Relationships – How to develop a godly relationship
We are going to talk about relationships before marriage today. The first thing that I want to say is that we didn’t do everything right. In fact we made a lot of mistakes and had some failures along the way. We want to share some of those things with you today. We want to share them because we want to save you from making the same mistakes.
The second thing that we want to say is that God has given us a great relationship. Even if you have made the same mistakes, or even greater ones, God can still restore you and your relationship.
The Bible text that we are going to use today seems very strange, the parable of the sower. The text is actually talking about the kingdom of heaven but I believe it can also be applied to finding and developing a Godly relationship. It is certainly true in our lives.
Matthew 13:3-9
Weeds/Thorns
The first thing I want to talk about is the seed that fell in the weeds. Many young Christians get saved, they give their lives to God, but are soon distracted by relationships. We want to look at the two different ways that we came to be together.
Liz’s story,
I got saved as a child. When I grew older I became interested in boys, and I had a few crushes on different people, although I never had the guts to do anything about them, thankfully, as they weren’t Christians. As a child, I had suffered rejection and did not want to go just into any relationship. However, one day, I noticed a lad in the church, and thought to myself ‘he’s good-looking’. I’d known him for a while but had never looked at him in that way before. Over time my feelings towards him grew, but I did not want to go out with him unless I knew that he was the one God intended for me to marry. So I prayed about it, and believed that God promised me that this boy, Mark, was the man I would marry.
However, it was over a year before we actually got together, and during that time I saw him date other people. I also had a couple of boys ask me out during that time (one of whom was unsaved). I fancied them a little, and so it was very tempting for me especially since I had low self-esteem and so really enjoyed the attention they were giving me. But, I couldn’t get away from what I knew God had told me about Mark, and so thankfully I turned them down.
I held on and waited and before long Mark and I were together.
Mark’s story,
When I was fifteen years old I got saved and I gave my life to God. At first I concentrated on developing my relationship with God. However the culture within the youth group at the time was all about finding a girlfriend. It wasn’t long before I was distracted.
When I had been a child growing up I had always been the fat kid and didn’t have any girls interested in me. When I was about twelve however I had got into sport in a big way and so by the time I was a Christian I was in pretty good shape. I started to find that some girls were actually interested in me. The problem was that in my head I was still the fat kid. I was very insecure and so didn’t really pray about who I dated, if they were Christian and attractive, then that was good enough for me.
Every time we went a regional youth conference, it wasn’t so much about what we could get from God, but what girls would be there. We were like hunters looking for prey. The trouble was, not only did I have my own insecurities to work through, so did the girls that I dated as well.
The other problem was that each girl that I dated had a different view of what were acceptable boundaries in a relationship. The first girl I dated, I shyly asked if she would mind if I put my arm around her. By the time I had dated two or three girls I was going a lot further than I should have.
The main problem was that because I hadn’t prayed about these relationships, they weren’t from God, and my attention had been taken away from God. Instead of making me feel more secure, I had even more insecurities. You security and self worth will only come from God.
When it came to Liz, I did pray about this relationship, and I knew that it was right. However I took into that relationship all of the hurts and insecurities I had got from the other relationships, as well as a moral view of what was right that had come from my other relationships, rather than from God.
For me, the time I had spent dating had been a time where my relationship with God had been choked by the thorns of distraction. I was a Christian, but I hadn’t been able to grow and I was relatively unfruitful. It also meant that my relationship with Liz hadn’t had a good start.
Conclusion of Weeds/Thorns
I want to encourage you before you start to look for your life partner to concentrate on your relationship with God. Get your self worth from God and then pray about a relationship. I had to learn the hard way, in doing so I got hurt many times and I hurt others. We want to save you that pain.
Path
Next we want to talk about the seed that fell on the path. Jesus explains that this seed is the word of God that falls on people, but that is able to be stolen away because of a lack of understanding. Even a God ordained relationship can become unfruitful because of a lack of knowledge. Your relationship with each other can suffer as well as your relationship with God.
When we came together there were a lot of areas in which we had little knowledge. Nobody told us and we didn’t ask. As a result we made a lot of mistakes which harmed our relationship with each other and with God. The main areas that we lacked knowledge in were, how to develop the spiritual side of a relationship and where to set boundaries in regards to the physical side. In fact the only thing I can remember being told is don’t have sex until your married… so we didn’t. However that leaves a lot of other areas open.
Physical Boundaries,
We soon realised that a pre marriage relationship is like two people walking around at the top of a circular cliff. The closer that you are to the centre of that circle, the closer you are to Gods will. In Bible times a couple who were engaged to be married would spend very little time alone together. There would be very little physical contact, leaving nearly all of these pleasures for marriage. Of course falling off the cliff symbolises sex outside marriage.
In between the two, there are various levels. Long, passionate kissing. Spending long periods alone together. Seeing each other naked. Feeling each others genitalia. Etc.
These are things that you need to discuss and set the boundaries. Too many couples never actually discuss it and just decide that they will stop when the other says so, or it feels too much… after all we are both Christians. The problem is that the other person might also be relying on you to decide when to stop.
It is important to set the boundaries as tight as possible. The longer and closer that you walk close to the edge of the cliff, the more likely that you are to fall off. Add to this, the fact that whenever you get to the top of a hill there are always strong winds. In a relationship there can be very strong winds called sexual desire. Like the wind, it comes in gusts. If you are walking too close to the edge then there is a high likelihood that you will both fall off. The longer your relationship is going to be before you get married, then the tighter these boundaries need to be.
