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Andy Stanley - Love Dates Heartbreaks Part 2 How To Become The Right Person · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Now today, we are actually in if you we're not with us this past
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weekend, we are in part two of a series entitled Love, Dates and
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Heartbreaks. And this is a series for people who are dating, who used
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to be dating, who want to be dating, for high school students,
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college students, graduate students, singles. If you're married, there's something in
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this series for you, for sure. If you're single again, there's something
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in this series for you. This is a series for anybody who's serious about
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romance and serious about long term relationships. And the other reason that I'm excited
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about this series is not just what you're going to get out of it,
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but what I get out of it, because this is my opportunity, as
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I said last time we were together, to talk about something that breaks my
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heart, and perhaps more than anything outside something that could happen to my personal
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family, the thing that breaks my heart the most about our culture and society
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is watching people make relationship decisions that undermine their relationships. This just breaks my
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heart because, as I said, there's so much unavoidable pain in life any
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way, the last thing we need to do is complicate our lives further,
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especially our relationships, by making decisions that undermine the integrity of our personal relationships.
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And the truth is, we've all seen this. I mean, right,
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you have watched friends and family members make terrible relationship decisions and you thought
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to yourself, my goodness, can you not see what you're about to do?
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Can you not see that this is not gonna work? So this is
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really easy to see. When it comes to other people, it's virtually impossible
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to see in the mirror. And part of the reason is love is a
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fog, and romance is a fog, and lust and everything that goes it's
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just a fog. And so consequently, it's sometimes it's very difficult to see
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bad relational decisions in the mirror. So that's one of the reasons that we're
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talking about it now. Last week we said that a lot of the confusion
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around love and romance and dating and all this stuff comes from two myths.
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And these myths sort of operate in the background of our thinking. And as
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soon as we talk about them, clearly they're myths, you're smart enough to
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know that can't possibly be true. But until we unearth some of these presuppositions,
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these assumptions about life and romance, until we put them out there to
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be seen and put words around them. They operate in the background, and
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they fuel our assumptions and they fuel our relationship decisions. So we talked last
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week about the right person myth. The right person myth is not that there's
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not a right person. The right person myth is that once you meet the
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right person, everything will be all right. And all the married people chuckled
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if you'll remember, right because and the myth goes like this that regardless of
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what you do between now and the time that you meet the right person,
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regardless of what you do between now and the time that you meet the right
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person, once you meet the right person, all of that goes away,
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and everything's gonna be just fine. That once you find them, everything will
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be fine, including you. The as soon as you find them, all
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those bad habits you have are just gonna go away. All that insecurity is
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just gonna go away. Suddenly you're gonna become a lady and you're gonna become
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a gentleman. You're gonna become a different person. And the reason you're not
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a different person now is you just haven't met the right person. But as
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soon as you make meet the right person, you're gonna be a better person,
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and that's a myth. You don't magically change. You're still the same
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old girl you used to be. You carry yourself into the relationship, which
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in many cases is what ruins it. If I could just be honest,
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right, because we bring ourselves it's a myth, the right person myth.
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It's a myth. And yet this infects our decisions, and it really fuels
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our fantasies. Right. And the reason I say it fuels our fantasies is,
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let's just all be honest, right. What are we fantasize about?
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We fantasize about finding the right person? Nobody ever since around at night,
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staring up at the ceiling, fantasizing about becoming the right person. Right.
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It's always about as soon as I meet them, I'm gonna be happy.
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As soon as I meet them, I'm gonna be fine. As soon as
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I meet them, I'm gonna be better. And that is a myth.
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And your adults and you know that's a myth. So the question we left
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you with is are you becoming the person that the person you're looking for is
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looking for? And are you beca the person that the person that married you
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was hoping for. And then we explored the second myth. We call this
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the promise myth. The promise myth is that a promise replaces preparation, that
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a promise replaces the need for preparation, that you don't have to prepare for
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a relationship. You can promise yourself into it. All you need, All
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you need is a promise and a party, right, a promise and a
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party, A vow and a party, a vow, a ring and a
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party, and boom, you're in. You can promise yourself into relational maturity.
