Okay, Daniel Hatcher, ladies and gentlemen, you know, gosh, there's some weeks where it's like Satan just doesn't want us to make this happen. Hey, before I was leaving this evening to come over here, my youngest daughter, Kate, she looked at me and she goes, ooh, daddy, you're wearing blue pants. And I said, yeah, we're going to talk about dating tonight. I need a little motivation. She goes, ooh, dating. And of course she has no idea what she's talking about, but I thought it was fun. Hey, I had a great weekend. I really enjoyed seeing so many of y'all at the Drew Holcomb concert on Friday night. That was so much fun. My wife and I had a blast. That evening was good to see y'all. But I've been getting a lot of phone calls and text messages from y'all about dating and questions you have about dating. And I've been hearing a number of things from a number of you. Okay, and one of the things I've realized is that in a room like this, there's a lot of different groups in regards to how you're thinking about dating. One group is the group that has a ton of rules for dating. If you're going to approach dating, you've got a lot of rules that you've got to follow in dating. There's another group who's got a ton of rules against dating. Some of you all have given up on dating completely. You hate the idea of dating. You don't even want to think about it. Okay, some of y'all are throwing out all the rules for dating to get all together. And you want to do whatever you think is best at the moment. So you're just going to throw out rules for dating all together. There's some of you who want to be dating that aren't dating. I certainly understand that struggle. And then there's some of you in an interesting way that are dating that wish you were not dating. So if you came here tonight and you are dating, you might want to talk to that person afterwards just to make sure that y'all are still dating. So here's the point. It's really hard to talk about dating. Okay, we've seen this over the past two weeks that it's really difficult to talk about dating. And the reason why is because the Bible doesn't say anything explicitly about dating. Alright, people in the Bible, as we said last week, didn't date. Okay, so that's why it's hard to talk about dating. But what we did see last week and even a little bit the week before is that in the Bible, the ideal romantic relationship is marriage. And its marriage is meant to be permanent, exclusive, intimate and joyful. But what we're going to do tonight, again, is we're going to look at the Bible's teaching on marriage and we're going to apply it very practically, okay, to dating. And I really hope that tonight is going to serve as practical advice and wisdom for you. And at the same time, what I've done is some of the many, many questions that have been asked of me or people have texted in or whatever. Instead of trying to answer all those individually, I kind of grouped them together and I'm going to answer some of those in here tonight. So I'm going to, don't worry, I'm not going to call out your name, okay. And so, but I do hope that tonight serves as some practical wisdom for you. And some of the things that we're going to talk about tonight are things that I really do wish that someone would have told me when I was dating. And honestly, if I could just be really honest, the categories that we're going through tonight are all categories of my own failure in the past from dating, okay. So in other words, when I'm saying to you this is practical wisdom and advice, it's not like I'm up here saying I did it all right and so I just want you to do it the way I did it. And if anything, what I'm trying to say to you is learn from my mistakes, okay, don't do what I did. Let me give you some better, wiser advice from the Bible, okay. All right, so with that in mind, I'm going to give you some different things that I want you to think about that our scripture certainly points towards, okay. The first is this, in dating, you need to have appropriate companionship, okay. We see this in verses 18 and 24 and we said how in marriage that you're meant to enjoy all of life together as friends. Okay, so what does that mean for dating? Well, you should date someone who could be your very best friend. Now that might sound obvious, but here's the problem. When you walk into a room, the fact is that many of you rule out three quarters of the people in that room that you would go on a date with within 30 seconds, even though you know nothing about them. Okay, now, gentlemen, you need to be asking ladies out on a date, okay, I don't know how much more clearly to say it than that. Like, you all need to be going on dates, right. You need to be doing this. Don't worry about everything on date number one. Here's the thing, you put so much pressure on one date that it keeps you from even thinking about dating. You put so much pressure on the idea of just going out and sharing a meal together that it freaks you out to the point where you don't even want to ask somebody out. And what I want to say to you with all the authority of scripture is, relax. Okay, it's a date. It's dinner. It's coffee. All right, just relax. Go out and enjoy a date together. And this is for both the gentleman and the ladies in the room. All right, resist the urge to fantasize about the names of your children and to plan out the future on date number three. Okay, now you know you do this, right, just admit it. Well, let's all just admit this together tonight. Okay, what I'm asking you to do is when you go on a date, just relax. Okay, just get to know the person, ask questions, gentlemen, listen to the answers. Okay, just talk to each other, enjoy