We spent the early part of our relationship too close to the edge. Two of our friends back in England were also dating. They were both Christians and respected in the church. They were both only 18 years old and had split up. He had moved into a new relationship when it was discovered that his ex girlfriend was now pregnant and expecting his baby. They had spent too long close to the edge and have spent the last 10 years dealing with the consequences.
I want to give you a quick rule to know how far is too far. If you would be embarrassed to tell members of the church what you are doing in that relationship then you are going too far. We will come on to this subject again in a little while.
Spiritual Development
The problem with setting physical boundaries is often we can then spend our whole time talking about how good it will be when we can do more. We sometimes can go into the details. We think it is all right to talk about sex all of the time as long as we don’t actually do it. The problem is that this then becomes the focus of attention and gives us an even greater appetite for it. Ultimately a thought that is dwelt upon for long enough will become an action.
The key to not letting this happen is instead to concentrate on developing you relationship spiritually. This is often the most neglected part of a relationship. I want to encourage you to base you relationship on learning to develop the following things:
Regular/Daily prayer times together.
Honesty. – Talk about your hopes, fears, struggles in life.
Study together, - Read and discuss the bible together.
Worship together,
Socialise together – spend time as a couple with other people. This is something that we will talk more about in a little while.
If you concentrate on these things then your relationship can actually become far more intimate and fulfilling than any of the physical aspects of your relationship. Learning to develop these things will start off your marriage in good stead. We are married and have fulfilling sex, but we actually find that the greatest intimacy comes from being able to be one spiritually.
We confess sins together, pray together and for each other, support and encourage each other. We help each other in the areas that we are weak.
Conclusion of Path
A lack of knowledge can destroy you relationship. Satan can come in a steal that seeds that God has planted in your life. Remember that in your flesh you are corrupt and are capable of doing far greater things than you think possible. Only by setting physical boundaries and concentrating on creating a spiritual, honest relationship, will you grow together and in God.
Rocky Ground
Jesus explains that some of the seed fell on the rocky ground. In this ground the seed begins to grow but because of a lack of soil, it couldn’t put down roots and got scorched by the sun.
If we cut ourselves off from other Christians then effectively we place ourselves in areas where we don’t have much soil. We believe that this is one of the worst mistakes that we made in our relationship.
We wanted to spend as much time together as possible so that we could develop our relationship. We had plenty of time to that because we were still young, and Liz had to go to university before we could get married. We would go to church and then immediately leave so that we could spend time together.
To make the situation worse I was working long hours in a job that I hadn’t prayed about and so we didn’t have that much time anyway. Eventually this led to a time when we both backslid and at one point split up, even though we both knew that God wanted us to marry. I entered into a relationship in my workplace which I knew was ungodly, but by the grace of God I didn’t have sex. However I did do things that I am now utterly ashamed of and I know that I failed God badly. I even started to doubt God because I couldn’t keep believing in God and keep on heading in the direction that I was going. I thank God that He caused me to choose repentance.
The whole time scared us both. We started to realise the mistakes that we had made and the sins that we had committed and repented. Psalm 51 became my prayer.
Conclusion of rocky ground
If you cut yourself off from other Christians then your relationship will start to become more physical and you will start to backslide. We put at risk our relationship with God, our relationship with each other, and the destiny that God had for us. I want to encourage you to use the time to learn to become a couple, with other Christians, rather than away from them.
Good Soil
After two and a half years of one sin or mistake after another, which concluded in a time that was one of the most painful experiences of our lives. It would be another three years before we would get married, and we both determined not to make the same mistakes again. We effectively repented and asked God to make our lives and our relationship good soil again, that he could use.
It didn’t happen all at once. There were a lot of weeds that needed uprooting, a lot of hard ground that needed furrowing and a lot of stones that needed removing.
But over that time we started to concentrate on developing each other spiritually. We would pray with each other almost every time we were together. We started to be honest with each other about our struggles with sin. We studied the Bible together. We redrew the physical boundaries in our relationship. We stopped spending long periods alone together in the bedroom. Before we got married our boundaries were as follows.
Breasts or genitalia were not to be touched or seen by the other person.
We kissed, but not long passionate ones.
We hugged, but not for excessive periods of times.
We also started to spend a lot more time with other Christians again, fellowshipping and praying with them. As our relationship became more in line with God’s He really started to bless our relationship. The end of the parable ends by saying that when seed landed on good soil it produced a crop that was 100, 60 or 30 times that what was sown. Our relationship started to become a blessing to other people. We could minister together.
The result of that repentance is that we now have a great marriage. We are able to confess sin to each other. We are able to be completely honest with each other. We have great sex. We have a beautiful daughter. Most of all we are a lot closer to God together, than we ever would be on our own.
Conclusion
There are two things that I want to say today. Firstly to those who are not yet in a relationship, pray about who God has got for you. Don’t rush into a relationship. Concentrate on your relationship with God first.
Realise that being with the right person doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to grow in God. You have to both make the commitment to grow the relationship spiritually. It means putting in sensible physical boundaries and reviewing them regularly. Even consider speaking to your youth leader or older Christians, as a couple, to ask them what is appropriate. Make your relationship as honest and open as possible.
Please don’t take this lightly. The pain of knowing that you have failed God takes you a long time to get over. It can take a long time before the joy of your salvation returns.
Secondly, I want to say that even if you have surpassed all of these boundaries and have been having sex, it is not too late to repent and put your relationship right. God can still bless you and your relationship but it does require true repentance. Without it, not only are you putting you relationship at risk, but also you salvation.
