Just a couple introductory things. You are here for a dating seminar for college. It's good to see all of you. I wonder if this was a different seminar, would you guys all be here? I think you would. I do. But with that said, we're not here, I have to say this in the front.

Can you guys all stare into my eyes? We are not saying don't date. Yes? Got it? So you cannot accuse me of having said that anymore. I know I meet up with some of you guys, you guys leave, and I will say I'm not saying don't date. And then you'll leave and you'll say, he told me not to date.

That's not what I'm saying. All we're going to give you is, even a lot of the things that we're talking about, it's not going to be like black and white stuff. We're going to try to help you to understand, first of all, the heart intention and motivation behind dating and how to guard yourself against that.

And then secondly, biblical parameters or biblical bumpers that will help. So these aren't things that you're going to write down and say, this is what I have to do. These are things that are going to help you, form you, shape the way you view dating and things like that.

I understand we come from different backgrounds, we come from different cultures and things like that. And so these are going to be as much as possible, just these guidelines. Is that fair? So can you guys please not leave and say weird things that I said, I said stuff I did not say, please?

Dating isn't mentioned in the Bible. This is the reason why I will never say don't date unless it's like obvious you should not be dating. And so we're going to be trying to tackle some of the scriptural understanding and backing behind it. And before we start here, what we're going to be doing in introduction is this thing called Poll EV.

Have you guys done this before? Poll everywhere. So you're going to need your phones for this. If everyone could pull out your phones and open up your browser. And if you don't have a browser, you could text this. So we'll do a fun one. So if you guys look up there, that's the website you go into, pollev.com/nathanielpoi562.

And then make sure you go in as a guest, anonymous or something. If there's no choice in that, then it's going to be automatically anonymous. Pollev.com/nathanielpoi562. All right. So this is a simple question. This is just a test thing, making sure this works. How are you feeling today? And go ahead.

Oh, it's working. You see that? The little drops. Oh, there's a sad person. Oh, take it away. Oh, you guys are doing well. Oh, sad person. Went away. Oh, poll is full. Oh, maybe it's because it's an image. Here's another fun one. I'll go into this one. I was just curious about this.

That ISFJ right there is me. Oh, look at all the introverts. ESTP is right there. Full already. Dang. Okay. All right. That's okay. Okay. Here we go. So here's your question. How many people have you officially dated? You can define official yourself. So zero, you've never dated. One, you've dated one person.

Two, two people. Three, three people. Four, five plus. This is anonymous, so don't worry. This is just for my curiosity. Why does this keep saying it's full? Okay. I'm so sad right now. I wonder how many people answered. Does anyone know how to do simple math? Can you add that up?

Huh? Oh, the answer is 100%. Oh, okay. Is that right? Slash. You know how like if it's 4%, you know that it can't be like 20 people, that kind of thing. Anyway, whatever. Let me go into it and see if there's anything I can fix here. This has received the maximum number of responses allowed.

Oh, maybe I have to like upgrade or something like that. That's okay. Try to be quick. We'll take the sample size of whoever is there. So, whoa. So who, who, who's the one that dated four people? Just kidding. You probably dated five plus and you were just shy. Okay.

How many of you feel like you're ready to date today? Yes, no, or not sure? Be honest. Is that? Maybe you can just keep going. Like does it say it's full? And it doesn't let you go anymore? It refreshes every time you go to a new question? So, if I go back one and go back into this one, will it still full?

Well, this was a big, didn't work. Okay. That's okay. One more. When you think of dating, what is the first word that comes to your mind? This was a, it's a word cloud. Dating. What the, don't waste our space on that. Marriage. Nate, pastor. Oh my. Someone spelled marriage wrong.

Oh boy. Bored, sucks. Who's Angie? Is that who you want to date? Is that, who is that? Don't. What's oof? What's the sound oof? I said oof? Twice, oof? Difficult. Wrong. Dating is wrong. Okay. Alright. This is just another silly one. But when Valentine's Day rolls around, how do you feel?

