Latest / Pastor Plek's Podcast / Building Strong Bonds Through Faith

Transcript

Building Strong Bonds Through Faith · Pastor Plek's Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and welcome back to pastor plex podcast.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, pastor plec, and joining me in studios none other than muhammad ali, pastor of our students and associate pastor here at wells branch community church.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: How you doing good?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I'm awesome and pastor holland greg lead pastor there at east side community church.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: That's on the east side of aust.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Very true, that is where it is.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks, chris.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, glad to have you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: How is the east side?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Is it still?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: there, still there, god's doing great things, wonderful, wonderful things.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Well, now we had this past week.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: What did you guys preach there at Eastside?
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: We just started a series in the book of Haggai Short series, vision series going to spend a couple weeks covering Haggai.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Did you tell them to?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: stop working on their houses and start working on the church.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Essentially, that's good.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: That's good Got to get your priorities straight.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Work on your house, but do the Lord's work first, lord's work first.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Now we're in the Song of Solomon, which we had to tell all the parents to make sure they were ready for this and a lot more.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Our children's ministry was at its highest level in a long, long time, so there were a lot of us that were not ready for that conversation and a lot that just jumped into it and said let's go, and I really appreciated that.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about sex, sex.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: We're talking about the song of solemn, we're talking about marriage, and song of solemn starts off with and this is my view on this, which is kind of fun uh, in, when we start off, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Your anointing oils are fragrant.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Your name is oil poured out.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Therefore, virgins, love, you draw me after you, let us run.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: The king has brought me into his chambers to me.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I took that as it was the wedding night and she's remembering the wedding night and is excited about it.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Before she has a flashback to prior to the wedding night, my view, any thoughts on what was your view on those first four verses?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, agree, oh, cool, uh, and you cause.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: You preach this to your church, maybe three or four years ago.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You know he's already done all that.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: And we, we preach through it at uh, the young, the young adult group, like 10 years ago way back in the day, here at Wells branch.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That's right so uh, that's right, so yeah, so a lot of people have different takes on the Song of Solomon.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: There is the allegory take, which has been honestly Christian tradition for about 1800 years, was allegory.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: It was either, or even before that let's just go 5,000 years it was Yahweh's covenantal love with Israel and then when Christians came along, it was Christ's covenantal love with the church.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Some middle-aged mystics were.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It was like Christ's love with the individual.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And then back to the reformers went, christ's love for the church, and so everybody for the most part kind of kept that as an allegory.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And then till some, really the last 200 years, bible scholars go like man it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It's tough to sell the two breasts as being the old and new testament or like, um, some allegorical view only.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And I think so.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: There's allegory allegory.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: There's a literal view of the song of solomon that is just strictly a God's delight in the sexual experience of a husband and a wife and him cheering it on as his design.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And then the one I've really grown to appreciate is the typological view of where it is.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: You're looking at Christ's love for his church, or covenantal love of God and for his people, and then also a love between a man and a woman that God made, designed, and how sex is to be enjoyed as something that was made for pleasure, not simply only for procreation.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Procreation is probably a primary, but a huge part of God's design for sex was that we would enjoy it, and so I think that's part of his obviously, design.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Mo, have you heard any other views on that or any other sort of ways to approach the song Solomon?
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think so.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are, those are pretty much.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: It, that's pretty much it.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that one of the things that I kind of went from on this is that there's a couple of things to look at.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Is a husband quality or some spousal quality, but first the husband quality was, uh, having a good name and then pursuing a woman who wanted the same.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: How, like, when you just thinking back to Lauren, like, like, talk to me about like your, uh, cause you were in a young adult ministry in California and and talk to me about like your, because you were in a young adult ministry in California and talk to me about like that perspective of being a person that was because you were like pastoring really, or at least teaching and doing young adult ministry back then when you met Lauren.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so talk to us about, like, the good name aspect for you and how that played into it.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Man, it was kind of wild because I feel so.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: I was the pastor of the ministry and this was I started that right when COVID hit.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Germany's restriction for COVID was you can have up to 250 people at a gathering, as long as it was an outdoor space.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: And I figured, man, this is a tough transition, ain't nobody going to show up?
