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Andy Stanley - Love Dates Heartbreaks Part 3 How To Have The Perfect Relationship · Andy Stanley Sermons

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So today we are in part three of a series that I'm super excited about,
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and I hope you are as well. And I love it because I
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get to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart. But it's
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called the Love Dates and Heartbreaks Series. It's the Love Dates and Heartbreaks Series.
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Am. This is a series for anyone who's dating, anyone who wants
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to date, anyone that used to date that finds themselves dating again. If
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you're married, there's been something in this series for you, if you're trying
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to make your marriage better, if you're trying to make any relationship better,
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if you're engaged, Love Dates and Heartbreaks. And as I said, this
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is something that's near and dear to me because one of the things that breaks
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my heart is watching people make relationship decisions that undermine their relationships, or making
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relationship decisions in a current relationship that I know, and that even they're smart
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enough to know, you're smarter enough to know, is going to undermine the
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integrity of a future relationship. And we said week one that much of the
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confusion when it comes to loves and dates and you know, the whole dating
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thing that's so different than it used to be are two many, and that
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there are basically two myths that fuel pretty much all of our thinking when it
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comes to relationships. And once we surface these myths, once we talk about
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them, they're clearly myths. And so the first myth was the right person
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myth. We said, the right person myth is that once you meet the
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right person, everything's going to be all right, including you. You're just
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gonna magically change. You become an incredible person once you meet the right person,
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and all of your problems, all of your habits, all of your
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insecurity is just gonna go away. The problem is you just haven't met the
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right person. We said, that's a myth. And the truth is we
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grow up, isn't this truth? We grow up fantasizing about meeting the right
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person. We never spend a moment of time fantasizing about becoming the right person.
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But who you become often determines who you meet and also determines the success
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of the relationship. So I ask you this question. I'll ask you.
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I ask you the question throughout the series. Are you the person that the
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person you're looking for is looking for? If you're married, are you the
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person the person you married was hoping for. How much time and attention are
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you giving to becoming that person? Then we explored the promise myth, and
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the promise myth goes like this, A promise replaces the need for preparation that,
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unlike any other area of life, when it comes to relationships, we
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don't have to prepare. We can just promise. All you need is a
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promise and a party and you're good to go. A vow, a ring,
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and a party and that's all. It takes. No preparation necessary,
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no matter what kind of person you were before. Once you meet the right
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person, once you make a promise, a commitment of vow, everything's going
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to work out fine. But a promise, we know this. A promise
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is no substitute for preparation. We know this in every arena of life,
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saying I do. Saying I do makes you accountable, it doesn't necessarily make
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you capable. And I'm gonna let you fill in the blank. When you
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are accountable but not capable, eventually you'll be miserable. Yes, everybody in
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the front three rows got that. Yes. When you find your accountable for
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something you're not capable of doing, ultimately you are miserable. This is why
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some of you dropped out of some classes when you were in college. You
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were accountable, you weren't capable. You said, I think I'm going to
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major in something else. Right, you were miserable, and I don't want
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you to have that same experience in relationships. So you have to prepare in
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order to commit. And this is why we said, this is why following
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Jesus won't just make your life better, Following Jesus will ultimately make you better
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at life. Because I don't know if you heard this growing up, or
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if you grew up in a church where they presented the whole Jesus thing differently,
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but when you read the New Testament, here's what you discovered. Jesus
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did not invite us to pray to him. Jesus did not invite us to
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promise to him. Jesus did not invite us to negotiate with him. Jesus
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invites us to follow him. And if we were to say, Jesus,
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if I'm going to follow you, where are you going to take me?
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He would say, here's where I'm gonna take you. I just have one
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thing I want you to do. I want you he said this is my
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command, and everything beyond this command is commentary and application. Everything hangs on
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this one big idea. He says, I want you to love each other,
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not the way you've seen love work, not the way you imagine love
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will work. I want you to love each other as I have loved you,
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which didn't make any sense when he said this, But after the Crucifixion
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and after the Resurrection, his first century followers were like, oh, now
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we get it. This is a love of another kind. This is a
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whole nother kind of love. Because Jesus laid down his life for his followers.
