Finding A Mate Series

I suppose one of the most rewarding (should I say?) things that we hear is that a person's getting

their life together. You know, you hear about someone that's been having some trouble in their

life and now they're getting it together, and you go, “Yes, finally,” is sometimes what we say to a

person getting it together. But it's even more exciting when a young person says, “I'm going to

get my life together.” There's something special about that, that says, yes, I'm going to live life

differently than those around me in the culture. I'm going to dedicate myself to the Lord early

instead of going through a lot of the challenges that other people go through and then after

getting together later in life. Look, if you're later in life, now's the time to get it together. But I'm

just encouraged when young people make that commitment and they choose to get it together,

especially in this area of spiritual growth and spiritual life.

Well, that's what's happening with the believers in our Nehemiah passage. We saw last week that

they were getting it together. They decide they're going to dedicate themselves to the Lord. This

is so important. We looked at three words. One of the words was ‘separate.’ Because in order for

us to get it together, we must understand the difference between separation, where identity comes

from, and participation in our world. The second word we looked at was the word

‘understanding.’ The idea of seeing the consequences of present actions. We all need more of

that. Gaining that wisdom is strategic as we're trying to grow up in our lives and get it together.

The third word we looked at was the word ‘walk.’ Because when we learn how to walk with God

or walk in God's law, then good things happen in our lives. So these people in Nehemiah’s time

were dedicating themselves to the Lord, because that is the number one decision that we make in

our lives. It is the most important decision any of us will ever make and that is to get it together

with God. To dedicate ourselves to God and to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

So if you're here today and you've never accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, I just want to

tell you, that’s your most important decision you'll ever make in your life. I invite you to do that

today. We'd love to help you get to know Jesus Christ in a very personal, intimate way.

Now once you make that decision, and that's your number one decision, there's a second

decision, your number two decision that we're going to talk about today. Because that's what's

happening with the people. They're dedicating themselves to the Lord and they come to the

second most important decision anybody makes in their life, and that is finding a mate. And so

they're going to dedicate themselves now in this area of their lives to live life differently, not like

the culture. So we're going to spend some time today talking about finding a mate.

In order to do that, I want to read the verse. Just one verse. I felt like we need to slow down here

in the passage. I want you to see this one verse. Because they're in the second most important

decision, and they're going to look at this in their own lives and they're going to make a

statement about what they're going to do. We're going to take principles from this idea that's

presented in this passage and apply them to our own lives. So I want to take this one verse from

the Old Testament and the verse from the New Testament, put them together today, and we're

going to talk about the value of marriage in people's lives. So would you stand with me, please,

as I read this one verse from Nehemiah 10:30.

It says this: We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for

our sons. In other words, we're going to do this find a mate stuff differently. We're going to value

marriage. Marriage is going to be more important than it has been in the past. We're going to

follow God's direction in regards to this.

The verse I'd like to also complement this with is in Hebrews 13:4 where it says – Let marriage

be held in honor among all. That means valued, raised up, that marriage is important and

valuable. And let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and

adulterous. Two things we're lifting up and valuing – one is marriage and the other is sex. In our

community, in our culture, and in our society, these two things are devalued. We're going to talk