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: And we went from 30 people to about 180 people in about four months.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Wow, to about 180 people in about four months.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Wow, and it's, I mean sure, like the preaching and the worship was what it's a bunch of people in their early twenties that were alone, yeah, starving, that were starving for community.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: So I give all of the credit to the ability in the people in our community to be able to forge friendships, and that was happening, yeah.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: And then Lauren comes in and I already have like friendships with some of the people there for like years, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: And so I really like the fact that you talked about here in the text where it says the others and so like you're having this not isolated and like, oh, who's your girlfriend, by the way, and whatever it's like everybody knows everybody.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: When you're hanging out, you're all together, and so you're getting to know somebody, yes, in the context, like individually, but you're getting to know somebody in the context of, like, how do they talk to other people, right, how are they around, not just me, but around everyone else?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And so to me, like having experienced that, yes, one, I mean, obviously, like, as a pastor, you have to be careful in pursuing a woman within your ministry, right?
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: So that's what I was really really careful about.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: But as soon as I recognized like, oh man, she's great, she loves the Lord, she, whatever, like, I went for it.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: And in my mind as soon as I did, I was like I, I want to marry you, yeah, right, and it by God's, by God's grace, it all worked out, um, but, yeah, so, like pursuing and having to me like good friends, yeah, cause, to me, if you don't know how to have friends, you, you don't have any business trying to pursue someone, right, you don't even know how to hold a friendship, right, right, and how much more is a marriage?
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of how it was.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: I like the way you put that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Speaking about that, I was just like, yes, I love how you brought out, kind of like the thing that you had with adrian, yeah, where y'all were running and she's just like you know, I'm out, I'm out, or like let's define the relationship type of thing, and if you're going to pursue me, pursue me.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just that's bold, she, she was bold, I mean well obviously.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know Adrian for more than three seconds and that, honestly, was the thing that was like I have never heard a woman be that bold and that confident and that awesome and I was like, okay, that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And when she said I want to marry my best friend, I was like, oh duh.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Anyway, adrian is like the ultimate win for me.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Obviously, han, I still remember the trip it was the California trip where you and Jenny started to connect because she went back and forth with you on the van.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: That's right, at your command, that's right.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: That was me kind of.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Well, we did have it, adrian, and I did have a talk about it, because Adrian connected with Jenny in New York and then when we went to California, adrian had mentioned like I think Holland and Jenny would be a thing.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, jenny, you have to go with Holland back and forth, driving everybody to the airport Y'all were playing Cupid.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And it worked out.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: It did I I.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think there's something to that like meaning I don't want to say a pastor's role is to play cupid, but yeah, sort of like because we want to see godly people flourish and so when you see someone you really love and respect and are awesome, like you're wanting to connect them and, uh, bring them together.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: So you guys spent like 20 hours together.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Just, I think all you guys did was drive people back and forth from the airport.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did a lot of driving together and uh, yeah, I.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And then like, when I had realized like, man, I think I love this girl, I want to marry her, I remember I called you and I was like you know what should I do?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And you were like, well, have you told her yet?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like no, and you were like you should tell her.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And so I was like all right.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: So then the next day I did, uh, I told we were on our way to church and I told her in the car on the way to church.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: We were like listening to a worship song and like having a great deep conversation.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I told her I love you and her response was like I think it was that sweet, awkward church service just sitting next to each other in church the whole time.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just like what am I thinking?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: What did I do wrong?
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Why did I say it right then what?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Anyway?
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: She later said it back and you know we had a good talk, but it was just kind of put her on the spot right there on the way to church she's not prepared.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was good.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Uh, wow, way to go.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, uh.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And then, um, yeah, I remember when you got married that that was back in 2012, right, 2012,.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was wild.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: That was some good times.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: That wedding was great, right there at Zilker Tanago Gardens, correct?
