Could It Be I’m Falling In Love
6/27/99 Proverbs 4:18-27 Colossians 3:1-4 Text Thessalonians 4:1-8
How many of us remember the days when we use to have crushes on someone as a junior or senior higher. As young as age 12, I can remember being on my knees praying that God would let me marry so and so. I just knew I was in love.
What happens when we fall in love. We can stay on the phone for hours talking about nothing. We find it hard to think about anything else. We can forget friends and family in order to be with this person. We feel tingling and nervous when this other person comes into the room.
We just can’t wait to get a letter in the mail from the other person when he or she is away. People tell us, we have lost our minds and gone crazy over that person
We still live in a dream world in which society tells us that this state of falling in love is the natural state for a couple to remain in forever. The ability to be romantically attracted to someone is a gift from God. Romance is like the fire of a match. It burns brightly and quickly, but its purpose is to set on fire something else which will last much longer. God gives us romance to burn the fires in a marriage. The purpose of romance is to develop a more deeper understanding of love in the marriage relationship. A love based not simply on feelings but on commitment as well.
God created marriage to be a lifetime relationship between two individuals who were committed to each other no matter what the stresses of life might be. As they overcome the stresses, they can celebrate with romance to once again strengthen their relationship.
But then as the number of divorces increased, somebody came up with the idea that something was wrong with the institution of marriage. Somebody thought, well God even though you might call it sin, we can stop the number of divorces by practicing living together first. So now we have a whole lot of people who are living together outside of marriage, who are going to make marriage a more lasting relationship.
If you had a 97 Lexus and something went wrong with it and you took it to a repair shop. What would you think if the mechanic came to you with a repair manual for a 73 Dodge, saying, “I’ve looked all through this book, and I can’t seem to find the problem.” You probably would want to say, well do you have a manual on how to fix a 97 Lexus. Suppose he said, “if you seen one car, you’ve seen them all. I’ll just experiment until I find the problem.” You know the best person to fix the car is someone who follows the procedures in a Lexus automobile manual.
Marriage was not a human idea. It came from God. Therefore God should have the best instructional manual on marriage. God said in marriage, commit to each other right from the beginning. Those who have decided to throw God to the side would say, “no have a little trial marriage first by living together to make sure you will be ready for marriage.”
Living together before marriage prepares one for divorce far better than it prepares one for marriage. For instance only 26% of the women who live together will eventually marry the man they are living with. Of men, only 19% will marry the woman they are with. 40% of couples who live together will never get married. Of those who do, 75% of those marriages will fail. So in reality, to play like you married will end up with 85% of the couples falling by the way side.
To put this in easily understood numbers, of one hundred couples who decide to go against the plan of God for their lives concerning relationships by living together before marriage, forty of them will never marry. Sixty of them will marry, but forty five of them will divorce. Only 15 of the one hundred couples will stay married. Even with a high divorce rate, of 100 couples who begin living together after marriage, 57 first time married couples stay married.
Now all these people probably knew the joy of falling in love with each other and were sexually attracted to each other. But falling in love is not a guarantee for a successful marriage. A marriage is a whole lot more than sex and romance. It’s commitment, self denial, sacrifice, determination, love and a lot of hard work. One must fight to have and to keep a good marriage.
One way to begin to cut down on the number of divorces is to take the word of God seriously before we “fall in love.” The Bible tells us, above all else guard your heart. Watch who and what you are falling in love with at all times. Every person and everything which comes into our lives comes with the potential of being a great blessing or a great disaster for our us. Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to us falling in love.
Many times reason goes out the window, we put on blinds and see only the things we want to see. We even turn on those who love us who may not be happy with our choice of a person because of how they perceive the person to be treating us. They may have very good reasons for concern, but out love assures us we can conquer all things.
The Bible tells us to get wisdom above all else, and wisdom will guard our lives. Wisdom comes from the Word of God and from the experience of others who have lived through some situations and seen things we have not seen. In the Bible most of the marriages were arranged marriages. People learned to love each other for who the person was, not merely what they looked like or that position they might have had.
Sometimes we forget that we are the body of Christ. Its a danger to talk about me and God, without seeing what the rest of the body is saying. Love does an amazing job of allowing us to have a direct line open to God which does not exist. We believe God has told us, “this is the one,” when in fact God may not have said any such thing.
Some people put themselves in a bind to marry someone because even though they see some serious problems ahead, they have told others that God told them to marry the person. It is far better to say I was listening to love instead of to God and call the thing off before it goes any further rather than enter a rocky marriage. You have not changed anything until you say I do at the altar.
