll teach the daughter how to care
for the home, how to look after the family, how
to keep the family intact. She's teaching her daughter this
from eight to twelve. This is like her college experience.

(18:48):
Her college years start at eight. Same thing with the
young man, the young boy from eight to twelve, he
would now go with his dad and his dad would
start teaching him the trade. If he was a farmer,
he would say, this is how we know harvest season.
This is how we know good crops have gone bad
or good. Here's how we know what we should do
over here. Here's how we go and buy new stuff.

(19:10):
Here's how you fix a wheel, Here's how you fix
a leaky faucet. Here's how you do these things from
eight to twelve. This is what Dad's doing for the sun.
So now what happens is something important happens in the
Jewish community at age twelve. Does anyone know what that is?
At age twelve, something happens in a Jewish homes birthday.

(19:32):
It's called the bar mitzvah for the boys and the
bot mitzvah for the girls. It is the coming of
age birthday. I'm a young man, I'm a young woman's
specifically for them. It basically says you are now officially
a man and a woman held accountable by God. And

(19:53):
so what happens at age twelve, this would be similar
to the Hispanic community the Kinsinetta. Same thing, isn't It's
crazy that the girl gets the King Sinetta, but the
boy don't. The boy gets to still be a boy
to girls like grow up, King Sinetta, Happy birthday, you're
a young woman. But that's what happens is you get
Jewish community. So what happens now is from twelve to fifteen,

(20:18):
he gets engaged. He finds a woman in their community
that he wants to do life with. And so now
from twelve to fifteen, here's her little curls her little hair.
He finds a girl in their community that he wants
to settle down with. Why do we think to know

(20:40):
that that's true? Well, there's something very important that happens
between age eleven to thirteen. There's something that both boys
and girls go through. Does anyone know it's puberty? What
does the body tell you during puberty? For the girl,
she has her first menstrual cycle, her body tells you
can officially start having kids. And then for a young boy,

(21:04):
what happens. His hormones go through the roof. His body
is telling him this body part needs to go somewhere.
Can we keep it real? In church? Fellas, I know
the women can get mad at me for but fellas,
you know you at twelve and thirteen, you were discovering

(21:26):
new things every day at that age. So what happens
is our bodies start telling us something. And so in
their culture and their training ground set them up for
when their bodies started to tell them something. Well, what

(21:47):
would happen if you're talking to a twelve year old
in Judaism and he's saying, oh, I'm starting to have
these urges and stuff like that, The parents would say, son,
you only got two years you're gonna be married, get engaged,
and wait for that time. And the son goes, yeah,
what's two years. I could be accountable for two years.

(22:08):
I can hold myself for two years. I could wait
until I get married. And so for twelve to fifteen.
And this we know this Mary she was pregnant with
Jesus at about fifteen years old. She was not this
thirty year old woman. She was fifteen pregnant with Jesus.
Joseph was no older than nineteen or twenty years old.

(22:29):
And so really from that time you start to work
and you start to labor. And the son from this
time within the family, he starts to learn the father's trade.
But at this time he then begins to talk to
her father, and he puts something down for a dowry
before they get married. During the engagement season, he gives
the father something financially as a commitment, to say, while

(22:51):
I build a home to provide for your daughter, here's
my commitment to her, May I now go out with her?
I mean, the young man had to already make a
financial commitment before you could even go on a date
with Mary. So now from fifteen on they begin to

(23:14):
live life and have kids together. And so they get
married and so then now they have little ninos and ninyas,
and and they start the process all over again. Okay,
now look this is in the Jewish culture. Now let's

(23:37):
go ahead right here. I'm gonna put the American dream
right here. Now we have the American dream. And so
what happens is is you're a young man or a
young woman, and then from age one to twenty five,

(24:04):
you are in school one to twenty five, and we
prepare our kids not for family and marriage. We prepare
our kids to what get a job. And then maybe

(24:25):
if you're an extremely excelling young man or woman at
twenty five, you can start to think about marrying someone
or getting a family. And now, but before you do,
first you need the car. That's twenty thousand dollars. You
need the apartment or the house. Well here in California

(24:47):
that's two point five million dollars. Need the car, you
need the house, need everything else set up. And then
now maybe maybe you can start to get married and
start a family. And then some of us, like you
may be sitting in here, said I looked at that,
and I said, forget that. I got married at twenty one,

(25:10):
you want to take that back. Most of them usually
end up saying, yeah, I want to take it back.
I was not ready for that. We had a kid
at twenty twenty one, we could barely pay our bills,
and yeah, I'm thankful God has supplied. But those were
some of the hardest days that we ever had in
our life. And so what we have to understand is

(25:31):
the American culture. The American dream is actually kind of
established as an American scheme because it sets us up
to be workers and laborers and the family is secondary.