going on a date together. Okay, don't worry about the future just yet on date number three. Okay, so first question. What about dating, a non-Christian guy, when there are no Christian guys asking me out? Okay, first Corinthians chapter six in other places in scripture also forbid this. Okay, this is against God's design and his rule for you. And here's what you have to remember. The reason that God does not want you to, if you're a Christian, the reason that God does not want you to marry a non-believer is is to protect both you and your marriage. A lot of times it's easy to look at that and go, well, that's not fair. But the reason God gave that prohibition is because he's trying to protect both you and your future marriage, your relationship. Okay, there was an article last week by Kathy Keller, some of you all might have seen this on the Gospel Coalition website, that's Tim Keller's wife. And she wrote this article about why it's really unwise to marry, if you're a Christian, to marry a non-believer. Okay, and here's what she said. Number one, in order to be more in sync with your spouse, the Christian will have to push Jesus to the margins of his or her life. Number two, alternatively, if the believer in the marriage holds on to a robust Christian life and practice, the non-believing partner will have to be marginalized. And then finally she concludes number three. So either the marriage experiences stress and breaks up or experiences stress and stays together, achieving some kind of truce that involves one spouse or the other, capitulating in some areas, but leaves both parties feeling lonely and unhappy. And here's her questions to you. Does that sound like the kind of marriage you want? One that strangles your growth in Christ or strangles your growth as a couple, or perhaps even does both. It's a great article. You should go read the rest of it. Okay, so that's why if you're a believer, you should not date a non-believer. Okay, second category, not only is there appropriate companionship, there's appropriate intimacy. We see this in verses 23 through 25, and y'all, this is broader than just sexual intimacy. Okay, it's moving toward a relationship as this begins to happen, as you're in a relationship with someone, and you're moving into that relationship, of course, sparks are going to fly, so to speak. Okay, as you're vulnerable with someone, then naturally you're going to be attracted to that person, and then you have a desire physically to be with that person. Okay, what's interesting to me is how many of you all are surprised when you're in that place and you start to get physically attracted to someone, and you don't know what to do with yourself physically. Don't be surprised by that. Okay, that's just the way it goes. That's the way that God designed it to work, the more vulnerable you are with someone, the more that you are attracted to that person physically. Okay, but here's the deal. Sometimes when you're seriously dating someone, you tend to think of yourselves as almost married, rather than in a growing friendship, and usually, let's be honest, you use that as a way to justify sin. Okay, and what I'm asking you to do is to just enjoy your age. Just enjoy dating right now. You've got a long time ahead of you to be married. Okay, but just enjoy dating. And one way to maintain appropriate closeness is to keep your relationship open to friends and to parents. Okay, encourage questions from your friends about your relationship. I don't know if you've ever done this. Ask your friends what they think of your relationship. Seriously, it's a good idea. Ask your friends what they think of your dating relationship. Okay, find some balance between time with the person you date and your friends. Now, if a couple can never be apart, okay, and they must always be side by side, to me, that is not a sign of health. That's actually a red flag. That means that that couple is co-dependent, that they don't know who they are without the other person. And that's not necessarily a good thing. Okay, it's good to be apart at times, but beware of relying upon intimacy to keep the relationship going. Let me say that again. Beware of relying on intimacy to keep the relationship going or to solve problems. Because if you do this, if you rely on intimacy to keep your relationship going or to solve problems, you develop this pattern that's extremely unhealthy, and it will take years to unravel. Okay, here's another question I got from someone. What about sleeping over at their apartment even if we aren't doing anything? That's really hard for me to believe. Okay, but even if it is the case, you are wanting the physical closeness that's reserved for married people. All right, in scripture, there's a couple different places that talk about the Christian life being above reproach. Those are two Bible words. Okay, here's an example from Ephesians chapter 5 verse 3, but sexual immorality and impurity or covetousness must not be named among you as is proper among the saints. Okay, so we're to live in such a way that is above reproach. All right, where no one can make accusation. Here's another question. How far is too far physically? Where is the line and when does it become sinful? Okay, wrong question, right, it's the wrong question because basically is saying how much can I sin before it's not okay? It's not respecting the other person. And further in the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5, remember that Jesus talks about lust and sin being something that's not just an action that actually starts in the heart. Okay, that lust begins and happens in the heart. Okay, and so here's just a general rule which is