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good stuff.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, so let's talk about the one line that I stole from Tommy Nelson from his Song of Solomon series, which I love, tommy Nelson, and I love his preaching on the Song of Solomon, but I don't want to take anything away from his preaching on the Song of Solomon.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: However, I felt like he like preached whatever he wanted and just use the song of Solomon in in passing.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: But but one thing he did say it was like the right truth, just not from the right text anyway.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: But the one thing I did love about what he said in in that series was was he said you know, run towards Christ and then look to your left and to your right and see who's running with you and that's probably someone that you should marry or would be the one that would be good to do life with, and I really appreciated that, and so for me, I kind of had that gear, if someone could, especially when we were doing ministry, like we were back in the old days of just running and gunning, traveling all over the country sharing the gospel, doing insane stuff with evangelism, mission work, traveling all over the country sharing the gospel, doing insane stuff with evangelism and mission work Adrienne was able to hang with that and she was fun and always made it fun, and so that for me was like I want to find someone who's pursuing Jesus in the same intensity I guess is the right way as I am, and I think that's a huge win for obviously a couple, because sometimes I think a lot of people get married and you have either the guy sort of dragging the girl, which is actually probably preferable, or what happens a lot of times is the girl's dragging the guy, which is not quite as preferable, like I, come on, let's go run for jesus, and he's like no, I, I'm good with just going to church every now and then.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: And again I get it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: People are at different spots and different spaces, but man, why not start from a place of running towards Christ?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And you find that I think the hard thing that people have is they don't know where to find Christians, and I'm like if you just serve in the local church, like even in small churches, like like you're going to find somebody who's going to be there, that will be a person that you would want to marry Cause anyway.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes we just sort of abandon that, we go to hinge or we go to whatever.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And I will say it, it's hard.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: At least it was for me, like dating before I met Lauren, and I mean I was at a big church, a big Bible-believing church, and then, like before that I was a part, like I was going to another whatever, whatever.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: And it's crazy how many girls I met and dated that just had like crazy beliefs.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Like these are girls that I'm meeting in Christian young adults groups, right, right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And then I'll just ask just like simple basic lead up questions and they're just like, oh yeah, like I don't know if the Holy spirit's God he's probably more like a feeling and I'm just like what you know?
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And it's like They've never been taught, but still it's like, well, yo, time after time, you know.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: So it's tough, you know, I can.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: Still I see why people would be like, man, I've tried dating and it's, and it's hard to find a Bible believing girl or or guy or whatever.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's, it's the role of the local church to train them up, Right, right, to have our young adults be like ready for marriage, right right, right, like ready for marriage, Right, right, right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a struggle overall is that sometimes the lost years is the young adult years or the single again years where there's not a place.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You don't feel like there's a place for you, and I think that's where you've got to be super intentional with your time to engage the church if they don't have something specific for, like a young adult ministry, so to speak.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I think that's a challenge.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I think that was one of the cool things that when we came here, holland led our young adult ministry and it was really fun and a lot of people got married to our church from that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did a lot of weddings out of that.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, one of the things that All still together.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, praise the Lord, praise God.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: That's a great caveat.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like it's a pretty good record and still in church.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is good for the most part, for the most part.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: You know the ones I officiated.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Okay yeah.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Are you still like 100% on all the people you've married?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: 100% so far, wow.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: How about you, chris, god in.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Christ.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like there's some special way to do a ceremony.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: You know like listen, I'm just more thankful.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I won't go into who it was, but I remember there was this picture of me and it wasn't reflective, I don't think, but it was prophetic.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't reflective about how I felt about, um, the couple at the time but there's this uh, it was one of our uh elders took a picture of me after the wedding was over and I was like like like no, and it was kind of like I was.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I think it was probably more of like it was a long week and I was tired and I was like I'm glad that's over with, but like there they are like kissing and I'm like, and prophetically, they didn't make it anyway.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, it was like kind of sad anyway, that was very sad.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very sad and I was like what is the secret sauce?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of marriage counseling that went into just trying to save that one.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: But I think that's what happens is you have people that aren't running as hard as they can or they have kind of where you were going, mo, maybe a misdirected.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: They haven't gotten a lot of their theology fixed before they get married and they're expecting a lot of I don't know issues to just go away, issues to never come up or an expectation of what marriage is going to do for me, as opposed to I'm getting into this to serve my spouse and it's going to be a grind and a hard work and I've got to have the heart of.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I know in theory that I'm really selfish and when that reality hits me I'm going to have to heart of.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I know in theory that I'm really selfish and when that reality hits me, I'm going to have to work to be refined by Christ.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I think that, for me, was probably the reality that hit the hardest is, I don't think I realized how selfish I was until I got married and Adrienne was really good at helping, pointing it out.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Nice, she would say stuff like she would say you know, I think sometimes you think that I like should be like just jumping like a gazelle in the fields of how happy it is that, uh, I got to marry you, but the reality is you should be doing that about how you get to be married to me and I was like, am I really like that?