(25:52):
So why you notice in school they're not taught anything
that's practical real life. And I'm not making a big
critical judgment, but that's the truth. But that's what's made for.
So they're not learning how to do your taxes, how
to fill out a check book, how to one day
what you don't know what a credit score is. So
all of a sudden, you graduate high school and you

(26:12):
want to get a car one day and say, oh,
your credit's are four to twenty. You're like, what's a
credit I don't even know what that is. So there's
an assumption that's made though that says, well, the family
the parents are supposed to teach them those things, But
the question is are we are we teaching them those things?

(26:34):
Because a biblical family starting a circus means that we're
preparing our kids for this. You know, the biggest decision
you made in your life was not the Kia Sorrento
that you bought. The biggest decision in your life was
not your first job working out Walmart or Target. The

(26:55):
biggest decision you ever made wasn't even the career that
you may be in right now. The biggest decision you
have made in your life, if you are married right now,
is who did I choose to spend the rest of
my life with. That's the biggest decision you have and
ever will make in your life. And you'll realize no

(27:15):
one ever talks about it, or they never treat it
with the weight that it deserves. And so all we're
told is this, you come down here, here's what we're told,
and this is what dating can be. We're told, well,
if you want to have a little boyfriend or a
little girlfriend that just finds someone that you enjoy to

(27:36):
spend your time with. I wish it was that easy.
I was told in high school when I graduated high school.
How do I know I should date this girl? It's like, well,
you guys have all the same interests. Do you guys
have fun together? Do you guys click? Yeah? Well then maybe,
oh man, I wish I wish that all it was
because I have a lot of the same interests with

(27:57):
a lot of women. I have a lot of same
connections with a lot of women. So so here's what
we've done in an American culture is we've jumped in
because look at this. How could I look at my
son at age twelve and thirteen who wants to date
and have a girlfriend, and say, son, give it fourteen
more years. We are setting ourselves up for failure. This

(28:25):
is why our young people are. They come to church
and they are losing their virginities. They're coming to church,
they are having boyfriends and girlfriends because this structure that
we put in front of them number one isn't really
a biblical aptitude structure. And so secondary then they say
it's impossible. And you know something, when someone sees something

(28:46):
or views something as impossible, what do they do? They
give up? They quit. If you came one day and
you say, Pastor Adam, I want to get close to God.
And I said, you can try and maybe in twenty
years God will talk back to you. He'd be like,
never mind, I don't want to try. Right. So that's

(29:10):
what we're doing at dating. We say, hey, can't masturbate,
that's a sin. Can't have sex, that's a sin. You
can't even hang out with a girl or a boy,
that's a sin. Well, when can I do it? In
thirteen years, you could do it, And that's hard. That's tough.
It's tough. So we all found ourselves failing at this
because our culture. Now here's the argument I'm not making.

(29:31):
I'm not saying we got to go back to the
Jewish culture of dating and no one should be married
at fifteen because none of our other systems and practices
circle around that. So it would it matter mean anything
to do that. We have a totally different culture. So
it means you and I as parents, you and I
as people, we need to step in. And that's what
next week is. That's gonna be the part too. But

(29:51):
we have to step in and help them to the
finish line. We gotta help them get there. So here's
the thing, here's what dating can be in real life
when you start dating. In real life, it can be isolating.
Have you ever noticed when someone gets a boyfriend or
a girlfriend, Boom, They're living in their phone, they're looking
they're not talking to any of their friends. They never

(30:13):
want to hang out with mom and dad anymore. You're like, hey,
movie night tonight, you want to hang out? No, I'm
just gonna be on the phone with my boyfriend or
a girlfriend. They immediately start to isolate. Then what happens
They go through a breakup and they're like, mom, dad,
be there for me, or friends be there for me.
It's like, I don't, I don't eed, I don't even
know what you guys were doing. I don't even You
never spoke to me. You isolated yourself, you cut everyone off.