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He said, now, I mean, I want you to love me,
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but I'm leaving. I want you to take the love I demonstrated for
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you, and I want you to demonstrate it for this world, and I
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want you to demonstrate it, act it out, live it out in your
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relationships. So love as I've loved you. Then the apostle Paul comes along.
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He's a Pharisee, becomes a Jesus follower, decides to take the message
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of Jesus to non Jewish peace people, and he begins spreading this message of
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the gospel that God came through Christ to do something extraordinary for the world demonstrated
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his love for us, and then he teases out this one command, what
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does it look like to love as God through Christ loved us? And so
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in all of his letters, and all of his letters with Romans or Second
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Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, all those letters you'll find throughout Paul's
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letters, he comes back to this simple theme and he ties all of his
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hear's how a Christian should live to the idea of here's what God did for
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us through Christ. And he teases out or defines what it looks like to
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love other people and to love each other the way in God through Christ loved
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us. So he actually defines this for us. He's not giving us a
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to do list, He's giving us applications of what it means to love.
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Is God in Christ love each of us. So we began last week looking
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at that, and I called it the fine print. This is the fine
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print. You know, it's the fine print. But this isn't the gotcha
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fine print. This is the fine print, as I said, that will
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make you fine. This is what we have to practice. This is what
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we have to do. This is actually how you prepare for a future relationship
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now real quick. If you are a teenager, middle school or high school,
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or you know, it's in that season of life, I just want
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to say something to you. This is so important. You have a unique
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opportunity that us adults don't have, and I don't want you to miss it.
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You have an opportunity to practice at home these things we're talking about so
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that you will be good at them later. And the reason I'm kind of
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focusing on you a little bit is because we don't think in these terms.
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We think in terms of well in the future, when I'm in love,
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when I'm out of the home, when I'm doing whatever I want to,
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I'm just gonna kind of figure this out. But I'm telling you at home
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is the place to learn to love. The problem is this when I you
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know, I've worked with students for many, many years, and I heard
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it a thousand times when I would talk to students about this, But it's
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just my mom. It's just my mom. It's just my mom. Here's
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the problem. It's just my mom oftentimes becomes it's just my wife. It's
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just my wife. It's just my wife, and so we find less honor
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in the home than outside of the home. Why because we didn't practice,
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and because our good behavior is always a means to an end, our end.
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It's why you're on your best behavior at work. It's why you're on
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your best behavior when you're interviewing for a job. It was why you were
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on your best behavior when you were hunting and searching for a partner, and
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then once you found a partner, Well, it's just my husband, it's
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just my wife. And your Savior says, wait, no, no,
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that's not how this works. That's how everybody else does it. I didn't
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ask you to love. I ask you to love as I've loved you,
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which means the more intimate the relationship, the more important the relationship, the
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more heightened the standard of love. There's no such thing as it's just my
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mom, or it's just my husband, or it's just my wife, or
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it's just my dad, or it's just my little brother. Jesus says,
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no, no, no, no, I'm I'm inviting you to follow me.
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I want you to practice this in all of your relationships and students.
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I'm telling you, if you can begin practicing this at home, you are
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gonna be way, way, way ahead of the game. And I've told
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you this before, but I'll tell you again so that you model this.
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But tell you how serious I was. And our home I have two sons
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and daughter. Daughter is the youngest. And our home I taught our boys
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early on. You do not sit down to eat dinner until your mom is
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seated. You do not sit down to eat dinner until your mom is seated.
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I wanted them to practice honoring it's just my mom. Okay, it
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may be just your mom, but you do not sit down until she sits
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down, and you don't pick up your fork until she picks up her fork.
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And I'm telling you it's so funny now because they're in twenties and we'll
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be out somewhere and no matter where we are somebody's house, my boys do
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not sit down until all the women are seated and all the other guys sit
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down and they notice my son's standing up. Then they stand up. They
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don't know why, why are we standing? I'm like, hey, you
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know what I want you to honor at home because I want you to honor
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everywhere. And so for those of us who are parents with kids in our
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home, I mean, this is the opportunity of a lifetime for those of
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you kids who are still living at home, telling you this is the time
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to get this right, because this is how you develop the habit of love.