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I probably am.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I probably should change.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: But she was the only one in my entire life that ever sort of like called out my selfishness, called out like she was able to do it in a really funny way, but also in a loving way, which is sort of a wild.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: She has a really cool way of doing that.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: But I think that's what's hard is that you have expectations what marriage should be, marriage is going to be, and I think this, my big challenge, is get married for people.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I get married younger.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I got married later, at 34, and I had a lot of habits, a lot of, you know, kind of like selfishness, sort of like ingrained that I didn't even realize I had, and I was so grateful that Adrian was able to help undo a lot of that, because she was really grounded in who she is Like.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I think the one thing about Adrian is.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously she's refined over time and is way more graceful, but she's kind of who she is now, is kind of who she was then and very, very direct and anyway, what exactly what I need.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's how god designs marriage.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I'm super grateful for that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Um, but for you guys, what?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Like was there something about your own selfishness that came out after you got married?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Or you saw, you didn't realize that you had?
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: yeah, absolutely.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I think when you are used to, um, just being responsible for yourself, you, you can get this delusion that you're you know you're a lot more mature than you really are.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Then, when you move in with someone who notices things about you that you've learned how to excuse or justify over the years, uh, I think that was for me Like I just I remember after getting getting married and like little little things here and there, um, that started to, um, uh, I don't know, add up and stuff as in our first year of marriage, um, add up, it just led to frustrations and arguments and things like that.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It was things that I had, like I realized I had learned, like I don't really have discipline or self-control over this area.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I've just learned how to excuse it and justify it for myself.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: And then now I have another person saying, like why do you do this?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And so I don't know.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: That first year was very eye-opening for me.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: But good, we had a great first year of marriage in a lot of ways.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah and I think Adrienne assumed a lot better of me in many ways and just now she's realizing that I have a lot of insecurities that I didn't realize I had, and she's able to point them out, which is really healthy and that's the gift that keeps on giving is that she's able to help grow me in many ways, to point out and be a great helper, to point out all my failings, but no, in a serious way.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: It actually is very helpful and I've grown a ton.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But what about this?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to what we were talking about earlier, about godly community affirming the right relationship opportunity.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: I did steal.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Your godly community will affirm the right relationship opportunity.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Community opportunity Okay, good.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Your first point, your first draft didn't rhyme, and so I felt like I needed to help out.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You needed help out, so I appreciate that.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: And then ChatGPT sealed it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, chatgpt came around, good, but yeah, let's talk about godly community, like how?