Now is there only one person out there for you whom God has chosen just for you. Well I hate to burst your bubble but there probably isn’t. God gives us freedom of choice in a lot of things. The Bible does not tell us, here is what you must do, it tells us instead here is what you must not do. You see God treats us as individuals with different tastes. There are some things which are harmful to everybody, and God says “nobody can do that without a penalty.”
There are many many other things that God leaves up to us. We may want to think God has chosen this one person for us, but the only time in the New Testament where a person is giving instruction about making a marriage choice it says, “a woman is free to marry anyone she wishes as long as he is a believer.”
So how then does a person go about dating. Dating can have some positive consequences or some very negative consequences for our lives. Therefore we have to stay within God’s will for us in this area. There are risks and rewards of dating. The risk include judging others superficially. The thought of dating causes us to write some people off because they don’t look good enough for us to be seen with them, when in reality they might be a great life-time partner.
Another risk is that dating may lead to sexual intimacy without a commitment of marriage. Another risk is the pain of rejection. It hurts when someone says, “I don’t want to go out with you anymore” especially if you’ve crossed the sexual boundaries or told others God has given you this person. A final risk is dating may cause you to fall in love with a person who does not really exist. We all try putting our best foot forward while hiding some of our negative traits in the dating process.
A reward of dating may be discovering a friend who shares your common interests. Another reward may be finding someone who accepts you as you are if both people are honest during the period. Another reward is that it can force you to grow in your relationship with God if you’re committed to being faithful to Him.
When the bible is silent on a particular subject, then we are to look to the principles in the Scripture to find wisdom and direction. The principles for dating are no different than the principles for the rest of living. Since we have been raised with Christ, we are to set our hearts on things above first, and then see what God may do. Our goal in all of our living ought to be to please God.
People want to know, what’s God’s will for me. Let’s look in 1 Thessalonians starting at verse 3. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: This word sanctified is also translated holy. It means that you should consider yourself as set apart for God’s special use. That means, there are certain places you are not going to go for a date and certain kinds of people you cannot look to as a potential mate, because they keep you from being set apart by God.
Now the Scriptures tell us, a believer should only marry a believer. Therefore when one is thinking about dating, that should be a primary consideration in a choice of date. Every date is a potential mate. Now that’s not to say you cannot go out with someone who is not a believer. But you must keep in mind the ability of the human heart to deceive itself and the power of falling in love to cause us to hear God saying things God did not say.
If we do not guard our hearts, we will find ourselves saying, God has told me to marry this person even though he or she is not a Christian. There are some situations in which Christians marry non-believers who eventually get saved, but those are the exceptions and not the rule. Some people are involved with other people who are married and claiming God brought this person into their lives. This is just plain sin. If you are a Christian, who you date is the church’s business because you are a part of the body of Christ. Your relationship to that person will affect your relationship to the church.
We also need to let our family and friends meet a person we like before we really fall in love and won’t see some of the concerns those who love us share with us. By all means invite the person to church and let them see what you are all about spiritually. If you’re hiding your walk with Lord from the person, you’re no longer walking to please God.
You have been set apart by God. Don’t head to the bars to find a date. There are probably more people around you than you think. Your goal should be to meet a friend not a husband or a wife. A good friend will always make a better marriage partner. Far more time in marriage will be spent in friendship situations rather than in the bedroom.
The next part of the verse tells us that you should avoid sexual immorality; Everybody who gets alone with a member of the opposite sex will be tempted. Especially if you already have some feelings or desire for another person. How committed are you to believing the word of God. The bible tells us to run or to flee from sexual temptation. Most of us would rather pretend we are beyond that. That is why many of us are even now committing sexual sins.
If you don’t intend to get sexually involved with someone, you need to have established that in advance. You also need to let the other person know it. Tell them, I believe in waiting until after marriage before having sex. You’ll find a out a whole lot you need to know right then and there. The tone you set on your first date, will determine your dating experience with the person.
The way you dress tells a person a lot. There’s nothing wrong with looking good. But, do you dress in a way pleasing to God or pleasing to the opposite sex? How you come to a date tells me what you real intentions are. Dating ought to be a time of getting to know someone as a person, not getting to know the touch and feel of his or her body.