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Because love is a decision. It is always a decision. So the
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apostle Paul comes along and he unpacks this for us. He unpacks Jesus' new
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command. He says, this is what love looks like. So I'm gonna
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review last week really quick. That we're gonna jump into the new part of
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the fine print. You remember the first one, He says. Love is
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patient. Love's not pushy. Just like God accommodated to your capacity and to
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your pace, you are to accommodate to the capacity and the pace of those
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around you. Love is kind. Love is basically loaning another person your strength
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instead of reminding them of their weakness. Again, just like God did for
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you. Love does not envy, he says. It does not envy,
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It does not boast, it's not proud. Love allows the other person to
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shine. Love doesn't have to step in the spotlight all the time. Love
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is able to push the other person in the spotlight and stay out of the
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spotlight. Love allows the other person to get the credit and the attention,
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even when they don't deserve the credit and the attention, Because, after all,
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even the sun of Man, your savior, even the son of Man,
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did not come to stand in the spotlight. Even the son of Man,
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Jesus said, did not come to be served, but to serve and
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to give his life a ransom for many as his followers. That's what we're
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to do. It does not we saw last week, It does not dishonor
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others. Love does not behave dishonorably. Love does not behave dishonorably, disgracefully,
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or indecently. It treats other people. We talked about this. Love
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treats the other person like they are more important than we are. They're not
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more important. We just treat them like they are. And as we demonstrated
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last time we were together, every single person in this room, every single
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person watching or listening, we know how to do this. We know how
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to treat a person as if they are more important than us. And God
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says, I want you to treat people like they're more important than you.
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You because I treated you like you were more important than me. I sent
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my son to pay for not all the good things you did. I sent
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my son to pay for your sin, and that moment I put you ahead
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of me. Now, if you're gonna follow me, I want you to
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put others ahead of you. Not because they're better, not because they deserve
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it. In fact, the less deserving they are, the better it is.
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So we're gonna pick up where we left off last week in the fine
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print. Here's what Paul says next. He sort of stays on this same
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theme. Love is not self seeking. We don't use that phrase. Here's
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how we say it. Love is not selfish. Love puts the interest and
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the needs of others first. Love puts the interest and the needs of others
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first. Love puts the interest. What are you interested in? I would
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love to spend thirty minutes telling you what I'm interested in in. What are
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you interested in? You talk your story. Love puts the interest and the
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needs of others first. Witch. Let's face it, we're all smart enough
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to know this would solve ninety percent of all relationship problems. Right If two
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people decide to put the other person first, there are no relationship problems other
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than okay, you first know you first know you first know you first.
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Okay, But that's a good problem. Okay, Right, So when you
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if two people decide to put the other person first, that solves most relationship
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problems. And here's why, because in most relationship problems there's a theme.
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In fact, in most relationship are in most arguments. In fact, in
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all arguments, the two people arguing actually both want the same thing. They
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want their way. That's what they want. Right, you had the person
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you have the most arguments with, you have something in common. You both
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want your way. This is why I've told you in the past, and
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I wasn't kidding. In the middle of an argument, especially if you're dating
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someone, or you're engaged, or you're marriage, should stop in the middle
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and say, hey, you know what the problem is here. You've heard
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me say this. You know what the problem is here. I'm not getting
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what I want. I mean, that shuts down the whole argument, because
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you know, if they have any sense of self understanding, they would stop
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and say, well, that is part of the problem, because I'm not
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getting what I want either. And when two people can recognize the problem is
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both of us aren't getting what I want, then you can talk, you
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can work through this. But this begins with a commitment not to be selfish.