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Let's just talk young adults just for a second, because I feel like this is where this goes.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: How are young adults supposed to be in community and have the relationship affirmed, like how is that?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: supposed to happen.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I feel like you know the healthiest, one of the healthiest ways that I've seen it done is that the young adults community comes out of the high school ministry and so it's even younger than that, right, and so that you have a guy and a girl who are whatever, like their sophomore, junior, senior year of high school, and then they go into whatever and then the young adults community and then from there, so that's like one of the.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: That's an awesome way.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: It continues into young adults community, but if you don't have that previous senior year and at young adults man, that is obviously amazing as well.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: But yeah, to me it's like you're just hanging out as a group, yeah, right, and you're able to like, see, and somebody is able to call certain things that you might not be able to see or call out or whatever.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I love this, the thing that you said you know if like, or somebody that's maybe even older or mature in the faith, and they're asking you about your boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever he's like.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, have you noticed the way that they whatever, whatever, right.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: The same pattern that you can have with yourself that I was bringing up about how you excuse and justify your own shortcomings that a spouse will maybe expose.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: You can do that for someone you're dating as well, you learn to just go.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to excuse that or justify that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: You know well, he's not really that into church but he's really great at these other things.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Right, but if, when community steps in, they go, what do you mean?
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: He's, you know, not very committed to church, like why not what's going on there?
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: And so being able to have, like you know, the others in this poem and the song of Solomon is bringing in the community aspect of other people who are saying we will exult and rejoice in you.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Rightly, do they love you.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: So there are people who are affirming, who are saying, yep, your desire for this person makes sense.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: This is a godly person.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: We see it too.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It's not just you.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, I think that's friends, church friends.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I think parents are a part of that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: If you have godly Christian parents and then, uh, and then mentors, maybe like, uh, spiritual parents, in a sense, like godly older men and women, um, yeah, so, like you know, you were like that for Jenny and I being able to bring you in and be like do you see what I see?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: You know, is this right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: And that's when you brought, had sat Jenny down in your apartment and put the lamp on her.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Oh man, it was terrible.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Grilled her, Put a big spotlight on her and james meyer and I go.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: What do you really want with holland?
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: she was like she stuck around through, you know, but like we, everything we did together when we were dating, we it was with friends, it was in community, we were, um, you know, I was getting to know her friends, she was getting to know mine.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: There was, I think, the whole like secret boyfriend.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: You know, like this, I'm dating this guy but no, I haven't brought him around church and all my parents don't know him and no, that's just one of the unhealthiest.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, absolutely yeah, I think that I get excited about relationships that start flourish in the church and, and I think we all want that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: But what are the reasons why people?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to that hiding aspect, because I do feel like there's times where young adults, they'll fall off the map.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're on fire serving.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They meet a girl and then they disappear.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: They show up to church once a month or once every now and then what is that?
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Is it?
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid they're going to say no, I'm afraid they're going to find out about my sexual sin.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: What is the combo?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, but what do you think?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It is primarily.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: When we were doing young adult ministry here, this happened all the time, and it was usually that, yeah, there was sexual sin that brought about guilt, shame, fear of people finding out, fear of people judging, and so I'm just going to disappear on my church community.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And there were some couples, though, who you know, took a different approach and said, ok, we did sin in this way, but we want to be accountable, we want to repent, and you know those, those couples ended up, you know, doing really well.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Those were some of the marriages we saw.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Some of the ones that disappeared because of relationship stuff and sexual sin are not in the church at all anymore.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and that's it is.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: That's sad, but it's it's.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, I think, the way that you start is probably going to be the way that you finish, and sometimes church was just a.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: This is just a way that I can meet someone.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: More than this is something that I'm really passionate about.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I come to a Tuesday.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: They were.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, we had, we definitely had guys and girls who would show up Tuesday nights, not because they love the Lord and couldn't wait to hear what I was preaching on that night Right, but they just wanted to meet somebody, and when they did, they were gone after that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that for a second.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: So is that a negative thing?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Like because I think there's.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Like I mean obviously a person coming just to look for a dude although you know, find a godly wife or godly spouse is good but I think it's important to discern, like just because they're at church doesn't make them a christian.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Just in the same way, just because they're in a garage doesn't make them a car, yep, and so I think don't just like classic, right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: So I think we can't turn off our brains in terms of I do think you have higher odds of finding a christian person in a church rather than a bar, absolutely but yeah, I think it's a good thing to search at the same time.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: No, I love that people would meet you know and go and date and get in relationships on at our Tuesday night young adult thing.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: What I was talking about was people who were faking a passion for Jesus just to find a relationship.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Did you find people would fake a passion for Jesus?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, let's talk about that.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, how, how do you, how could you spot someone faking a passion for Jesus?
