Roommates, Bad Dates And Great Mates: Dating Series

Here’s the first one: You and I do not necessarily have a soul mate. According to the Bible, there is not necessarily someone out there for you, even if you live a good life. Even if you obey God, you walk closely to God, you are close to God, the Bible never promises that there is going to be someone out there for you, because it could be God’s plan for your life for you to be single. Now for some of us that is hard to think about. It is hard for us to imagine. But that could be God’s plan for your life. Now, on the other side, there may be more than one person out there that you could marry and God would be happy with it. You see, sometimes, we get carried away with this idea that there is one person out there on the entire planet that is right for me. There is that one person that I am going to spend my entire life finding that person, and then when we think we find that person, and the relationship breaks up and we are all distraught because our one chance of meeting that one person is all over and now it’s too late. I’m going to have to settle for someone else. But you see, that’s just not the case. God is a lot bigger than that and when we mess up or we hit a dead end, God is a God of fresh starts and new creations and He can turn a dead end into a fresh start even in places where we haven’t even anticipated it. But I want you to hear this. The Bible never says that there is just one possible person out there for you. That’s what Hollywood says. The Bible never says that. You know sometimes we get confused with what Hollywood says with what the Bible says. Hollywood says there is that one special soul mate and every they find that special soul mate at the end, and it was the only person they could ever be with. That is not Biblical. God never said that. The Bible states clearly, and Paul writes it right here that there is no guarantee that there is a specific person out there for you. It may be God’s will for you to be single, but besides that there may be many options for God’s plan. There may be multiple options, depending on what career path. Because you see, in God’s plan, and you are obeying God, He gives you the freedom within His boundaries. We have freedom to choose with what we do, of who we date, as long as we are obeying Him and following His will. So Paul says, there is no guarantee that there is one specific person out there for you, but there may be many options out there as well.

So then Paul points to a second truth in this passage, being single can be preferable to being married. In other words, there is nothing wrong with living a life of singleness. Paul points out that a single person has more time and energy to give to serving God and to serving the church than a married person does. A married person has to give time and energy to their spouse. And a married person has to give time and energy to their family, to their children, but a single person has more time and more energy to give to serving God and to serving the church than someone who is in a relationship. And Paul says that it is preferable if you can handle it, to be single for the work of God. And Paul, I want you to understand, calls it a gift. Go back up to the verse and I want you to underline those words—gift of singleness. He calls it a gift. God has given me this gift of being single. If you are single and there is no one on the horizon right now, and this culture makes you feel this way, I know our city makes you feel like you are a loser, there is no one in your life, or it makes you feel lonely, if you are by yourself right now, it’s okay. Paul says it’s even better. Maybe it’s God’s plan for you. Don’t feel bad if you are single, be happy. God may be giving you a gift of singleness. It may be for a period of time, it may be for your entire life, I don’t know. In fact, Paul himself lived his entire life single. Some ancient sources that describe Paul, do not describe him as a very attractive man. As a matter of fact, I don’t know if these sources are true, but in some ancient writings, Paul is described as very short, and being very bald, and being nearsighted and having a unibrow. That’s not a very attractive picture and it sort of looks like George Costanza or something, is who Paul looks like. Maybe that’s the reason why Paul lived a life of singleness. I don’t know. I tend to think that it was because he was so focused on serving God and he was so determined to serve as many churches as he could, that he didn’t have time to spare. He received this gift of singleness and felt called by God. Whatever the reason for Paul’s singleness, he saw it as a positive calling. He didn’t see it as a problem. So never, ever, allow yourself or anyone else to allow you to feel bad for being single. It may be a gift from God. And God wants to use it. And then Paul goes on. Paul says, “So the person who marries does well and the person who doesn’t marry does even better, that’s if you are using your life to serve God.” But Paul goes on to make a final point in this passage that we need to pay attention to. He says, there is no perfect time to get married and sometimes the best thing to do is to go ahead and get married. Paul says, don’t just go on dating and dating and dating. Don’t go on staying engaged forever just because you have some fears, you have some reservations, you are afraid of commitment, because you might fall into lust. You might fall into sin. He says, instead of falling into sin, go ahead and get married. There is not going to be a perfect time, but if you are with this person, you are living a Godly relationship. You ask—is this a person I could marry and the answer is yes, don’t just date forever. If you think this is the right step, take it and go ahead and get married. As Paul says, if this is a person you think you can marry, then get married instead of burning up with lust and falling into sin. On the other hand, a lot of us are so afraid of the commitment of marriage