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Now, little tip for those of you who are dating. The best
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way or the quickest way to find out how self seeking the person you're dating
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is the quickest way for you to find out how self seeking or selfish the
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person you're dating is for you to be not self seeking and not to be
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selfish. In other words, if you'll practice this, if you'll practice as
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one hundred percent, then you'll discover very quickly how selfish or how self centered
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the other person is. And here's what I mean. If you give and
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give and give, and they take and take and take, then you'll know
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it's time to run and run and run. Okay, let me go over
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that again. This is kind of complex, okay. In other words,
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if you decide I'm gonna be I'm not gonna get tit for tad. I'm
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not gonna be back and forth. I'm not gonna match their anger, I'm
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not gonna match their selfishness. I'm not gonna demand my way because they're demanding
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their way. No, I'm gonna be a Jesus follower. And if they
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take advantage of my selflessness, and if they take advantage of my generosity,
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then they are not for me. But if you choose not to be self
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seeking, if you choose to be more selfless and they respond in like kind,
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you may have found your person. Love is not self seeking, and
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we are all naturally self seeking. So Jesus says, that's why I want
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you to follow me, not your appetites, not your impulses, not the
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way your dad was, not the way your mom was, not the way
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your friends are. I want you to follow me. And as I gave
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my life for you, I want you to look for ways to give your
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life away to the people around you. And when two people approach the relationship
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that way, something happens. He goes hon It says, this love is
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not easily angered. And I highlight easily because everybody gets angered at some point,
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right, I mean anger is it's impossible to one hundred percent avoid anger.
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But he says, look, if you're gonna love like God through Christ
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left you this, you're not gonna be easily angered. And the little Greek
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word angered actually was a cooking term. It means to be stirred up.
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Stirred up. In fact, you might even you probably don't use this language,
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but in the past people would say things like this, I was so
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stirred up. I wanted to scream. Have you ever had people stir you
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up? It's just like stirn you up. That's what it means to be
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angry. And the apostle Paul says, Okay, when you decide to love
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like God through Christ left you, you will not be easily stirred up.
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You will not be easily angered because love doesn't get wound up or ticked off
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easily. Love can listen. This is my favorite word. I This was
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my word as a parent when my kids were going through middle school in high
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school that I had to learn that love absorbs that sometimes you have to sit
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and just take it in and just take it in, not reflect it back,
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not pretend like it's not true. You just absorb it, you know,
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to absorb me and you we all know we've seen a liquid be absorbed
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into something. Did you know? You know this energy can be absorbed as
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well. Right, And when we're in a difficult conversation with someone we love
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or that loves us, there's times when you just have to absorb their energy.
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Love doesn't react, Love responds. And I'll tell you why, because
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love love puts the other person's this is key. Love puts the other person's
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story ahead of their own story, because isn't it true when someone's angry,
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or when somebody is saying things that are beginning to make you angry, isn't
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it true that the conflict is a round story. This is my story,
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This is the way I see it, This is what I experience, This
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is how I know, this is how I this is how I experienced,
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this is what I saw, this is what I heard, this is what
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I It's all about story. So in those moments, love realizes, you
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know what, we have different stories, we have different stories around the same
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event. So I am going to listen to your story. I'm gonna put
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your story, your version of the events, ahead of my own because love
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remembers. Love remembers that everybody's behavior makes perfect sense to them. Everybody's behavior
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makes perfect sense to them, and when their behavior doesn't make sense to you,
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it's because you don't know something. So love absorbs, and love listens,
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and love prioritizes the other person's story because, after all, she may
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push your buttons, but those are your buttons. He may tick you off,
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but those are your tics. That doesn't really work as well, But
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anyway, you can see what I'm saying. Okay. In other words,
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here's the thing. So here's the question I guess to ask. Are you
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easily angered? Are you easily angered? Do you realize that's a U issue,
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that's a love issue. Are you easily angered? It's time that you
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begin to practice absorbing and understanding and listening. And I know what you're thinking,
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okay, is this is what people think. It's certain seasons of their
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life. But Andy, Okay, look, look, the right person won't
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make me angry. Okay, I just haven't the reason I'm so angry.