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You can promise yourself into great relationship habits. And of course that's a
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myth as well, because a promise is no substitute for preparation. And we
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know this in every arena of life, right. We know it in academic
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circles, we know it at work, we know it in preparation for presentations.
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Athletes certainly know this. Athletes don't promise to win games. Athletes,
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what do they do? They prepare to win? I mean, fifteen year
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old Coco Goff, she didn't wow Wimbledon because she loves tennis, right,
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and you know what her secret is? She actually told us this is a
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quote. Here's her secret. She said this. She said, before every
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match since I was eight, my dad and I say a prayer together.
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It's all it takes. You just pray and then play. That's it.
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The reason your tennis game is so lousy, the reason your golf game so
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lousy, you just aren't praying enough, right, and you know better than
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that. That's not why she has one hundred and eight mile per hours,
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you know, serve, That's not why she's phenomenal. That's not why what
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makes athletes great. It's preparation. Besides, this is the most interesting part
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of her quote. Listen to what she prays. She said this. She
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said, we don't even really pray about victory, just that me and my
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opponents stay safe after the match. I was just thanking God for this opportunity.
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So what's your secret, co co It's not prayer. Everybody should pray.
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Everybody should pray for the right thing. She prepared. This is my
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You know this. To win relationally, whether you're in marriage, looking to
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get married, dating, to win relationally, you have to prepare. Remember,
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saying I do does not make you capable, It only makes you accountable.
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I'm gonna let you fill in a blank. And when you are accountable
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but not capable, you are eventually miserable. Thank you, you got it
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down here on the front row. Give serve love. Way to go,
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ma'am. So let me try that one more time. When you are he's
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got on a cool shirt. When you are accountable but you're not capable,
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you are eventually miserable. That's right. That's why following Jesus doesn't just make
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you make your life better. Following Jesus actually makes you better at life because
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when you choose to follow Jesus, he will lead you in the direction of
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relational integrity. Because Jesus is all about relationships. Because in the beginning,
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God created the heavens and earth, and God created humanity, and God gave
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us personalities, and God made us in his image, which means we are
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innately relational people. We were made for relationship, and you were made for
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relationship. And following Jesus is gonna up your relationship game, not simply so
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that you'll be happier, but so that you'll be more like your savior.
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And here's the thing, and this you may misunderstand this, but I'll put
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it out there anyway. When you read the gospels. Jesus invitation is not
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pray to me, it's not promised to me. It's certainly not negotiate with
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me. His invitation is follow me, Follow me, and where are you
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gonna take us? He said, I'll take you somewhere simple, I'll take
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you somewhere memorable. I'll take you somewhere demanding, and I'll take you somewhere
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rewarding, because I'm gonna take you to a single command that, when you
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understand it fully changes everything and has the potential to change everything, especially relationally.
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So here's what Jesus left his first century followers with. Here's what he
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left us with. It's so simple. We have complicate people that do what
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I do for a living have complicated it. The church is complicated. It
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is so simple, he says, guys, if you forget everything else,
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My command is this, Wait, just one, just one everything I everything
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else, I said, hangs on this. Everything else that follows hangs on
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this one thing. Just remember this one thing. Love each other, but
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not the way you've been loved, not the way you hear about love,
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not the way you imagine love. You are to love each other as I
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have loved you. Which is a whole another kind of love. And that's
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where we left off last week. So today we're gonna pick it up there,
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and we're gonna talk about the fine print, the fine print, because
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there's always fine print, right, but this isn't gotcha fine print. This
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is fine print that will make you fine. It will make you someone worth
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finding. It will make you worth someone worth, it'll make you someone worth
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keeping. And these are the things, the things we're gonna talk about today
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and next time we're together. These are the things we have to get good.
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These are our should be our sweet skills. And dating, even though
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no one's told you this before, perhaps dating is actually practice. So while
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everybody else is trying to get better in bed, you're gonna get better at
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being a better person. Awkward pause, By the way, By the way,
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this is worth the whole few minutes you're gonna spend with us today.