Just a one word response. It doesn't mean you should feel this way. How do you feel? Can be unfortunate. Sad boy. Jeremy. That was either one of Jeremy's small group boys or. Wait, Eugene made it up? Someone take a picture of that, tag him. Seriously, someone take a picture.

Thank you, Jeremy. But don't tell him I said to do that. Oh, this is why we got to edit the video, guys. Okay. Alright. So anyway. That's just a little opener. But we do have some dating people. Hey, by the way, this seminar, I am not pointing anyone out.

And I am not pointing, you know, don't think I'm talking about you. Even if like it fits, it feels like you fit into a category of what I'm talking about. I am not talking about you. I'm talking about my personal general experience overseeing things. And so if you are dating, you should not be ashamed.

Okay. Your face should not be going down all the time. So I wanted to call them out and be like, here they are. These are our dating guys. So Josh Chu wasn't at this one, but he was also there. But anyway. Sorry. Was that weird? Yeah. I wasn't able to get the girls because I don't meet with the girls.

But these are the ones we should be praying for and thinking about. You know, as I took this picture, I was like, man, these kinds of pictures are interesting. Because one day you come back to it and you're just like, ooh, which one of them actually married? And things like that, you know.

It's curious. Alright. Am I making it weird? I'm trying to get it all out of the way here. So are any dating couples sitting next to each other right now? Alright there. Oh, it's going to be rough for you guys. Okay. So anyway. Alright. Are you guys okay? Let's get it all out.

I don't want you guys to feel like all squirmy the whole time. That's why I'm trying to just put it out up front. We're good. We're good. Okay. This is fun. This is going to be just material and stuff to take home. Okay. What is the purpose of dating?

So I know many of you put it away, but I guess I had one more. This is a word cloud, so just a one-word response. Okay. See? What is the purpose of the -- oh, to see. Flow. What's -- is that a new lingo? Flow? What? Oh, man. Okay.

No. That's okay. We'll just provide that off to the side. Thanks, Tyce. Okay. So we're going to be going into our worksheet now. Roman numeral two. What is the purpose of dating? What is the purpose of dating? And the first thing we're going to go into are some of the lies that the world tells.

And here's Aladdin. I use this example because that -- what do you call that? Like, is it called live action? What do you call that thing again? That new movie came out. But, you know, if you really think about this scene -- have you guys seen Aladdin before? Do you guys know what scene I'm talking about here?

It's weird. Like this random dude comes on a magic carpet to your bedroom window and says, "Do you trust me?" You know? What should you say to this person? Yes. You say no. But look what she says. She says yes. Of course I trust you. Man, I never met before.

And so the reason why I put this up is because many times the world tells us lies and yet in the middle of this we are unsure of how to take this. So lies the world tells. First, dating is about loving romantic feelings. That's the first box there. Dating is about loving and romantic feelings.

That's butterflies. When you watch romantic comedies, K-dramas, that's what you want dating for, right? Because you finish watching some, you know, sappy romantic -- like rom-com and you shut it off and you feel like lonely. And you guys know I felt that way. I told you guys a story about how I felt so lonely after watching My Sassy Girl.

And it's a very, very simple thing. That's the desire we have in our hearts. I want someone like that. I want someone that I can have that kind of relationship with. That kind of butterfly feelings, that kind of falling in love, that kind of story and narrative. And many times it's also about just finding the one.

We think that's such a romantic thing. And it's drilled into us that we're supposed to find the person we need to marry. Now here, here's what I'm trying to say about these lies. We know that's not true. We know that's not what dating is about. And yet, isn't that why you kind of want it?

And so even though you know it, you do not actually feel that. You do not believe it with all of your heart. Another one is -- oh, here's Ernie Baker. He says, "Marriage doesn't complete you. Research shows that young people are searching for a soulmate, the one person who can perfectly meet all their needs." It's not meeting each other's needs.

It's more than that. It's loving and serving and committing to someone unconditionally. And yet, we are constantly barraged by this understanding of someone that's going to complete me, and that's not what it's for. Secondly, dating is a transaction. Here's another lie. It's a transaction, a relationship where both sides give 50/50.