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She's not right for me. He's not right for me. I need to
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find somebody who won't make me angry, because when I find the right person,
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there's the myth. When I find the right person, I'm not gonna
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have to practice, you know, not being easily angered. When I find
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the right person, they're not even gonna make me angry. And you know
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what, that's true. They won't make you angry. But did you know
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no one has ever made you angry. They've just brought the anger out of
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you. And to follow Jesus is to learn to deal with what's in you
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before it comes out of you and to learn to absorb rather than reflect and
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deflect and respond and like kind. You know what, for some of us
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this is not an issue. For others of us this is a big issue.
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But at the end of the day, it's a U issue. He
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goes on, How did he know this? Right? It's like when was
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this written yesterday? No? Two thousand years ago? You should read the
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Bible occasionally. It's great anyway, he goes on. He says this.
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He says, love keeps no record of wrongs. In other words, love
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doesn't have the file drawer. You know. Hold on just a second October
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third, at three thirty, you did the same thing. We've already talked
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about this, put it back in the file. But now I have another
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something else to put in the file. Right, Love doesn't do that?
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Have you this kind of funny thing? Right? Have you noticed this that
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relational record keepers they keep track of their own records. You notice that they
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got all kind of files on you, But they can't remember anything they've done
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wrong. In fact, the more memory they have about your past faults and
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failures, the less memory they have of their own. In fact, you
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have thought this. In fact, you made the mistake of saying it one
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time. Well, I guess you're never wrong. They're like, hold on
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a second, Yeah, you always say that. I have eight times that
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you have said that you're always wrong, and now I have a ninth right,
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So like you just you just can't win. Okay, let's talk about
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you for a second. To be honest, you don't have to answer this
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out loud. Do you do you enjoy catching your fiance? Do you enjoy
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catching your girlfriend? Do you enjoy catching your spouse messing up? Is there
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something that's in you? It's like, Okay, I'm gonna bring it up
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gently, but I'm gonna bring it up. Is there something? Is there
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any sense of aha? And you do you enjoy catching them messing up?
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That's messed up? Stop it. Here's why I say stop it. Not
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because the Bible says so, not because I think I'm the boss of you.
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Stop it because that's not what God does for you. And this whole
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new way of living, this whole new way of loving, is taking our
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cue from our heavenly Father who's sent it to this world to deal once and
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for all with our sin. And he's got a file cabinet on you,
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a mile long. He never opens it, and he hasn't forgotten. He
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just doesn't bring it up. He says, Now I want you to go
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do that for other people. Well, that's difficult. Of course, it's
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difficult. All of this is difficult. None of this is natural. It's
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just better. None of this is easy. It's just better. That's why
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following Jesus will make your life better. It will make you better at life,
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he says. Don't come and try to be exactly like me. I
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just want you to follow me, and over time you'll fall into the rhythm
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of a brand new way of thinking about life and love in particular, Forget
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giving. Forgiving and then pretending to forget is always your best bet. Forgiving
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and then pretending to forget is always your best bet. Because remember this,
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this is important. You can be if your parent, if you're in any
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relationship, you you can be. You can be exactly right and end up
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exactly alone. You can be exact. In other words, you can be
