Dating

Dating

I found this sermon one of the most difficult of all the ones I have prepared

- Perhaps it was so difficult

- For the same reason

- That people, particularly our young people

- Have with dating

- It isn’t something God wrote directly into the Bible

- If I were to preach on immorality

- That would be much easier

- The Bible has clear teaching on that

- But there is no clear statement in the Bible

- “Thou shall not date”

There are some principles I think can be applied to dating

- And we will be looking at some of them

- I suppose the first task is to define dating

- I was not really surprised

- To discover some young people have a different definition of dating

- Than older adults might have

- Dating used to be simply a guy asking a girl to go out to do something together

- If you were dating each other

- It might have been an exclusive relationship

- Or going steady

- But now dating has a whole new context

- It seems that young people think in terms of

- Single, dating and married

- Single means not seeing anyone

- Not dating or not going steady

- Dating means involved in an exclusive relationship

- It is like being married without the paperwork or the wedding

- Or without the responsibility

- You don’t support the girl you are dating

- But the other activities and expectations of marriage

- May be freely engaged in

- Many dating couples are now sexually involved with each other

Our culture has changed the norm and the expectations of young people

- In the process attitudes and activities have changed

- So while dating might not be wrong

- Some of the activities of dating couples might be wrong and damaging

Having watched and counseled several young men and a few young ladies about broken relationships,

- Expectations and such

- That go with dating

- I have found there are some serious issues

- That need to be discussed

- There have been too many tears, too much pain

- And a few unexpected babies and marriages

- Because people went into dating

- Without understanding what could happen

If dating was just a group of young men and women

- Going out to a movie

- Or to eat

- Even if they were paired up

- I don’t think there would be reason for much concern

- If people simply liked each other’s company

- And asked them to do something together

- There would not be much of a problem

- If relationships weren’t exclusive

- But the couples were loosely grouped

- As a part of a larger group of friends

- There would be entirely different expectations

- And entirely different outcomes

But when two individuals, a boy and a girl, decide to date each other exclusively

- And limit their social contact largely to themselves

- Things change

- They begin to look for more than companionship and friendship

- In the relationship

- Romance becomes a part of the expectations

- And part of the activities

- Expressions of love, real or imagined, appear

- Emotions and feelings begin to rule

- Things change

- They are fundamentally different

- The problem is that these emotions nad feelings

- Are not a good place to build a relationship

- Ask any married couple

- If they haven’t felt unloved or like leaving the relationship

- At one time or another

- See a permanent relationship is built

- On something other than emotion or feeling

- On something other than sex or attractiveness

You see

- Dating doesn’t train young people for marriage

- Not the way it is done now any way

- It prepares them for divorce

- You see, dating typically involves

- A series of short-term relationships

- Some intensely emotional and involved

- Those who end up with a solid marriage out of this process

- Often have to deal with a lot of painful emotional baggage

- From previous dating relationships

- Baggage from the breakups

- From the betrayal of trust

- From the fickleness of youth

- From boredom and wanting to be free

- Young people are learning to break off

- Relationships that don’t work out

- Or are stale

- Or when someone new, better comes along

- The practice of falling emotionally in love

- And then falling out of love with each other

- Can cause a great deal of pain and scarring

- And establish bad relationship habits

- In the Army we always said you will fight the way you train