50% effort here, 50% effort here. I'm going to meet you right in the middle. And it's going to be a mutually beneficial relationship. We don't have to be lonely on Valentine's Day and all those kinds of things, right? Another way to think about it is I will give love and I will receive love in return.

Sounds good to me. Third, dating relationships are about personal entertainment. It's just to have fun, just to have a fling. I remember I had a youth student once. I said, "Hey, why did you start dating that girl?" She straight up told me I was bored, so I asked her out.

Again, you don't think that like--you don't believe that this is what dating is about, but how many times have you felt like, "Man, the excitement of it, that's what drives it." Fourth, dating relationships are about experimentation. I've heard a lot of parents give this kind of advice. Maybe yours have too.

And I'm not saying go to your parents and like, you know, point a finger in their face, but if dating is about experimenting, about what I like, what kind of person that I would fit with one day, this is different. That's a byproduct of what dating might do, but that is not the reason why you date.

Big difference. If you flip that around, then that becomes an ends to your--the means to your end, right? Like you want to date people not for any kind of actual committed thing. Like maybe if it goes down that line, but you're actually using that person in order to see selfishly what you will be compatible with, what you will like, and that's not correct.

Dating is about fulfilling an unmet need, and I think this is probably the biggest one. Unfulfilled desires. It's about finding happiness. It's about squelching and quenching and extinguishing loneliness. Because the romanticized Disney type of relationships that we've come to know and see has developed in us this thing of an unmet need.

Remember what we're learning about in James? You know, that desires in them of themselves are not wrong. What happens with these desires? At what point do desires go south? Remember from James? What happens to lust? Adrian, you can say it loudly. Oh, now you--you guys don't remember? I'll let you guys go into that one yourselves.

The idea of like--later on in James, we're going to see that James actually says in chapter 4, "You sin, you do these things because you desire and you do not have." It becomes an idol of the heart, and because you don't have it, you begin to sin. Because you want it.

You want it so badly. So desire, it could be a good thing, but when it turns into idolatry, that's when it becomes not just sinful, but damning on an individual. We can be very, very superficial about it and just kind of flippantly talk about it as, "Yeah, this is sin, I know." But if we don't understand that that actually nails our Jesus to the cross, that that is actually something that warrants death, we're not going to take it seriously.

We think it's just a, you know, it's just, "I'll grow up one day," or, you know, "It's just a little obsession," or, you know, something like that. If we think about it in that manner, we don't see how dangerous this can actually be. A guy named Marshall Siegel, he says, "Many of us date because we're trying to fill those needs in love.

If you asked us, we might say we're pursuing marriage, but a lot of us aren't even close to marriage in age, finances, maturity, education, stage of life. We're really in pursuit of the happiness, belonging, significance we think we'll find in romance." We've got to be honest with ourselves, right?

We have to really look at this and see, "Hey, what am I truly actually in pursuit of?" And it could be totally like marriage, but marriage can be like 20 things down the list in reality, according to how you function and think and feel. But maybe the thing that floats to the top and is preeminent in your mind is that, "I want to be happy.

I want to feel like I'm loved. I want to feel like someone wants me. I want to feel like I'm going to have someone in the future. I want to feel not so insecure in my singleness." A guy named--two guys, Sean Perron and Spencer Harmon, they say, "The temptations for many of us is far subtler than explicit sin.

We let our vision of dating and relationships be informed by man's world rather than God's word. This is significant because our vision of dating creates our expectations for dating. If our expectations are informed by a world that is in rebellion against God, then our relationships will be stained with upside-down values that prioritize short-term, second-rate things that will leave us bitter, disappointed, and impossible to please." We're talking about these lies that are created and set up in our hearts.

If we allow those lies to linger and we don't combat it with the truth of what we know, not just what dating is or what marriage is, but the fact that God is our everything, the fact that as Christians we have said that we have forsaken the world and now we pursue him, and he is all that we need.