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I don't think you can look at someone and tell, but you can watch patterns.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And so the pattern was I would come Tuesday night, not necessarily Sunday morning, so just Tuesday nights, and I would come as long as I see a potential of meeting someone here.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And then what happened is, when they got into a relationship they would disappear again.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: No Tuesday nights, no Sunday mornings, no community group, no texting back, and so I don't know.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: We saw that fairly often.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so here's one that I thought was interesting.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: One of the last things I said is like love should glow, not feel like low, not feel like whoa, and what I meant was like not feel like low, not feel like whoa.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And what I meant was I feel like there's a lot of couples that are dating and they're grinding it out and meaning they're not even married.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: They have all the problems of a married couple with very few of the benefits, and if they have benefits, they feel guilty about them.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about have you seen couples date and just man, it's time to cut it off.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think goes to.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: I think the primary responsibility would be the man lacking, lacking that vision, right.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: But you know, the story you told with Adrian is a great example of like she wasn't going to sit around for that you know.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And so she was like hey, if you're not going to pursue me and make this an official relationship, I'm out and I'm going to find someone who will.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And that woke you up?
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it did, totally did.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I was so grateful for that.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the love should glow, not feel like whoa, in the sense that you've been dating for two or three years have you felt like once you cross the line to sexual sin?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It's really hard and I'm not saying it's impossible because I don't want to create like a doom, like it's impossible.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: However, but it's really hard to bring the relationship back to a place of purity where there's excitement about being with each other, because I think, once lines have been crossed, there's a shame that's sort of incorporated, even if you've experienced forgiveness and and you, you know we're not doing that again, we, we have accountability.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But then there's a little I don't know.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: What I've seen is that there's a struggle for couples, um, to to like overlook uh I don't know what the right word is for that.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: I guess overlook, uh because they now kind of see the person as they would, as a married person, and now they're, but they're trying to work it out, but they're not married yet.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: You're, you're, you're in this weird, you know, transactional relationship and you've gotten out and you, yeah, you've gotten out, yeah, yeah, you've done everything that a married couple does right, and you've been together as long as a married couple has yes when the honeymoon period is over Right.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what I'm, and the whole point is, once two, three years hit, you're supposed to go.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know well, all right, I guess we're going to work it out Right?
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: And that's the beauty of marriage, Right, Easy to go.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I don't care how.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: I feel about you or myself or whatever.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I'm here to stay and no, that's it.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I think no, you're right, because at some point, no matter how great they are, you're going to kind of get sick of them at some point, right, yes, at some point.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Like they could be amazing.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: They could be like Mother Teresa none right, yeah, okay, good point, right, okay, good point, all right.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: That analogy loses, it falls apart as kind as mother trees, yeah, I think he's kind kind right.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that, yeah, I wouldn't want to marry.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: It's okay keep going.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, you lost my train anyway.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: But I think what your point is is, like everybody has like those after two or three years of dating.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's now like you're married and if you've already incorporated sex, yep, if, if you incorporated sex, you're probably going to go get married, and then that I don't want to say sex fixes everything.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: However, it does help.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It's a thing, not a main thing, and it is when you have a holy relationship that God is blessing, and the way that sex draws you in with, uh, you know you're consummating the marriage, you're looking at the same person.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: This is God's design for you.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: You're not.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: God did not design two or three years of dating.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I think we I don't know if I can, I don't want to say I can say like that clearly, but it feels like I think the bigger thing is that you even just way the way most people think about relationships and, you know, is, like, am I still attracted to the person, right, or then are we living on a mission and building something?