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Romance is fueled by exclusivity, not experience. Romance in a relationship is fueled
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by exclusivity, not experienced. Sex does not make a relationship. Sex makes
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babies. Okay, not anyone wrote that down. I'm just shocked. But
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here's what every time they do surveys about sex. You know what, they
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discover that happily married people, that happily married people ultimately have more happily ever
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after sex. Right, So the Apostle what he does, He brings us
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the fine print. And here's what he did. The Apostle Paul came along
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after Jesus and he took jesus single command, love each other the way that
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I've loved you, and he takes it to the gentile world, the non
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Jewish world, and he realizes, oh, we have a little bit of
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a culture challenge here, and so he teases it out so that they could
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understand exactly what Jesus meant when he said, you're to love each other the
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way that I have loved you. So he applies it to the gentile world.
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Now, this next slide I'm going to show you is so important.
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If you're somebody who reads the Bible, especially reads the New Testament, this
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is so important. This will help you understand the relationship between Matthew, Mark
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Luke, and John and what the Apostle Paul taught the Apostle Paul's imperatives or
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the Apostle Paul's commands. Whenever you're reading one of his letters, and you,
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he says, here's what you should do, Here's what you should do,
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Here's what you should do, here's what you do. He's not giving
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new commands. He is simply giving us applications of Jesus one single command.
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This is why, before his imperatives and after his imperatives, Paul always tied
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everything to being in Christ, or about Christ or the resurrection, or just
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as just as just as Christ loved us, just as God and Christ loved
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us. He's not giving us new commands. He's saying, here's what it
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looks like in the real world. So essentially, the apostle Paul comes along
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and he defines love for us, not our kind of love. This is
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what God in Christ towards us love looks like. And he says, you
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are to love each other the way that God through Christ has loved you.
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And Paul says, and here's exactly what it looks like. So here we
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go. You've heard all of this before. Paul says, the kind of
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love that God demonstrated to us and for us through Christ, here's what it
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looks like. Love is patient. Love is patient. Love is not pushy.
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If someone is pushing you, they are not loving you. Love actually
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pushes me to give you room because you don't want to be pushed. You
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don't want to be rushed unless you're a college freshman. That's a whole different
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thing. Okay, you don't want to be rushed, right. Love chooses.
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This is the cool thing about love. Love chooses because it's always a
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choice. Love chooses to move at the other person's pace. Love chooses to
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move at the other person's pace. It doesn't pressure the other person to match
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our pace, which of course, isn't natural, is it. Love is
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a decision to pause rather than push. Love is a decision to pause rather
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than push. It's not natural. Do you know what's natural? Your pace
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is natural. That's why you think everyone should run and live and do life
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at your pace because it's natural, and you wonder what's wrong with everyone else?
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Right, That's what causes relationship challenges. Love doesn't expect everybody to keep
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pace with me. Love says, I'm gonna discover your pace, and I'm
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gonna slow down or speed up and try to keep pace with you. Here's
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the two words you're gonna hear throughout this message. In next week. Love
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defers because it's what God did for you, and it's what God did for
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me. That God didn't force his pace on us. God did the most
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extraordinary thing. God accommodated. In fact, the best way to understand the
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entire Old and New Testament is that God accommodates to our capacity. God,
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like a good father, leans over and speaks our language language we can understand.
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He goes at our pace, because if he went at his pace,
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which is faster than the speed of light, we wouldn't know anything about God.
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So God accommodates to our capacity, and he says, now here's what
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I want you to do. Dad's, husband's, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends,
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friends, friends. I want you to get in the habit. I
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want you to a practice. I want you to practice accommodating. I want
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you to accommodate to other people's capacity. Yeah but they're not that smart.
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Hey, well you're not that smart either. Oh yeah, well they're not
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as quick as me. Well you're not as quick as me. Oh yeah.
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I want you to move and lean in their direction. God moved at
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our pace. Where to do the same for others? To go the distance
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relationally, you know this. To go the distance relationally, You've got to
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exercise your patience muscle. And the way you exercise a patient's muscle is by
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practicing patients now in your current relationship, so you'll be ready to exercise it
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later. Love is patient. Are you pushy? Stop it? Stop it?
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Be willing to move at the pace of the people you love? Love
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is patient? Anybody know what the next one is? Love is kind Yeah?