It would be much safer to date in a group and go out as a group than to drive out just the two of you. We will say, but then I can’t really get to know them. Oh yeah, like you’re really going to find out what they are like parked in some lonely place, or locked alone in your apartment. Sexual sins destroys relationships. It also destroys people’s lives.
Dealing with sexual desire is like dealing with a narcotic addiction. Once you have a little cocaine, it takes more and more for the same feeling. At first you’re happy to hold someone’s hands. Once you start kissing, hand holding isn’t enough. Once you start touching on the outside of the clothing, it’s not enough. Once you start having sex, you will probably have to end the relationship in order to stop. If you have not decided in advance to control the situation, the situation is going to control you.
You say, well what’s wrong with sex if we both want it. There’s nothing wrong with sex. It simply belongs in a marriage because of all the things God has planned for it. The Bible teaches that you are very valuable and important to God. You are so precious to Him that He has made your body a temple. Not only that God is willing to live inside of you His Temple. He has bought you and you belong to Him. Now we all know there are some things you don’t do in the temple.
We would be outraged if we knew a group that we let use our church was in here having a wild sexual party with prostitutes and pimps. We know somehow, they have defiled this place. When we have sex with someone who is not our spouse, God says we are defiling the place that He has come to live. In sex, we are exposing our inner self to another person A bonding takes place at some level whether we know it or not.
You may say, but everybody else is doing it. Everybody else is not doing it. A lot of people are because they have little interest in pleasing God and are willing to accept a lot less than God’s best for their lives. But look at the next part of the verse. “that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;”
We can control how we behave even with our sexual desires. Notice the passage said to learn how to do it. This means, you can’t just pray that God will keep you from falling. You have to take some practical steps and make some practical plans.
You have to say, no you can’t come over because I’m home all alone. You have to say, no I can’t go with you on that weekend cruise. You have to plan boundaries if you are serious about being faithful to God.
Look at the next part of this verse “and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.” This verse is a warning for the guys, that just because this person is dressed like this is not a reason to force them into having sex.
Girls and women you need to open your eyes that you are not the super person you think you are if you find yourself in a sticky situation. Many a female has been raped, Christians and non Christians because the guy was stronger than they were and there was no one there to help them. Most of the girls and women who are raped are not raped by someone jumping out of the bushes. They will be raped by the very person they invited over to their house, or chose to go to his place, or chose to go for a ride just the two of you.
Some of them are going to be raped by men and boys from the church who they thought they could trust. Again that is why its better to date in groups than as a couple unless the place is very public. If you answer an ad in one of the paper’s, you need to meet the person in a public place. Have your own ride there and your own ride back home. Do not apologize for protecting yourself and the wonderful treasure God sees you as being.
In today’s world, there is a lot of pressure placed on guys to have sex from women who think if I can get him in the bed with me, then he will be mine. For a lot of men, sex is not the beginning of a life long relationship, it is the beginning of the end for the present one. Once a guy has sex, there is a tendency to see the person as someone who can be used rather than someone who you want to commit the rest of your life with.
Having sex with a man or a boy does not give you more respect in that person’s eyes. That’s why men who are living together with a woman are more likely to beat on that woman. If a man beats you before marriage, you can certainly expect it after you get married unless that person has undergone extensive counseling.
Let me give you four B’s for dating. 1. Be wise in who you date. 2. Be wise in where you go on a date. 3. Be wise in what you decide on what physical contact you will have on dates. Buying a dinner or a ticket does not authorize the free roaming on somebody’s hands on your body. 4. Be wise in following Christ. You should seek to build a healthy relationship on respect and trust rather than on sex.
You’re taking on Christ on each date you have, whether you know it or not. Act like it. Never think that marriage is a cure all for problems. Marriage will not cure loneliness nor does it cure lust which is out of control. Both of these things must be surrendered to God to prepare to be married.
Being single and being married both have their challenges and both have their rewards. God requires the same amount of faithfulness and purity in one group as He does another. Never try to force a dating relationship that’s not working into a marriage. That may be God’s way of saying, this is not a good choice. Trust the opinions of those who love you in the body of Christ, and don’t let choosing a partner be based totally on your own feelings. The human heart can be very deceptive, especially when you’re falling in love.
God loves you, God want to heal you, and God wants to forgive you. Far too many of us are failing to receive all the good that God wants to give us, because we have made too many compromises in this area. It does not matter how much you love each other, love can never make sin anything other than sin. Are you willing to start again, but this time doing it God’s way. Jesus died so that you can be brought back into a right relationship with God.