going to make me sound ridiculously conservative. Okay, if you wouldn't do it on Sanford lawn or in front of your mother, don't do it. Seriously, okay, that will keep you out of trouble and further nothing good happens after midnight. Okay. All right, third category, appropriate priority, verse 24. Remember, as we said the last week that marriage is meant to be permanent, it's meant to be public, and it's meant to be the most important earthly relationship. It's meant to have priority over your other earthly relationships, but dating is not. Okay, and it's unwise to give dating relationships exclusive priority. Why? Because dating doesn't have the stability to replace other relationships as the most important. Okay, the desires of the person you date cannot always trump the desires of other relationships. In other words, I want you to think about this in terms of how you might think of other very close relationships. For example, no other friend would you say this to, or would you hear this? I don't care what you had planned, but you have to go out to eat dinner with me. Okay, you probably wouldn't hear that or say that to one of your best friends. But at the same time, any close friend would expect you to value the relationship enough to make time for it. Okay, remind yourself that a dating relationship does not have exclusive claim on you. Seek to be balanced with other friendships. Here's an example. Here's something you might want to try. My wife and I did this in college, and I thought it was great. Naturally, because this is what we did. Okay, so on the weekends, we would spend, for example, we would spend Friday night, we would spend in a group with a bunch of people together. Saturday night would be my night with her, and we would just go and enjoy dinner or whatever, and then Sunday night would be my night with the guys. Okay, so what we did was we would take a weekend, and if you've got two nights, spend one night, not literally, with the person that you're dating, and then spend the other evening, just spend in time with your friends. Okay, that's a good way to maintain balance and health in your other friendships as well. Okay, so talk to each other about this, ask your parents about this. That's a good place to start, but I want to say this too. I think this is really important. If your closest friends, please hear me. If your closest friends don't think your dating relationship is good, please listen to them, because they very well may see something in that relationship that you don't see. Okay, and be careful who you listen to. Don't deceive yourself. Don't just ask people about your relationship that you know are going to look at you and go, oh yeah, it's great. I'm so glad you're dating so and so. Ask people that you know are going to be honest with you. Okay, be willing to ask people who are willing to be honest with you. Okay, here's another question. If you're dating to Mary, how would you avoid playing married while dating? Okay, if you're dating to Mary, how do you avoid playing married while dating? Well, first of all, don't do things that married people do. Right, don't have sex, don't buy a dog together. Okay, if you're dating, don't buy a dog together. Please, and don't put it on Instagram, let's disgusting. And remember this guys that dating, when you're in a, when you're in a dating relationship, you have no right to place continual demands on the other person all the time for their time. So dating is a privilege, and you need to treat it that way. The second that you start getting the sense of entitlement where you're demanding things from the other person all the time, that should be a red flag to you that something is not right in your relationship. Okay, another thing is when to avoid acting like you're married while you're dating, you have to repent a lot to each other. And what I mean by that is you mess up and you go to them and be honest with them about messing up. Okay, in other words, you say things like this. I'm sorry I responded that way. Go out with your friends tonight. I don't own you. I need some of y'all to say that to each other. You need to look at that person you're dating later tonight, not right now. And you need to say, I don't own you. I want you to go spend time with your friends. That's a good thing. Okay, and by the way, just as a quick aside, if the person you're dating doesn't ever want or allow you to spend time with your friends, run. That's not a good thing. Okay. Number four, fourth category, appropriate commitment. Okay. Remember, we've said that marriage requires commitment. It requires vows. Okay, wedding vows that enable the relationship to flourish. And we also have said that sex is the symbolic is symbolic of whole lives that are being joined together. But dating does not have that commitment. Dating does not have those vows. So dating should not have that symbolic act either. Okay. So on one hand, you want to resist thinking and talking and acting like you will always be with the person you're dating. Okay. You date to figure out what the other person is like. Right. You might date for days or weeks or months or even perhaps years, but you date to figure out what the other person is like. And there might come a point where you look at them and you think, this is not who I want to be with. Okay. If so, so be it. Right. But secondly, you have to be able to break off the relationship or to have the relationship broken off for you. Now, this is going to be bad news to you. I'm just this is a preface preface. Okay. Statistically, 99% of your dating relationships will end in breaking up. Okay. The reason I say that y'all is not to discourage you, but what I