(30:38):
You spoke to know why, because you had secrets you
were trying to keep. So how does we as parents
build bridges with our kids to be open and honest
with ours Well, one of the ways it begins is
a non judgmental attitude that loves them and recognizes that
you were no different when they were that age, and

(31:00):
so we have to love and encourage them through a
godly way of doing things. And one day Matthias is
gonna say, but dad, did you do it this way?
And I'm gonna say, Son, no, I didn't. And me
and your mother felt the effects of not doing it
that way when we got married. And that's the reality.
I'm gonna be honest with him and say I did
almost none of the things I'm encouraging you to do.

(31:24):
But me and my wife have been married for seven years,
and her and I'm gonna talk about it more next week.
Her and I just looked at each other in the
eyes last week and say, hey, we're getting better at
our sex and intimacy. Haunh. We said, yeah, took to
seven years just to get a little better. In no

(31:44):
way are we an authority on it now. We got
a little better. Some of y'all thirty years say we're okay.
Why because her and I brought a lot of trauma
into our relationship, trauma that took us seven years to
figure out. So for my son, I want to tell him, Son,

(32:06):
I don't want you, and We're gonna go dig deeper
in that next week. I wanna say, Son, I do
not want you to struggle in areas of marriage that
your mother and I did because we did not value sex.
We did not value intimacy and we didn't see it
the way God saw it. It's one of the things
we have to do. We have to be able to

(32:26):
show them. So it's isolating. The next thing is it's irritating.
I hated the dating phase. Man, it's irritating. All of
a sudden, we start acting like we're married. All of
a sudden, it's like, where are you? What are you doing?
What's eight o'clock at night? Who you were eighteen? What

(32:49):
do you mean? Where am I? What am I doing?
What do you mean? It's irritating. I saw you look
at that other girl. What do you mean? You know
my wife? What you mean? It's irritating. The next thing
is it's incapacitating. It just drains the life out of you.

(33:13):
It drains the money out of you, It drains the
time out of you. Off for what to drive to
the top of haven and have a few minutes of pleasure.
The rest of it sucks, all of it. It's the worst.

(33:37):
This is dating for everybody, This is American dating. And
then finally you just annoy each other enough to say
you think we should get married, or you have one
night of passion and force yourself into something. Hey babe,

(33:58):
i'm late. Well I guess I guess I gotta marry you.
I don't even know your middle name, but I guess
I gotta marry you. That's Western. That's not just American.
That's Western dating. Western dating. Here's what dating ought to be.
Here's what dating should be. Just as a starting point,
the first thing is dating should be valuable. When you

(34:21):
hang out with each other, there should have value. What
are you doing and why are you doing it? What
is it that you are doing? How are you valuing
each other's time. We're sixteen going while we hang out
every Friday night. What do you do every Friday night? Well,
sometimes we're so bored. We just sit there and we
hold hands and watch Netflix. I know eighty year old

(34:43):
couples who do that. What a bore. I'm not talking
about the fun side of doing that. I'm talking about
the side where you guys literally have nothing to do
because you're sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, so we've not figured
ourselves out yet. So we change by the day. So

(35:04):
there's a new person that's waking up every single day
from seventeen, basically, from eighteen to twenty five, your brain
is changing every day. You're becoming a new person every day,
and so we don't even know what's valuable. So when
you start to get to a place, is your time
is valuable? Why are you hanging out? What are you doing?
Where are you going? What does that mean? Do you

(35:25):
have money to do it? Do you have a card
to take them? This is in preschool. It's not cute anymore.
There needs to be purpose. And when you're hanging out,
is it because well I want to just hang out.
I want to hang out with the opposite sex. Okay,
we could do that without labels. We could do that
with already acting like you're now married your boyfriend, boyfriend

(35:47):
and girlfriend that we remember in high school and college
is that weird couple that just always they're always an
inch away from each other, always an inch away from
each other, just talking, breath bad and everything, just obsessed
with each other. And then they go through a breakup
and they got no one around them. Their time was
not valuable, Their time was wasted, and I want to talk.

(36:11):
I was in a four year relationship before I met
my wife. Wasted all of my college years on making
sure she was happy. We spend as much time as possible,
but there was no meaning behind it. Next thing is
is it visioning? You see when you start dating, you
have to start asking yourself is this person the right
person for me that I would want to spend the
rest of my life with. You start that when you

(36:31):
start hanging out. And then you're talking about vision. What
do you want to do one day? What are you
called to? Where do you see God taking you? Where
do you see God doing in your life? You're talking
about things that are vision casting. You want to put
vision in each other. You want to see where are
you headed? Where are you going to this person? Family
may be important to this person, family may not be important.