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the idea of even just like separating, like marriage and having children, as like are you going to have children, is that, you know, like do you want a family, and that's like a very modern idea, whereas like oh, it was assumed like you're going to get married, You're going to start having children immediately and you're going to build a family, a household.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: You're going to, you know do be a productive home together.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: That's on a mission together.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: And without that two to three years where your relationship is essentially just a chore of trying to like make something work without a real direction or purpose, sounds miserable.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's man.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: You guys put that way better.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I should have had to.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: Did y'all wait to have kids, or you had kids right away after you got married?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to have kids until I was a pastor, so we waited a year.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: A year, would you say you were still in that honeymoon phase or you were out of it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, adrienne probably has a different recollection.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I was always just having a blast because it was like the greatest.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: She was not a big fan of all the traveling, I later found out.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I felt like we were living on a constant honeymoon because we were in a different city every week and we were traveling.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I was speaking at things and she got to do t-shirt sales.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: What else would she want?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I found out that she was not a big fan of the t-shirt sales.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I could have guessed that I loved it, I was having a blast.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But then when I became a pastor, I was like I feel like hey, we're at a place financially.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: We weren't raising support.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: It was like a I have a actual job and this is something that I'm going to be at for the next 20 to 30, 40 years.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And so, immediately upon uh, it was about a year in yeah, like hey, let's start trying for family okay, so the honeymoon phase ended about the same time that kids came would you say yeah, yeah it wasn't before for
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: you?
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: No, for me it wasn't.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I was okay, I, I was enjoying that I and I this might have been I had my head in the clouds, just living.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: You know how like there's, uh, when a woman comes up, she's like I'm just don't feel a relational connection.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: He's like what are you talking about?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: We've been like, yeah, we're good.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I thought we were doing great.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was like this is the best life anyone could ever have.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Wow, how amazing is this.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Whereas I think for Adrienne, she put a lot of you know, she, she was, I was 34.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: She was 24 at the on the wedding day.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Now she would like to say it was, we were only nine years and, you know, four months apart.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: But, uh, I like to point out there was a 10 year gap when I got married.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Anyway, she, she was more like, had expectation that it would be like this amazing, like super, like always, like feeling all the things, and I was like this is the best.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I have my best friend, I'm hanging out with her every day.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: We could do fun things all the time, every night, state night.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: How awesome is this?
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Anyways, just different expectations for different the age gap, I think.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Provided that, yeah, um anyway I don't know where we're going with all that, but yeah, but I enjoyed it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: So what about you?
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: When?
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: When would you guys?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: have.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like, I feel like for us, for me, the honeymoon period wasn't over until we had kids.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and so it came at the same time, yeah, and so there's this recognition of just like oh man, this is the first time I'm feeling this kind of way about my spouse, and there's a kid in the mix, right, and so that's like something.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I think that's beautiful, because it's kind of wild how God designed it, like.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: I remember going like well, I'm not going anywhere.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a wife and I've got a kid, and I don't care how I feel.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: My feelings will learn to follow the reality.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: That needs to happen and they did, and they absolutely did.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: It's like I remember what's that dude who turned into a chick, the famous athlete.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Caitlyn.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Jenner, right?
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: What's his name?
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Bruce Jenner?
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Bruce Jenner, right.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: He said something about like, oh, like, I didn't come out for so long because I had a wife and kids, and it's like what do you know?
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Like the family unit meant something, meant something even though you're not a christian, and it was good pressure on you.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, as a man, oh, wow, I love the way you put that, but when you're not a christian, it's all the whatever, it's what right?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: so anyways I love that, yeah, yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: How about you?
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: When did you guys start having children?
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Was it yeah, a?
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: couple of years.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: We got right around one year for us.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was about one year.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, got pregnant with Owen and yeah, so she was like 22 and I was like 26, I think.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, got started early and it's been great.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: It has been great.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: All right, hey, thanks so much for watching.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: If you got any questions, text them at 737-231-0605 or go to pastorplekcom and leave a note for us there.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: We're talking currently on the Song of Solomon.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: We're talking sex.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: We're talking relationships.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: We're talking marriage.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: If you want to join in that conversation, we would love to answer your question.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for watching From our house to yours.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Have an awesome week.