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right about what you say one hundred percent of the time and no one will
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want to live with you. And it won't be because you're wrong. It's
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because you were always right, and you were right too often and you just
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couldn't shut that stupid cabinet and leave it shut. You kept bringing up the
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past, and you were one hundred percent right. I mean, your details,
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your notes, your dates, your memory. It was perfect and nobody
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wants to be around you, and your heavenly father says, there's a better
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way. I want you to forgive and then live like you've forgotten, because
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that's what I did for you. As far as the east is from the
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west, so far have I removed my transgressions from you, as far as
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the east is from the west, so far has he removed your transgressions from
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you and from his memory? Besides, come on, let's be honest and
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I'll move on. Besides, it's a power play. Come on, the
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moment you reach for that handle, it's a power play. Why because when
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someone holds the past over your head, who is in the elevated position,
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the moment somebody begins to remind you of your past, who is in the
23:38
elevated position? Love does not power up. Love always steps down. Paul
23:49
said it this way, Jesus. Jesus made himself nothing by taking the very
23:59
nature of a servant. And he says, now follow me, follow me,
24:07
into your marriage, Follow me into that relationship. Follow me as a
24:10
parent, follow me as a boss, follow me as an employee. Take
24:15
this kingdom values, these kingdom values, take this kingdom mindset, Take this
24:19
upside down way of approaching life into every relationship you're in. Then Paul wraps
24:26
it up. He kind of wraps it up with this big, big,
24:29
you know, giant sort of life game, life changing or as you say,
24:32
game changing idea. Here's what he says. He says, here's the
24:34
finale. Here's you know, like the fireworks display when they all go off
24:37
at one time and everybody's like, okay, here it is. Here's the
24:40
finale. Love, he says, does not delight in evil, but rejoices
24:44
with the truth. It always protects. And then he's gonna give us a
24:47
list. He says, it always protects. I love. This always protects
24:51
means it keeps bad things out. Love always looks for a way to keep
24:55
bad things out of a relationship, which means, now, I know this
24:56
is harsh. If you are smuggling bad things into a relationship, if you
25:02
have smuggled bad things into a marriage, if you are smuggling debt into a
25:07
marriage, and they don't know about it. If you are smuggling a habit
25:10
into a relationship, if you are smuggling a habit into your marriage, if
25:14
you're bringing something in that has the potential to undermine the marriage, you are
25:18
not protecting that relationship. If you're smuggling something bad in, you are not
25:25
a good person because you're not doing what's good for the other person, and
25:30
you don't want to be that person. He says, protect that relationship,
25:33
don't look for ways to smuggle things in, and then the fireworks go off.
25:40
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth that always
25:42
protects. It always trust, it always hopes, and it always perseveres Love.
25:48
There's always the choice right. Love chooses to see the best. Love
25:53
chooses to hope the best. Love chooses to believe the best, and then
26:00
chooses to overlook the rest. Love catches people and enjoys catching people doing good
26:07
and doing right. It always hopes, it always believes, It always perseveres.
26:14
Love chooses. We've talked about this a generous explanation for the gaps,
26:18
So here's all the fine print. At one time. Here it is,
26:23
he says, this is what it looks like it's patient. Love is patient,
26:26
kind, not jealous, not airing, honoring, selfless, not easily
26:30
angered, not a scorekeeper, protecting, trusting, hopeful, and persevering.
26:33
And if you're like me, when you look at this list, you think,
26:37
well, then I get about a C minus or maybe a D plus
26:41
or at times a B minus. And I'm really on my good behavior.
26:42
But Andy, come on, I will never be all of that for anybody.
26:47
You gotta be kidding. I will. I will. This is how
26:48
we get an A. I'll never make an A. I'll never make the
26:52
grade. I will never be all of that for anyone. And I understand
26:56
that we're going to talk about that the next couple of weeks. But here's
26:59
what I want you to ignore. Isn't this what you're looking for if you're
27:06
married, isn't this what you were hoping for. I'm gonna give you a
27:11
chance to evaluate real quick. I'm gonna read the list again, and I
27:14
want you to mark off the list the things that you aren't looking for and
27:17
aren't hoping for in the person you married. Okay, these are just I
27:19
just want you to make a mental list of the ones that aren't important.
27:22
And then this afternoon over lunch or tonight over dinner, just say, okay,
27:26
you know there were five things on there. I don't expect of you.
27:27
I Patience, yeah, kindness that's important. Not jealous, yeah,
27:33
not arrogant, Yeah, I'm for that. Honoring oh yeah, definitely selfless
27:37
of course, not easily angered for sure. Not a scorecarper. Yeah.
27:41
I don't want to a scorekeeper. Protecting, Yeah, I want her to
27:44
protect this relationship. Trusting yea. I want him to trust me hopefully.
27:47
Yeah. I don't want him to despair and hang in there with me.
27:51
Yeah. I'll take all those, but I don't know if I can be
27:53
all those. That's the beauty of following Jesus, because he says, follow
28:00
me. And if you ever wonder where we're going, here's where we're going.
28:06
If you ever wonder what it looks like, read the Gospel of John,
28:11
or the Gospel of Luke, or the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel
28:15
of Matthew. And if you ever wonder if you'll get there, remember this.