Like when Jesus says, "In heaven there will no longer be any marriage." And here in this world we start thinking about it, and we see that it's going to start to shape even now, even if you're not dating. The relationships that we create, the ways that we start thinking about dating, so that when we get into it, it becomes unhealthy.

It becomes very immature. You get two immature people who are trying to date and trying to honor God honestly, but with no ability to do it, and with all of these fake expectations and bad communication that's set up, and everything is crisscrossed and miswired like this between two people because they are not wired towards God.

They aren't informed by how we're called to be. So in your mind, do you agree or disagree with these lies, and why? If you're looking at these lies, just the five lies that I put up here, you're looking at it and you go, "Yeah, that's true. That's a lie.

Yep, that's true. That's a lie." Do you agree or disagree with that? But in your heart, do you feel the sway that these lies are actual realities in your heart? That this is actually what I believe. Someone can come to you and maybe ask you advice about dating, and you might know the right words to say.

But I'm here to tell you that maybe many times, because you haven't actually experienced it in your heart, the way you come off is legalistic. You're just telling people how to do things, because this is how we do it here at Berean, or this is how it ought to be done.

Without fully understanding the weight of breaking down lies in your heart and replacing it with the truth of God's Word. And so someone comes up to you and says, "I'm thinking about dating." You go, "No!" Do you guys all know no popescope rope? That's what I learned in college.

First year, "No!" So a freshman comes up to you, they go, "Dating, no!" You say, "Girl, no!" And then the second year, what happens? You start to hope. You can start to hope, but it's still a nope. You hope and hope and hope all year long that you can date.

But you're not allowed to observe people. You just keep saying, "Hope, hope, hope, hope." And then third year comes around, and it's scope. You can start looking, observing, thinking, contemplating, and praying. And then fourth year comes along, and then what? You rope them in, you know. Before I--wherever I go, wherever my future is, I got to have someone by my side here because I heard the statistics.

If you marry people in college or afterwards, it's so hard. And we hear all these different things, right? And so what happens is we get armed by, like, Christian culture, and we go and we say, "This is how it ought to be." Just spew it out. In actuality, you don't even believe it, but you're realistic in your thinking, and you think, "This is how it needs to be done." And so you are not actually honoring God if you're holding to it.

You are maybe comforting yourself in a lie. So with lies, here's Judges 21, verse 25. "In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." And this is what we don't want here in our college ministry. We don't want everyone just doing what's right in their own eyes because you also don't want people coming in and saying, "Oh, it feels like there's some kind of dating culture here, and I'm not all for that." And even that, you've got to challenge that.

You've got to say, "Well, why not?" We're all about truth here. What is the truth of what honors God? That's what we want. In Judges, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Sometimes people look at this verse and think that it was all just outrightly evil things, but many of the people could have been actually trying to worship and honor God and then doing it in a way that was wrong and sinful.

And we see many examples of that in Scripture. Actually, Jesus saved the worst of the woes for the Pharisees, the most religious people. And so everyone doing what was right in his own eyes is when you take your eyes off of God's truth and God's reality and your love for God, and then you start to just do whatever it is that you want to do.

And so we've got to be very careful about how we think about dating, because out of our heart, it says in Proverbs 4:23, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the spring of life." This is what we want to try to get to. So here's the truth of God's Word.

First, dating is about God's glory. Easy peasy, right? This is the answer to everything. 1 Corinthians 10.31, it says, "Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." There's so much context behind this, but that word is great. Whatever you do, do all, all to the glory of God.

Everything that you do is to God's glory. And so that is why dating is about God's glory. Have you ever thought about-- Have you ever thought about whether or not you're actually going to date one day or get married one day? We all feel like we deserve it, right?

Don't we? We all feel like we should be able to get that, get marriage. But I want to ask you guys a question and kind of poke at it a little bit. Why do you believe that you deserve a marriage or deserve to date someone or deserve anything at all for that matter?