that we think the answer, the safe answer, before getting married is co-habitation. Living together before getting married. You know, the philosophy—I’m going to test drive this relationship before we do the real thing. I’m going to try it out to see if it works before we jump into the marriage and make the commitment. Well, recent studies have found out a couple of important truths that the Bible has been telling us for the last 2,000 years about this. First of all, you need to know that over 60% of couples that get married in the United States, lived together before they got married. So you aren’t being counter cultural when you live with someone before you get married. You are actually being counter cultural when you wait until you get married to live with someone. It’s unconventional to wait. But a study done by the University of Wisconsin has found that couples who cohabitate, couples that live together before they get married have a rate of over 50%, they are more than likely to divorce than those who wait until they get married. More than 50% higher rate of divorce than those who live together before they get married than those who wait to live until they get married. In fact, out of these couples who live together before they got married, only 15 out of 100 were married after a decade. And for those of you who are bad at math, that’s 15%, only 15% of those who chose to live together before getting married were actually married after 10 years. Maybe some of them even got married, some of them went through divorce, which is again at 50% higher rate for those people. Let me tell you, we have been sold a rotten deal of goods when it comes to living together before you are married. We’ve been told that it’s a test drive and that it will make your marriage stronger, it will help you discover if this is the right person when every statistic, when everything in the Bible says that it is a rotten bill of goods, you are being tricked because it will be the downfall of your relationship and of your marriage, because it’s not God’s plan. Here’s the other startling factor. Christian women are significantly more likely to compromise their standards and live with someone before getting married than are Christian men. That study showed the Christian women are almost as likely to live with a guy before marriage than non-Christian women. While at the same time, Christian men are much less likely to cohabitate before getting married than non-Christian men. Now, let’s just think about that. Why is that? Why is it that Christian women have to compromise on this issue more than Christian men? Is it because Christian men have stronger spirituality? No. I don’t think any of us think that that is the case. The reason is, women are oftentimes more likely to make sacrifices for someone they have become emotionally attached to in order to save a relationship more so than guys are. So a guy, whether he is a Christian or not, might be unwilling to make a change in his life in order just to save a relationship. Whereas the woman, whether she is a Christian or not, might be more willing to make a change in her life in order to save a relationship, even if it costs her her own spiritual life. You see, the problem is when we compromise our faith, we take God’s blessing completely out of the picture. We step outside of His will. Paul says, it’s better to get married than to step outside of God’s will. And in the end, we have to ask ourselves an important question. And I want you to look at our next verse from I Corinthians as well, I Corinthians 10. In writing this, Paul is asking us to ask ourselves a question. It says, “You say I am allowed to do anything. But not everything is helpful. You say I am allowed to do anything. But not everything is beneficial.” You see, the question is, is this God’s best for my life. I have the freedom to do what I want in my life, but is it God’s best. I have the freedom to date anyone I want. I have the freedom to do whatever I want in my dating relationship. I have the freedom to do what I want. But is it really God’s best, or am I just settling for something less. If you are single and you are waiting, what is God’s best for your life? God’s best is for you to enjoy the time you have while you are single. Be happy. See, happiness is not dependent upon another person. If you aren’t happy when you are single, you’re not going to be happy when you are married. Happiness is a personal decision that you make. Don’t force a relationship and end up with less than God’s best. If you are dating someone, what is God’s best for your life? Ask yourself, is this person that I’m dating, is this person God’s best for me? If they are, are you living out God’s best in your relationship? Are you staying within God’s boundaries for your relationship? If not, commit to make those changes today. I know a lot of you are believers, you have been dating, and you have stepped outside of God’s will and you have made mistakes and you are wondering, can God bless our relationship? And the answer is yes. You know, God forgives and God blesses, all you have to do is say—from this point on, we want to commit to living within God’s plan for our life and within God’s plan for our relationship. I want you to look at what God says He will be for us in our relationship if we put Him first and live within His will for our lives. Matthew 6:33. Let’s read this verse out loud together. This is what it says, “God will give you everything you need from day to day, if you give Him first place in your life and live as He wants you to.” You see, we can’t control everything, and it’s not our job to control everything, because we’re not God. What our job is, is to give God first place in our life and to trust Him with every area of our life. In return, God promises to bring His very best into our life whether we are single, or whether we are married. The key is to give God first place and to trust Him with our dating lives. That is something that we can all do.