(36:54):
And here's the thing. You're not changing people all the time.
So you're talking like, hey, do our visions aligned? And
then the next thing you have to recognize is this voluntary.
If you don't want to be in that sucker, get
out that sucker. That's what the dating phase is for.
If you no longer see it going somewhere, you can

(37:16):
split any time. I told my wife that, I said,
when we started dating, we dated for twelve months, talk
more next week about that. I told her we are
never gonna be boyfriend we are never gonna be girlfriend.
I will not. I reject that label because here's the thing.
I believe that the modern boyfriend and girlfriend is play
husband and playwife. That's what that is. And so what
I told her was is instead of boyfriend and girlfriend,

(37:37):
and we want to play that game, than I ought
to call you play wife and you could call me
play husband. Because nowadays, when a boyfriend and girlfriend break
up together, it's more liken to a divorce than it
is anything else. I've met dating couples that put down
down payments and co sign on cars and least is
with each other, but can't even stand it in front

(38:00):
of a pastor and say I do, but you all
want to put down ten grand on a Kia and
put your credit score next to his, and that boy
can't even give you a fifteen hundred dollars ring. That
is a play husband. That is a play wife. And

(38:21):
here's the thing. When you play games, someone loses. That's
what happens. And so I want to teach my son, son,
I want you to be able to hang out with
the opposite sect, but you're not gonna feel like you
could play games. That's what we can't do, Son, you
can't play games. You can't be out here hurting someone
else's daughter. You can't be out here taking advantage of

(38:44):
someone else's daughter. You cannot be doing those things because
God's called you to something and someone in son. What
you talking about next week, Whatever you do in the
dating phase or you will bring into your marriage. There's
no such thing as separating yourself from that. No such thing.
So very few people are lucky enough to say I
met my high school sweetheart at fifteen, we got married

(39:05):
at eighteen, and God's been good. Nineteen children later, we're good.
Very few people have that story. It's voluntary. I'm a
bit out of time, so I'm gonna close with these
last few thoughts right now. See goes by fast. That's
why I needed a part two. This is the introduction,
and we're out of time. You see, here's what we

(39:26):
have to recognize. We have to be able to teach
young people and even as adults, we have to realize
this as well, that your body, according to the scriptures,
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit is looking to dwell within you, and your
body houses the very presence of God. And so wherever
you go God's presence goes with you. And if you

(39:47):
started recognizing, if you would, there be certain things you
would and wouldn't do in church if no one was around,
probably still you'd still probably be convicted. If I put
you and your girlfriend in here in the front row
and everyone left, I'll tell y'all, y'all would be sitting
there like this religious this is God's house. I am
messing with God's house. You are God's house. You have

(40:07):
to treat your body. And this is for married men.
This is for married women. What you look at, where
you go, it matters because your body. One Corinthians, chapter
sixteen or chapter six, verse nineteen says this, or do
you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God.
You are not your own, for you were bought with

(40:29):
a price, So glorify God in your body. Here's what
we have to recognize with the last closing thoughts today
is we have to recognize that marriage is the starting line,
not the finish line. I was taught marriage was the
finish line, not taught by anyone specific, but culture and

(40:49):
society taught me that. They they then, when you find
the right one boom, life is gonna be good. Oh no,
I wish, I wish that's what it was when we
said I do. It got harder. Man. You start bringing
in the in laws, you start bringing in schedules, you

(41:10):
start bringing in money, you start bringing in bills, you
start bringing in kids, You start bringing in sex lack
of sex, You start bringing in arguments. You start man,
I wish all I had to do was to go
to Chick fil A from seven to nine and just
hang out with someone and drop them off at their house.
So we have to teach our kids the gravity of

(41:31):
this thing. Like, Son, you want to start having a girlfriend,
take your mom on four dates, You pay the bill,
you drive her, you do everything, and if mom says
you good to go, then maybe you'll be good to go.
But if mom said he chewing with his mouth hoping,
he didn't brush his teeth before, he didn't have no
cologne on, he didn't he didn't have enough money to

(41:51):
pay for it, I had to blood him. I say, Son,
you don't even be waiting. You see, dating is the preseason.
Dating is the workout. So so if we do start
to let our kids date or hang out, then what
we gotta do is teach them what that looks like,
not just all well, you'll figure it out on your own,
because what happens is their passions are gonna fill the
void because they don't know what's going on. So we

(42:13):
gotta do is fill in that space and teach them.
Here's what I wish I did, Here's how I did
do it, Here's how your mother and I did it.
And if it goes into that space, it's teaching them
and encouraging them. And we're gonna close with these last
couple thoughts. You see today in today's culture, in the
American culture, we look for attractiveness when we're trying to
find the right person. We look for funny, We look