The reason why we think that way is because we're the main character in our own stories, right? Everything's about narratives. And so in our story, like how we would watch a romantic comedy in a movie, there's like the main girl and then this guy and then there's these six other guys who are going after her, but at the end of the movie, that guy is the one that gets the girl, and that girl chooses the guy, and you're like, "Wow, this is what it's going to be." And how we view movies like that is we view them like, "That's me right there," not realizing that maybe you're the other six.

That's life. And so the reason why we do that is because we've been conditioned and wired to think that the world revolves around us. And so like you read stories about like this one guy who went to campus with a gun, not this campus, I forgot where it was, but he went to campus with a gun and they caught him before, thank God, and he said like, "I was going to shoot people because none of the girls would date me." It's like, "Wow, this is crazy." And I know actual shootings have happened because of that.

Maybe you guys know stories of that. Because we're main characters in our own narrative, but the Bible tells us we're not. Every part of Scripture, when we're reading it, many times we're thinking, "How does this apply to me?" without realizing that that's all about God, that it's displaying the handiwork of God, that it's showing that this is all about God's kingdom and God's story and how we fit into Him.

And we think about dating and we think like, "Where's mine? When's my time? Where's my guy? Where's my girl?" We think about these things because we are so self-centered. Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do to His glory, not your own. Everything is for His glory.

The Bible tells us what we deserve. We deserve hell. My pastor used to tell me that a lot. He used to say, you know, like he would turn to the guys and he'd say, "Guys, you guys are dogs." What do I say to that? "You guys are dogs. You don't deserve girls.

You're dogs." And then the girls would be all laughing and stuff. And then he'd turn to the girls and he would say to the girls, "Girls, I don't know why you guys are laughing. You guys don't even deserve dogs." We're all like, "Whoa! Oh, my gosh!" And we think about it like that because there's a reality of the fact that we actually don't deserve any good thing.

We've been ransomed by God and we were bought with a price. And then what we see in Scripture is the incredible blessings that we have been given. Which in comparison to dating one day, which I know all of us want to date, right? In comparison to dating one day, it just becomes like a squashed, flat pancake thing, you know, compared to like Eiffel Tower or whatever.

It's just like, "Man, we get this. This is no big deal. We understand what we were saved from. I don't need anything else in life. I have Christ." But that starts to infiltrate into even how we view people. Like you'd like to date someone that's pretty or handsome or cute, good personality, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Like you want to date someone like that. But it's important to remember that we don't deserve any of that. Dating is, in a way, a gift given by God. Dating is about God. And if dating is about God and if dating is about His glory, then in dating we must learn to submit to God.

We have to submit to Him. Dating needs to be about Him. And no part of dating should be robbing God of His glory. This needs to happen. And so we display to the world in this as we date or before we date in our singleness that He is our ultimate joy and the one that we serve.

Oops. All right. Here we go. Dating is an active and intentional move towards God's divine covenant of marriage. We're probably just not going to turn there, but everything I'll be talking about here comes out of Genesis chapters 1 through 3 when God creates man, He creates woman, He creates the world, and then He kind of places them there and He shows some things about them.

But here are some of the things. I wanted to spend a lot more time here, but we can't. So I'm just going to give you guys the principles. Marriage is created by God, that God made marriage. And so if God made it, then it should be done by how He made it.

Like if you're playing a board game, then you play by the rules of the board game. You don't--like someone comes and you don't like the way it's being played, and so you can't in the middle of it just change the rules on it. Marriage is created by God. He set the standards on this.

And it models the Trinitarian relationship. He actually says like, you know, He created male, He created female. He says He created them, He created them in the image of God. And it models the Trinitarian relationship because He says, "Let us make them in--or man in our image." And you're looking at that, it's like, "Whoa, who's God talking to?

Is He talking to the angels?" No, He's talking to the Trinitarian relationship in that passage. And He's saying, "We're going to make it like that." That means marriage actually becomes as close a relationship as, like, it should be modeled in the Trinity. And when we say God is one, it's showing that the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father, this is one, as close as one can be.

So marriage, that's why divorce is such an atrocious thing. And there's divorce in our family. There's divorce, I know, in many of your families. And we're not judging things, but God does hate divorce. Complementarianism, another one. See, like I wanted to, like, go into a lot of this stuff, but we can't.