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We know all this stuff. Right? Where are we even talking about
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it? Right? You got this down? Love us patient. Love is
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kind. Kindness sounds soft, and kindness sounds weak, But men, especially
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you need to know this. Kindness is actually an expression of strength. Unkindness
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is weakness. Unkindness is weakness. It means because it means you can't bridle
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yourself, you can't tame your tongue, you can't control yourself. Unkindness is
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evidence of weakness. Unkindness indicates that you can't control yourself. And I've given
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you this definition before. Do you know what kindness is? Kindness is simply
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loaning someone your strength rather than reminding them of their weakness. Kindness is I'm
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gonna lean in your direction. I'm not gonna remind you. Oh you did
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that again. Oh? You always do that. It's like, how many
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times have we talked about this? I mean, look at this room.
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Kindness. Kindness is not constantly reminding someone of their weakness. Kindness is loaning
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them your strength. It's doing for others. I mean, this is what
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God did for you. It's doing for others what they cannot in the moment
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do for them selves. Kindness is love's response to weakness. It's what God
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did for you. Pause did it this way while you were still a sinner.
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God didn't put his hands on his hips and say you did what again?
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Call me when you get that worked out right, While you are still
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a sinner, looking through the portals of history, knowing your life and your
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promises and your broken promises, and your commitments and your vows and the things
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that you God reversed on, and knowing all that, knowing that you were
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still a sinner, Christ died for you. He loaned you his strength in
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the midst of your weakness. This is what we sing about, is what
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as Christians we celebrate. And God says, Okay, you got it.
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Oh, I'm so grateful for it. Okay, I want you to do
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that for some other people. I want you to loan them your strength instead
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of constantly reminding them of their weakness. So here's a question, what is
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a this is a big deal. What is your go to response to weakness?
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What is your go to response to weakness and other people? If you're
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dating someone, you need to pay close attention to this. You need to
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pay close attention to their go to response to weakness and others, because if
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they're pursuing you, they're on their best behavior with you, but their response
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to weakness and others will eventually be their response to the weakness in you.
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And just a little heads up, people who use kindness as a means to
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an end are often mean in the end. Next up, Paul gives us
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a toxic trio. He says, let me tell you what the other thing
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that love does not just any kind of love, that God's love toward us
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that we're to demonstrate to others. He says, love does not envy,
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it doesn't boast, and it's never proud. Love does not envy, Love
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does not boast, and love is not proud. Love allows the other person
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to shine. Love is willing to step out of the spotlight even when they
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have reason to step into the spotlight. This is so huge, This is
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so important, This is so much learning to do for others what God in
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Christ has done for us. Love isn't threatened by other people's success. Love
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is able to celebrate other people's success without adding their own story, without reminding
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everybody else of your success. Love is able to step out of the spotlight
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and purely celebrate the accomplishments of another person knowed tendency to one up what just
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happened. Now here's where this is hard, And this is where love leans
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in on the things that we need to work that we need to work on
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personally. See, you know this, if you if you don't feel good,
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if you don't feel good about yourself, it's hard to let others feel
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good about themselves, right, And if there is something in you that has
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a hard time allowing them to stay in the spotlight without stepping into saying well,
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you know when I was in college, now get out of here,
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okay, Well you know there was a time when no, if there's something
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in you that just can't let someone close to you and someone you supposedly love
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stand in the spotlight alone, it's because there's something in you you need to
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work on. And if there's something in you that you need to work on,
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work on it. Otherwise it undermines your ability to love as God in
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Christ has loved you. Because think about this, Paul, I mean,
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he just pens these powerful words that Jesus. Think about this. Jesus was
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in very nature God, but he did not allow his equality with God to
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move him to grasp his equality with God. That's Paul's fancy way of saying
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this, that even when Jesus came to planet Earth and was God in a
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body, he did not consider equality with God something to be taken hold of.
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In other words, he didn't show up at the restaurant and say,
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corner table, ask them to move, Jesus is here. He never listens,
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this is listen. He never he never played the God card to get
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his own way. And if your Savior was willing to stay out of the
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spotlight that he deserved, that he earned, that he had every right to
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step into. He says, Now, I want you to do for others
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exactly what I've done for you. I want you to forego your privilege sometimes.