28:19
I want to complete in you what I have begun in you. See,
28:27
my hunch is the person you're looking for wouldn't strike anything off this list,
28:33
just like you wouldn't take anything off the list, right, So,
28:37
now that you know what you're looking for, now that we know what we're
28:41
hoping for, perhaps we should get busy preparing for the relationship that we're in,
28:45
or preparing for the relationship we hope to be in someday, right,
28:51
or if you're married, we hope this is the list that will make you
28:55
the person that the person who married you was ultimately hoping for. Right.
29:00
So Paul concludes this with it it's like he changes the subject, but his
29:03
conclusion is so powerful. So he finishes the fine print, here's what it
29:07
looks like, and he I think he feels like that was kind of didactic.
29:10
That was kind of like chalkboard teacher. So he decides to pull out
29:12
and make it personal and emotional. And these next few words or maybe words
29:17
you've heard before, but maybe you didn't know they were attached to this list
29:19
of the fine print of what it looks like to love. So here's how
29:22
the apostle. Paul kind of tunes back into us emotionally, and he gets
29:26
kind of personal and he says this to us. He says, look,
29:30
I know that was a lot. I know that seems unrealistic. I know
29:33
it seems like you'll never get there, But he says, here's what I
29:37
want you to consider. He says, talking about himself. When I was
29:41
a little boy, when I was a child, I talk like a child,
29:47
and no one criticized me for talking like a child. I was a
29:49
child, And when I was a little boy, I thought like a little
29:53
boy, and nobody criticized me for thinking like a little boy, because after
29:56
all, I was a little boy. And when I was a little boy,
30:00
when I was a child, I reasoned like a child, and no
30:03
one criticized me for reasoning like a child. I mean, I was a
30:07
child. And then he stares us down a little bit, and he says,
30:12
but come on talking about himself, because he's trying to invite us in.
30:15
He says, butt, when I became an adult, I put the
30:22
ways of childhood behind me. This is his gentle way of saying, he's
30:29
so good. This is his gentle way of saying, folks, let's grow
30:34
up. Let's grow up. When I was a child, I thought about
30:41
love, and I fantasized about love, and I reasoned about love the way
30:45
a child does. But now I'm an adult, and I don't think about
30:48
it that way anymore. When I was a child, I thought, well,
30:51
I'm the prince, and I'll meet the princess and we'll fall in love
30:52
and we'll live happily ever after. It'll say the end, but it won't
30:56
be the end. It'll actually just be the beginning, and it'll all work
30:59
out that, you know. That's how the love stories are. The whole
31:03
movies about them finding each other, as I said in week one, and
31:06
then once they find each other, they live happily ever after. Right,
31:07
But we know it doesn't work that way, And so the apostle Paul thinking,
31:11
come on, those are fairy tales. That's wonderful entertainment. But let's
31:17
let's abandon our story book assumptions about love. Let's abandon our storybook approach to
31:27
love. Let's abandon the assumptions about love that culture has ingrained in us.
31:33
And so the question, as we moved toward next week is this, are
31:37
you willing? Am I willing? Are we willing to abandon the assumption that
31:41
once you meet the right person, you'll magically become a different person. Are
31:45
you ready to do the difficult work of becoming the person? The person you're
31:51
looking for, is looking for or the person who married you was hoping for
31:56
and I hope so, and somebody else hope so as well. Now the
32:06
series is Love, Dates and Heartbreaks, and we've just finished love So next
32:08
week we're gonna talk about dates, love dates, and heartbreaks. And next
32:13
week is gonna be epic because next week the title of the message is Andy's
32:17
Five Rules for Dating. Okay, I completely made these up, all right,
32:23
and these five rules for dating, So this is gonna be specific for
32:27
those of you who are dating, are dating again, didn't don't know if
32:30
you want to step back into that. We're gonna look at some of the
32:32
literature about dating, some of the interesting things being said about dating that I'm
32:36
gonna give you the fileness of the four of the five. By next week
32:38
it maybe seven who knows the five rules for dating? So don't miss next
32:43
week, don't miss part four of Love, Dates and Heartbreaks. Ass