But in Ephesians 5, verse 22 through 33, it gives the roles of man and woman. That's how God made it. Just to give one quick example of why it's easy to see that God made men and women differently, you could just do it by sight, but then--and you can tell also, like, in the middle of the night, for example, right, like, if you're married, and you're sleeping in bed, and in the middle of the night, like, something crashes downstairs.

Glass crashing downstairs. What you would expect from a husband and a wife who just, like, startle awake is you don't expect the husband to, like, jab the wife in the ribs and say, "Hey, go check out what that is." Any person would look at that and be like, "There's something wrong with that picture." Every person would be like, "Dude, that guy should get up and go downstairs." There's something ingrained inside of all of us that understands that there is differences.

When we had Addie the first time, like, you know, it was fascinating. Like, I was a youth pastor for a long time, right, so these youth kids are coming in, and then they're like saying, "Can we hold the baby?" And if it's a high school boy, I go, "Nope, you may not hold my baby." If it's a high school girl, I go, like, "All right, all right, be careful." Why?

Because actually this is proven. This is statistics. I don't know the statistics. I just made this up. But I think it's statistical. That just--girls are more careful. I've seen it. I did give Addie to one of our students once, and then, like, as I was giving the baby to the student, he was like--Addie's head was, like, just dangling like this.

He was like, "What do I do?" You know, like, "Hold the head." And it's just kind of like that. There are differences. And in marriage, we see this. Marriage is created by God. Secondly, marriage is a gift. Marriage is a gift that God has given. When God sees Adam alone, he says, "This is not good for him to be alone." And he is not looking at the man and saying, like, "I have done an incomplete job," but he is saying, like, in those words, like, "I have yet to be complete," you know, that there is still work to be done here, and that is to create a spouse.

And thirdly, marriage is a fusion. Marriage is a fusion. In 1 Corinthians 7, verse 4, it says, "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, also, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does." So this is what marriage is.

And we're going to get to why I'm talking about defining marriage. Because if dating is to head towards this, we have to remember a couple of things. First is that dating is not this. Dating is not marriage. And yet, dating starts to mimic it a lot. And we'll just go to this one.

Marriage was a shadow to point to Christ and the church. In dating, there's an extreme temptation to mimic what marriage is, but dating is not marriage. They're trying to head towards something, and this is the very reason why dating is so hard, because it's trying to mimic what it's supposed to be, but it's not that.

That's why, like, by taking care as to how to date is important. Like, in the Bible, you look at it, you see relationships, brothers and sisters, right? Like, in the church, you're going to see brothers, sisters, that kind of thing, and then you're going to see marriage. There is nothing in between.

But dating is okay. It's a culturally made thing that is for most of history, it wasn't around, but it's okay to do. But then if we start making it into something it ought not to be, if we start to pervert what dating is, which happens in a lot of dating relationships, if you start to take ownership of a person that does not belong to you, then the danger arises.

How to go about entering into dating? Okay, you guys ready? Take good notes. Taking good notes. Some of you guys are more--usually, like, I can pick out a couple people falling asleep, but I only see, like, one or two people today. Fairly consider the value of singleness. Here's the first one.

That's to wake you guys up. Fairly consider the value of singleness. So think of how you're using your time now, like today, tomorrow, next week. How are you using your time? Are you maximizing your life for God's kingdom? Think about that. And be fair in the evaluation of it.

If you look at yourself, is it just you going to classes and studying for classes, and then whenever you have some free time, you're, like, kind of spending it however you want to spend it? Or is the whole of your life about living for God's kingdom? Because that is how life ought to be for every Christian regardless of stage in life.

There is great value in singleness in this. If you look at yourself and you're just watching TV and shows all the time, and you're spending all your time kind of, you know, watching movies and playing video games, and you're spending all this time, like, any free time that you have on yourself, do you think that you're going to do well in a dating relationship?