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I want you to foregrow, forego the credit that you deserve. I
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want you to forego the opportunity that comes along every once in a while to
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talk about all that you've done so that you can highlight what other people have
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done. Do you do that? Or is there this? Is there something
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in you that's like you just you just have to throw your hat in the
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ring. You just got to step in. Or when your husband or your
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wife, or your son, or your daughter or boyfriend or girlfriend's getting credit,
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is there something in you you just have to take a shot. You
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just have to There has to be some kind of barb, There has to
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be some kind of negative to bring them down. If that's in you,
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that is going to undermine your ability to love those around you, pay close
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attention. Pay close attention to your internal reaction to the success of the people
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closest to you. Husbands, how easy it is is it for you to
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brag on your wife publicly or when other people are bragging on her, to
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add to it rather than subtracting, Ladies, How easy is it for you
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to brag on your husband publicly or when other people are bragging on him,
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to just let it go into add to it rather than saying, yeah,
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but and if there's something in you that's like well, Andy, I don't
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want him to get the big head. Hey, has none of your business.
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But life takes the big head out of most people. Circumstances have a
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way of bringing us all down, not to size, but below size.
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Right, how difficult is it for you to celebrate the success of the people
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who are close to you? Are closest to you? And if there's something
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in you that strains and struggles, you have work to do. And the
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issue isn't just your personal character. The issue is your ability to love like
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God in Christ loved. You got to exercise that muscle. You got to
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exercise that muscle a lot. And this third one, that this next one
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is so important in our culture. I thought about just making spending you know,
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thirty five minutes just talking about this one is such a big deal because
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the apostle Paul uses a word we don't use that much that we should use
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more. Here's what he says. He said, love does not dishonor others.
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Love does not dishonor others. Love does not behave disgracefully, dishonorably,
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or indecently. Love doesn't create regret. Love doesn't insist on another drink.
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Hey, guys, let me ask you this. Do you know how unique
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you would be in our world, in our culture? Do you know how
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unique you would be if you decided today, I will never dishonor another woman
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for the rest of my life. I will not dishonor a woman with my
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words. I will not dishonor a woman with my look. I will not
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dishonor a woman with my response. I will not dishonor you know, a
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woman by hind her back with my friends. For the rest of my life,
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I'm going to honor women the way that God in Christ honored me.
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I will not be another woman's regret. Do you know how unique that would
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make you? But more importantly than that, do you know how much more
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like Christ that would make you? We don't use this term much, honor,
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but I'm telling you, honor is at the heart of every satisfying relationship.
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Honor is at the heart the epicenter of every satisfying relationship. And the
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Apostle Paul again, he does is a big favor. He actually defines honor
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for us like we need a definition, because again we do. We just
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don't use this term very much. Here's what he says. Here's what it
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looks like, he says, if you want to honor another person, here's
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the practical side of it. Just value others above yourself. Just value others
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above yourself because they're more valuable. No, they're not more valuable than you,
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but you treat them as if they're more valuable. Why because that's what
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God in Christ did for you. Come on, when Jesus went to the
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cross, what did he say about you? What did he say about me?
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If a person is willing to lay down their life for you, whether
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or not their life is actually more valuable than yours, isn't the issue the
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fact that they would submit themselves to you, place themselves under you, take
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their burden on you. This is what God in Christ modeled for us.
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This is what honor looks like. This is what it looks like to value
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someone as if they were more important or greater than yourself. And here's the
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thing. Everybody listening, and everybody in this room and everybody everywhere watching,
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you know how to do this. You know how to do this. We
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just don't do it. Here's how I know that you know how to do
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this. Imagine that you had the opportunity to have dinner with your favorite actor,
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actress, or recording artist dinner, just the two of you, or
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maybe a couple of friends that you wanted, or somebody invited you and you
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were gonna just think who would that be? You're gonna have dinner with your
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favorite actor, actress or recording artists. Think about how you would prepare,
26:18
Think about the all that you would go through to prepare, Think about how
26:23
you would behave. That's what honor looks like. It's treating someone as if
26:30
they are more important or more valuable than you. Do. You know what
26:34
you would do? You know how to do this. You don't need any
26:37
lessons, just like Ferris Buehler, not a single lesson. Right. You
26:41
would bring your best version of you to that dinner. You would show up
26:48
early and if they arrived late, you wouldn't say, Hey, Denzel Man,
26:53
where you been? I got stuff to do? Okay? I you
26:56
know if you're gonna show up late, you know I can't. I don't
26:57
know if we can do this again? Right? No, if your favorite
27:00
actor or actress are recording artist shows up late, what are you gonna do?