(42:34):
for do we click, do we have fun? Are our
interests the same? But here's the thing. If you do
it on just these exterior materialistic things, it'll really get
you into trouble because those exterior things. Someone may be
pretty now, but in five years, ten years, they ain't
looking the same. Their body don't work the same, the
shape ain't the same. If you are just looking for

(42:56):
a guy that's six', Five i'll just look at. Me
man's gotta be sixty. Five that's my pre. Regular you
got all these five eight guys trying to love, you
trying to holler at you, all but six.' five i'll
tell you this. Right now if you're prerequisite as a
woman is. Six' five if a guy drove up to
the front of the church right now with a two
million dollar ferrari and he started giving people one, hundred

(43:18):
dollars bills and he was, five to two and he
walked up to, you and said would you go on
a date? With me tonight you would find him so.
Attractive so, fast you see there's A tribe in ethiopia
where the man that gets the prettiest woman in that
tribe has to be. The fattest man so every single

(43:40):
year they get all the men, in this tribe in
the Body, tribe in ethiopia and they measure. Every man's
belly the guy with the biggest belly gets the prettiest
woman in the village because, in their culture the man
with the biggest belly means he knows how to find
food and provide. For his family some of you men
in here. Are right providers look at your wife and

(44:09):
say We move. Into ethiopia, tomorrow you see if it's
just based off of what's. On the, outside every culture
every place has their own different, view of that their
own different. View of that and so if that's all
you limit, INTEREST in you i mean it's. A dangerous. Place,
you see biblically when they would find, the right person,

(44:32):
it was this do you have value? In this relationship what?
Is your character how are you viewed? By our community
how do other people view you? In our community? Are
you honest? Are you hardworking are? You family oriented? Are
you responsible how? Is your faith do You? Submit to
god we see nowhere in there was it? The exterior

(44:53):
things now that can definitely be an element you want
to be attracted to. Whoever you find but if that
is your pre pre prerequisite before you even give, someone
a chance that you have these so many women come
up talk about it more next, Week they, Say i'm,
Single i'm, THIS i'm that i can't. Find a man
no men have propositioned. Themselves to you it just wasn't
the man that you had ideal that you. Fixated yourself

(45:15):
on and then men in, the same way which we
close with this. Last last thought it's like a, nine
part series but we're gonna do. It in two next
week is. Like the meat so if you got, something
from today. Wait next week you, see truly biblically if

(45:37):
we really want to Talk, about the bible the relationship
really started in. The engagement phase it started when a
man would be man enough to commit himself. To a
woman and actually that was the least pressured time. Of
the relationship and so there were a lot of engagements
back then. That would end they would end all the

(45:59):
time in the and, during those days engagements would end,
left and right because what would happen is a, father
would say if you want to have interest, in my
daughter you need to come to the table, with something
FIRST and then i will let you start to take
my daughter out and explore if you are right. For
each other but if you decide you're not right, for

(46:22):
EACH other then i still get that money, you GAVE
me and i still get that crop that, you gave
me because you need to lose something if you want
to take. My daughter out so here's what we Know in.
The american culture when we want to. Make, a commitment
men when we want to make a commitment, to a
woman what do we do when? We get engaged we give.
Her a ring it takes financial investment in order to

(46:46):
take her. Off the market means you got to put
some money. To that thing and what does the? Woman,
give up well the woman gives. Up societal things she
puts a ring. On her finger the man doesn't, have
one now so now she goes, around and says you can't.
Talk to me i'm. Committed to someone she has an
engagement ring on her which means, now to society she's.

(47:09):
Off the market so now if she comes out of,
the market again it's kind of, viewed, as like well
what did? You do wrong same thing. For the man
if all of a sudden she keeping the ring and
she's taking to a jeweler to trade it, for some, money,
it's like bro what? Did you do so there's a
lot more pressure to want to make, this thing work

(47:29):
which means if you have that pressure to want to make,
that thing work when you, finally get married the marriage
is already at a place, where you say when, times
get hard we, work it out because we did that in.
Our engagement phase but instead, of today's culture it's, date three,
years five, years ten, years eleven, years Or okay now
i'm ready. To marry you and so then by then

(47:52):
the girl's already like where you've been because men don't value.
That relationship anymore and we go to talk about next
week why that is because there's two part of us
that have deluded the relationship and deluded the. Value of
marriage and if we as a church and as We
as a christian community can continue to bring in the