The answer to that is no. If you're idolizing your own time and your own pleasures now, how do you think you will view the dating relationship? It's constantly going to be about you. How can I get my fulfillment out of this? We're just, like, squeezing out, like, extracting out everything I can for what I need.

And actually, even when you think, like, "Oh, but I gave so much. I'm giving of my time and I'm thinking of them." Actually, many times you're thinking of yourself because you're trying to, by doing that, get something in return. And you know that that's the case because when you don't get that thing in return, then you react.

You get angry, right? But if we understand what Christian love is, that is to love those who would persecute us. That is to love those who are our enemies. That is to love those who will have nothing to do with you. Romans 5, "But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us." That's how he demonstrated his love towards sinners.

You see, like, how our worldview can really start to twist in this. I got to keep up with this. Okay, in 1 Corinthians 7, we'll just look at a few verses here. In verse 7, it says, "Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am." He's talking about singleness.

They're like, "Paul, no, Mary, it may never be." "However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, another in that." It says in verse 28, "But if you marry, you have not sinned." It's eye of relief, right? "And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned." Don't get too caught up in that virgin talk there.

"Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you." What is he saying? He's saying that in marriage, there's going to be some kind of trouble, okay? And then he says in verse 32 to 34, "But I want you to be free from concern." He's talking about marriage still.

"One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord." "But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife." "And his interests are divided." "The woman who is unmarried and the virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit." "But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband." This is a big thing.

This is what I'm saying when we're talking about fairly consider the value of singleness. Right now, you can be unconcerned with having this relationship. And I would say, like in dating, this is a big thing, right? You constantly have to like in your free time think of the other person.

Or maybe you want that other person to think of you more in their life. You know, I've had people come up to me and say like, "Man, they're meeting up with all these people, but they never meet up with me." I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's unfortunate, but you know, you guys might have to work on that a little, but that's not a bad thing he's doing.

That's not a bad thing she's doing, right?" Again, I am not talking about any one person, so please do not think I'm doing that, okay? I'm serious. Stop judging. Singleness is not second best. This isn't a waiting time in life until like a placeholder until you finally get to your destination.

News flash, you may never get married. Whether you die or whether you don't get married. Right now, you need to live for God. And that actually takes us into our, oh, you complete me. This is too old for you guys, but do you guys know this phrase from the movie, the Tom Cruise line, "You complete me?" This is a lie straight from the pit of hell, right?

You complete me. It's like, what do you mean you complete me? No, that's not true. You are complete in Christ. You need nothing more. You are perfectly content. You are made as you are. As you are, you need to start living for God's kingdom. And so again, bringing us into our second part, spend your single year as well.

So that means use time well. In Ephesians chapter 5, verse 15 through 17, it says, "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." That means when you look at your life now, before you even think about dating, you ought to be thinking about yourself.

Are you living in this manner? Like you are using your time well. As you prepare for dating, if you really want to prepare yourself to be someone who can date someone, if you were to come up to me and say, "Am I ready to date Pastor Nathan?" I'm going to say, "Are you using your time well?" I'll say, "Hey, let's open it up.

How have you been using your time?" "Well, I met up with this person." "Oh, great. That was an hour. Okay. How have you been using these six hours?" "Oh, I was playing Fortnite." I'm not trying to be legalistic and saying, "Don't play video games. Don't watch movies." I'm not saying that, but are you using your time well?

You need to learn what this means to expand and fill the capacity that God has given to you. So what I mean by that is this, max out every stage in life. In Matthew 25, verses 14 through 30, that's a story of the talents, right? Where the master is going away and he gives ten and five and one to these servants.

And he says, "Go. I'll be back." And then these servants go and whatever resource that they had been given, they go and they work and they double it. And when the master comes back, the guy with ten says, "Look, I made ten more." And the guy with five says, "Look, I made five more." And the guy with one says, "I buried it.

I was afraid." The purpose of that is not to say the ten guy is the best and the five guy is like subpar. And then the, "I don't want to be like the last guy." Actually, the ten and the five are the same person. The idea of it is to say, "Whatever God has given you in life, be faithful unto that." So right now as a single person with all the time that you have, you ought to be faithful to the Lord.