27:03
You're going to here's the word again, You're gonna defer. It's not
27:07
a big deal. It's not a big no no no, I'm so I'm
27:10
so honored to have dinner with you. It doesn't matter to me that you're
27:15
late. The honor is all mine. You know how to do this.
27:22
That's what your heavenly father did for you. And he says, now,
27:27
I don't want you to just love. I want you to love as I
27:32
have loved you. Can I flip this around and give you some dangerous advice.
27:38
Sometimes I say things and my administrative assistant thinks, oh, I'm gonna
27:42
be busy all week responding to that. So here's one of those. Part
27:48
of me wants to qualify it, and part of me doesn't want to qualify
27:52
it. So I'll just assume that we're all mature adults, and you'll take
27:55
this the way I mean it. Don't stay. Don't stay in a relationship
28:03
where you are consistently constantly dishonored. If you're dating someone and you're consistently dishonored,
28:11
break up today. In fact, you have permission to get your phone
28:15
up and break up now. And I don't think breaking up with a text
28:18
is generally a good idea in this case, break up now and then hand
28:22
someone your phone and change your number. Okay, if you are in a
28:26
relay, I'm serious. If you're in a relationship where you are consistently and
28:29
constantly just put down, put down, put down, put down, dishonored,
28:33
get out because eventually, if you don't, you will come to the
28:36
conclusion that you are a dishonorable person. And once you conclude you're a dishonorable
28:41
person, you will begin to behave dishonorably, which keeps the cycle going.
28:47
And you need to get out of that because you are inherently honorable. And
28:52
here's how I know that, even though I haven't met you. The value
28:55
of a thing. The value of a thing is determined by the price it
28:59
will bring, one on one, the value of a thing is determined by
29:03
the price it will bring. You were bought with a price. God sent
29:10
his son into this world to pay a price for you. You're not even
29:12
your own. You are extraordinarily valuable. You deserve to be honored because of
29:18
who you belong to. And if you're in a relationship where you are dishonored,
29:22
please please please get out. You say, well, Andy, I'm
29:25
married. I know it's complicated. I'm not advocating for divorce. Please don't
29:29
everybody show up tomorrow at the office say well, I don't have anywhere to
29:30
go. Andy told me to hit the road. And please don't use this
29:36
as an excuse to get out of a relationship that you need to stay in.
29:40
You're just not willing to do the work. But if you are in
29:41
an environment where you are constantly dishonored, it's so unhealthy. So don't allow
29:47
yourself to be dishonored. But the real application is this, don't dishonor another
29:56
person. And you already know how to do this now. At this point,
30:03
especially if you're in the dating game, you're thinking, Okay, time
30:06
out, we got to stop all this. Time out, time out.
30:08
Andy. This is this is like the worst date ever I have never heard
30:14
of. This is like the worst day. So we're gonna get together and
30:15
I'm gonna be kind, you know, and I'm gonna be patient, you
30:18
know, And then I'm gonna let her tell her stories. I'm gonna let
30:22
him tell his stories. I'm gonna go, oh, that's incredible, Oh
30:23
that's amazing. I've ever heard anything like that in my life. And then
30:26
you know, I'm probably gonna have him drop me off at eight thirty,
30:30
you know, so he'll have time to get home and get ready for work.
30:32
Or I'll you know, I'll drop her off at nine to make sure
30:33
she has time. You know this sounds like this is this sounds terrible?
30:38
Of course it does, because you and I are raising a culture and live
30:41
in a culture where dating isn't about becoming somebody. We live in a culture
30:47
where dating is about getting somebody. It's fueled by the right person myth.