(48:13):
value to what a godly, marriage looks like then we
can start to see transformation in the. Lives of People
because the bible tells us that our relationships in marriage
and the health of our marriages, are our symbols Their
expressions of god's. Love for us so when we have
a healthy, marriage and relationships it's A testimony to god's

(48:34):
goodness and. Who he is and so we'll go into that.
Further next week so let's, bow our heads close our Eyes,
and pray god we thank you so. Much. FOR today
Lord i pray lord that this message may Minister to
us lord as we begin to have a brief conversation
about starting this. Circus A, family father god there are
so many great things that we can. Do as people

(48:54):
there's so many great things that you've, Called Us. To
father god but when we look at all of the
things from calling to occupation, to Church attendance from. Genesis
to revelation we see that you value how we lead
our families, in our homes how we raise our children,
in godly homes how we teach the next generation what

(49:17):
it means To be. A, christ follower god we know
that you value that because it's fiddled all amongst your
word the importance. Of those Things, and so god in
the same way as we value where our kids will
go to, school one day and what major they'll pick
and what, sport they'll play may we also begin to
understand that it's our job to teach them that there's
gonna be someone that you're going to want to spend

(49:38):
the rest of. Your life with let us, start training
you now what that looks like and how, that looks
like so that you can have a successful marriage when.
You Get older so god help, Us with that, Give
us Wisdom lord. In. Jesus', name amen hey if you're,
in this place we're all going to leave here. Together
right now but, before you leave with the last few moments,

(49:58):
THAT we have i just want to make an en.
Tation of faith the beauty is we may have heard
a message like this today and even. Thought, to OURSELF
man when, I was younger i didn't really do a lot.
OF those things i did everything that. Was THE opposite
and i have felt the effects, of those things and
even my own sin and. My own pleasures it's got
me into a lot of troubles. In my life the
beauty is is that no matter how broken we, once

(50:20):
have been no matter how much trouble we wants, to
have been no matter, what hang up we may have
The Gospel, of jesus christ The fact that jesus died
on the cross and he rose. Three days later, he
forgives us forgives us. Of our sins all of those
things were done FOR you and i to bring us
into perfect Relationship. With the, Father you know god has

(50:41):
destined for all of us to come to a place
where we all will have to say yes Or. No
to jesus all will one Day. Stand before god and
the beauty Is is that god wants to bring us
into this Perfect. Relationship through, jesus and so if you're
in this place today and you've never given Your Life,
to jesus christ you've never called upon The, name of
jesus you never believe, in his, death and resurrection because

(51:02):
it's only by The Blood of jesus christ that our
sins are. Truly truly forgiven and so if you're in
this place, And, YOU say god, I want you, I
need you i want to be in, relationship with you
then right now we're going to say a. Prayer of
confession but. Here's the thing the prayer isn't the thing.
That saves you what we're doing is We're affirming what
god is already doing in our, life right now and

(51:24):
so we're just saying yes to that. Through this prayer,
so what everyone whether you're in the courtyard or, in
this room would you join me in repeating this, prayer
with me as there's going to be some people that
are going to be saying it for the very first time.
In their life would. You join me, Let's Say This,
dear lord jesus right now, IN this Place I confess
Jesus christ As. LORD and savior i believe in my

(51:48):
heart that he died on the cross and he rose.
Three days later from, THIS day forward i commit to
follow you for the rest of My days. In. Jesus'
name amen Can we give god a handclap for those
that may have. Said this prayer. Here's the thing if

(52:10):
you said, that prayer today and maybe you said it for,
the first time or you. Rededicated your life we, have
an incredible incredible book by, Our Founding Pastor, pastor Diego
Mesa Called the Seven steps Of Growing. Your christian walk
this is the best first thing that you could do. For,
your life additionally if you gave Your life to jesus
for the, first time today we want to just issue,

(52:30):
you one challenge and we believe it's a challenge that
will grow. Your faith immensely for the, next twelve months
as often as you could get to church when the church,
doors Are, open That's, wednesday that's sunday, that's men's. Events
women's events as often as you can come to those
things for the, next twelve months make A commitment, When
i'm free i'm going to be in The church and,
god will drastically drastically meet you. Where you're at. It'll

(52:54):
be incredible and so if you want to take, that
challenge today feel free, to do that and that let
Us know how god radically. Impact your life so go
to our website ww Dot grow dot faith. For more
information