really want to do is give you a little bit of realism to where you don't put dating on some unrealistic pedestal that it could never fulfill. Okay. So you have to be able to break off a dating relationship or to have it broken off for you. I want to very quickly, I want to take on a side on breaking up appropriately given that that's going to happen. Okay. Because I got this question, I thought this was really good. How do you heal from a breakup with someone you really loved and were committed to? That's a great question. That's a hard question. Okay. I would say time. It's not going to be all better tomorrow or next week, probably not even next month. It's going to take a long time. It's probably going to take months and months before you start to feel normal with that person. Okay. It's going to take the gospel at work in your heart and reminded and being reminded of God's deep profound love for you that frees you up from the slavery of thinking about the other relationship. Further, Christian community is really important after a breakup. You need other people speaking into your heart. You need people speaking into your life and reminding you the truth of who God has made you to be. You need healthy opposite sex friendships. Okay. You need to choose to speak well of the other person regardless. Now that means, very practically, no gossiping, no slander, no wishing them harm, no prayer requests for that person. Okay. You'll know. Okay. There's no set about that. But here's the point. Choose to speak well of the other person, but don't let your breakup be the thing that identifies you. Remember who you are, but more importantly, remember who you are. Remember that you are a son or daughter of the king, and that is the thing that defines you, not the breakup. Okay. Okay. So you got to be able to have the relationship broken off for you. Third, you got to be able to acknowledge the instability of dating. In other words, hold dating as it were with open hands. Okay. So on one hand, I said, you want to resist thinking or talking or acting like you're always going to be with the person that you're dating. But secondly, you, on the other hand, want to look for someone who could commit to you. Okay. If he or she has cheated on you, watch out. If he or she has cheated on you continually, run and don't look back. Seriously. Don't give it a second thought. Okay. Next question. If one of the people in the relationship has said, I love you, what do you do to keep the relationship non-committed? Too late. If you, if one or more people have said, I love you, then you're already committed. Because see, here's what I want you to get that in a romantic sense, love says, let's go get married. That's what love says. In a romantic sense is, I understand who you are. I want to be with you. Let's go get married. So if a person says, I love you, then all of a sudden it's confusing because there's this emotional commitment there without the vows to back it up. Now, I'm going to leave it there because I don't think that there's a lot of really specific rules with that that we need to follow because I don't want to be legalistic about that in any way. But what I want to just say is, please be careful because sometimes the reason your relationships are confusing is because you're trying to come together emotionally without the vows that back up the commitment you're trying to make emotionally. Another thing is, definitely hang out more with people in groups. That will help you. Especially if you're having trouble moving too fast in commitment, hang out with more people in groups. Number five, appropriate timing. This is a big one. This is really important. How do you know when it's right? Well, don't hold out for the perfect person because that perfect man, that perfect woman does not exist. Pursue romance, friendship, and a common vision for life talk at a level that is appropriate to the commitment that has been made between the two of you. Pursue friendship and honesty and integrity and faithfulness and even accountability with other people, then get ready for it, then get married or break up. Okay, now I just hit you with something, but here's the deal. After you've been in this process where there's attraction, there's friendship, there's dating, then comes this point of evaluation where a decision has to be made. And you have to make the decision. We're either going to break up or we're going to get married. We're either going to move towards engagement and marriage or we're going to move towards a continued, amicable, respectful, loving friendship that continues. But one of the problems in dating is that so many of y'all, you end up in that space just kind of floating around and you don't know where you are and the other person doesn't know where they are and no decisions are made and so what ends up happening is bitterness and resentment builds up and then you drive each other crazy and you break up even though you might have got married. Okay, it's crazy, but you eventually, after you come to a point of evaluation, you need to make a decision. You need to decide, are we going to break up or we're going to get married? Okay, question. What is a good period of time to date before considering marriage? Well, of course the time for that varies depending on couples. It depends upon if you've known them as friends for a long time and you might not date for a long time if you've known them for a long time. Sometimes if you've been lifelong friends with somebody and you know them really well, you might not date all that long. But it also depends on other factors like how physical you are. Okay, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 