30:52
It's fueled by this assumption that I don't need to prepare, I don't need
30:56
to exercise any of these muscles. I just need to kind of go out
30:57
there and hunt right. So here's the deal. You may not like my
31:03
version of a date. In fact, you can go out and be impatient
31:08
and unkind and dishonorable while you look for someone who is patient and kind and
31:18
honorable. But they're probably not looking for you, not if they have any
31:22
sense. This is about preparing to win. This is about exercising these muscles
31:30
so that when you meet the person of your dreams, and I hope everybody
31:33
does that, you will be prepared. Because Jesus knew covenant command and the
31:37
Apostle Paul's fine print. This is how you become a person worth looking for.
31:44
And if you are in a relationship and married, this is how you
31:47
become or continue to be someone worth staying for. It's how you become the
31:52
person that the person you're looking for is looking for. And it's how you
31:56
become the person the person who entrusted their future to you was hoping for.
32:01
And I understand why it gets so quiet and messages like this. None of
32:06
this comes naturally, right, I mean, naturally leads to naturally naturally does
32:12
not lead to satisfying relationships. In fact, in fact, I alluded to
32:16
this earlier and last time we were together. Most married people thought that this
32:21
stuff would come naturally, so they didn't work on it. Most married people
32:23
thought this stuff would come naturally once they met the right person. Just to
32:28
put it out there, they thought, no laughing, their partner would be
32:31
so perfect. It wouldn't require any patience, It wouldn't even require any kindness,
32:38
it wouldn't require self control, it wouldn't require it wouldn't require any of
32:43
this stuff because he or she's gonna be so perfect. I'm gonna just my
32:46
perfection's gonna rise, you know, I'm just gonna it's gonna be like all
32:50
the ships that rise with the tide. I mean, she's gonna bring up
32:52
she, He's gonna bring the tide up in the relationship. I don't need
32:54
to worry about all these virtues. They're just gonna magically, somehow flow out
33:00
because they're gonna be a response to his or her perfection. Come on,
33:06
we're adults. We know better than that. This can't continue to fuel our
33:09
relationship decisions. Now for the future. Now, here's the good news.
33:15
Sandra and I have been married thirty one years. That's not the good news.
33:17
That is good news. But here's the good news from the thirty one
33:20
years. Marrying someone. Marrying well will make you a better person. But
33:27
the reason it made me a better person is it forced me to face my
33:30
selfishness. When I was dating her, when I was on my best behavior,
33:36
we all know how to do that, But in marriage, I'm confronted
33:39
with the raw me, and suddenly those muscles that I hadn't exercised the way
33:45
I needed to exercise them. I paid for that, and unfortunately, of
33:47
course she paid for that. So if you marry well, you're gonna face
33:52
your selfishness, and it's gonna make you better. And here's the cool thing
33:54
for those of you who aren't married. Eventually you will, you will perfect
33:59
it. You will overcome all of your self centeredness, and then you'll have
34:05
children, whether you have them biologically or adoptrum or fosterum, and it starts
34:10
all over again, and you realize what a creep you really are because you're
34:17
forced to face your selfishness. And here's the thing. Here's the thing.
34:21
Look, look, I want you to win relationally. I want you to
34:24
win relationally in the relationship you're in now. I want you to win in
34:28
a relationship that maybe is in the future for you. And here's what I
34:30
know between now and then. What you do matters between now and then.
34:36
How you treat people matters between now and then, and how you date it
34:39
matters between now and then, how you respond to the people you're getting close
34:44
to. All of this matters. It is all preparation, and you are
34:46
either using this time to prepare or you're thinking, I don't need to prepare,
34:51
It's all going to work out fine. Once I meet the right person
34:55
to win, you must prepare to win. And here's the promise. And
35:01
here's where we'll pick it up next time. Following Jesus embracing the fine print
35:07
that the apostle Paul is going to give us more of next time. Following
35:12
Jesus embracing this one overarching, demanding, rewarding command to learn to love as
35:19
God in Christ has loved us prepares you to win. So don't miss Part
35:27
three of Love, dates and Heartbreaks,