it speaks to this, that if you can't control yourself physically, it's better to get married, Paul says, then to burn with passion. Okay, something to consider. All right, but here's some of the questions as you think about timing. These are some of the questions that you need to be asking yourself and asking of each other. Are you, are both of you Christians? Can you both solve problems biblically together? What are those who know you well, think of your relationship? Are you willing to accept each other just as you are knowing that you cannot change that other person? Does this make sense right now? Have you received the encouragement of other people? Are there good reasons to wait? Do you have the money to get married knowing that you could get pregnant on day one? Is there love and respect in your relationship already? Finally, but very importantly, how does that person handle money? It's a big deal. So even if it's the right person, wait for the right timing. That's hugely important. Sixth and final category, appropriate connection to the body of Christ, to the church, to give freedom for the body of Christ, to speak into your relationship. So how do you know if you're ready to take the next step in a relationship? How do you know if you're ready to make and to keep marriage vows? Let me give you, this is a long conversation, but let me give you a place to start. Join a local church. Now, I know that might sound like very strange advice, but here's why I say that. When you become a member of a church, not only do you place yourself within the care and the oversight and the wisdom of God's people, which is pretty helpful by the way, if you're making life altering decisions, but you actually exchange promises and vows with these messy, broken people. Sound familiar? That's what we've been talking about. Joining a church is the best way to prepare you to love someone for better or for worse, and to practice a life of vow keeping before you get married. Can you make and keep promises to God's people? That's a good question. When it comes to examining your readiness to get married, your maturity for marriage. Now, y'all, this is hard, and the reason this is hard is because your generation, and even my generation too, is so bent towards isolation. We think so much in terms of, well, what do I think by myself? What do we think as a couple? And I think technology has really made that even worse in some ways, because we are bent as a culture towards isolation, but here's the problem. Maturity doesn't happen in isolation. It just doesn't. Maturity happens in community, so among God's people, not in isolation, is where you discover the power of the gospel in your life. When you're dating relationships, pull you away from the church, and from fellowship with God's people, you are putting that relationship at risk. A healthy relationship should push you towards God's people. It should encourage you towards those things, okay? So make sure you're pursuing relationships in the setting that has the power to make them beautiful. Don't run from Christian community. Guys, community is a gift to you. Certainly in the arena of relationships and dating, community is a gift. It gives you an incredible amount of wisdom by which you can think through the health of your relationship. You know, we mentioned this a little bit last week, but one of the problems is that rather than naturally loving and serving each other, we are inclined because of sin to use each other, okay? But that person, and I want to be very clear here, that person that you're dating is not a commodity to be consumed by you. That person that you are dating is a brother or sister in Christ that needs to be encouraged by your love and sacrifice towards them. They're not a commodity to be consumed, okay? So we've got a problem, right? What is our hope in all of that? Our hope is that we've got to be changed from the inside out, for our relationships to be lived out rightly. And here's the good news tonight. This is how the gospel of Jesus speaks very clearly into our dating relationships. Jesus's love for you can reach down into the very deepest, darkest parts of our hearts and change you. Not just in dating, but in all of life, okay? But here's the thing, guys, if you don't know the love of Jesus, then you're going to spend all of your time in relationships chasing after finding ultimate security and fulfillment in another person. And you're going to come up frustrated every single time because you can't and you won't. Ultimate security and fulfillment can only be found in Jesus. And so when you know the love of Jesus, then you are free to love and to serve other people. Then you are free to really enjoy relationship together with someone else. So tonight, I'd encourage you ask Jesus to change your heart into someone who loves other people well. Not just for your dating relationships now, but for your marriages later. Ask Jesus to do that in your heart, okay? I'm going to pray and then next week we're going to get back together and we're going to talk about sexuality next week. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would take these very practical ideas about dating and you would help us to sift through them and to consider the wisdom of them based on principles that are laid out and your word. And God, I pray with that though, you would help us to see more clearly than anything else. Jesus, help us to see that Jesus is our only hope for doing relationships right. Help us to see that Jesus can transform us and change our hearts in such a way that helps us to love each other well. God, we pray that you would do this for our good and for your glory. Amen.