You need to use your time well. You need to max out and fill to capacity. Right now, like whatever you have as a resource, you need to learn to stretch it and say, "I have done all that I can and then some." And then God will bless you with more responsibility.

That is in personal growth. That is in service to the church. That is in evangelizing to your non-believing friends. That is in going out and serving in the homeless community. I know some of you guys are doing that. All of that, you're maxing out these stages in life. Right now, you are without distraction if you're not dating.

When you're in a relationship, you kind of grow distracted. And that's not wrong, but if you are not dating, then you ought to kind of think through that. You guys can read this one on your own, Romans chapter 12, verse 1 to 21. You can maximize your time with this chapter.

And just read through the chapter and say, "Am I doing that?" Maybe I'll do that. Maybe the next time someone comes up to me and says, "Oh, Pastor Nathan, by the way, you don't need my blessing. I hope you guys don't feel like you need to come to me and ask me today." I'm like, "What am I?

I'm not your dad." I'm going to be like, "I don't know. How are you doing?" Maybe I'll bring this out and say, "Romans 12, 1 to 21, how have you been doing in loving other people?" If you're not doing well in loving other people, if you're going to get into a dating relationship, you're sure as heck not going to love that person very well, right?

Kill sin. Here's another way to use time wisely. Kill sin. We know that singleness isn't easy. You're going to find temptation and impurity and loneliness, sadness. We should know that and get on guard. Just understand that even after this dating seminar, being single, you're going to feel the loneliness of it.

You're going to feel like, "Dude, that's what I expected it to be. It's going to be hard." It's okay. It's like, "This is what I expected to be hard." If you feel like it shouldn't be like this, then you're constantly going to be trying to fill that void. So kill sin today because even in terms of something as specific as purity, some people think, "Oh, once I get married, this purity issue is not going to be a thing anymore." Wrong.

How you fight sin today is going to be everything about how you fight sin as a married person in a dating relationship. You're the same person. Don't think that a stage in life or a different circumstance is going to change your heart. So you need to start killing sin today.

You need to be someone who is marriage material now. That's what you need to be working towards. You can't just be thinking like, "Oh, I'll work on that when I get there." There are different ones. Kill laziness. Kill self-centeredness, self-absorption, and selfishness. Kill ego, pride, and arrogance, and the need to win every argument.

Are any of you guys like that? You feel the need to win every argument and just keep it going? You don't feel like the argument is coming to an end and you just say, "One more thing." It keeps going. Kill anger, hatred, and bitterness. This is big. You think, "Oh, but that person is so cute.

If I were to date them, I would never be angry and bitter and hateful towards them." Until you realize, "Oh, I'm a terrible, sinful person." Kill jealousy. Maybe some of you guys like someone right now. Maybe someone in this room. Maybe that's just how it is. And so, when like--they don't even know.

You just like them, and so this other girl comes and starts talking to him, and you look at that, and you go, "That girl thinks she's so cool." You know? Like, if that jealousy is there now, think about it later. Kill that. Kill disbelief and anxious living. Kill complaining and grumbling.

"Oh, man, it's so annoying. It is so annoying. I hear myself sometimes, like when I'm really tired, I'll complain to my wife. I'm like, 'Oh, I sound so annoying.'" It's bad. Kill it now. All right, and then spend time in the disciplines. Here's another way to spend your single year as well.

Spend time in disciplines. Spend time in the Word. Spend time in prayer. Spend time evangelizing. And one thing--some of you guys have actually asked me this question before. "Pastor Nathan, if you were to go back into college, what would you do with your time, or what would you do differently," and things like that.

I always say the same thing. I always say I would have read the Bible more. Because on this side of things, yeah, sure, I'm a pastor, but like a personal, like really having all this time that's flexible and you're able to just study Scripture, there is no time like what you have right now.

Trust me. So use it. Use time in prayer. Pray. Man, now it's like--like when Andy first came around, it was just like, "Dude," I tried to pray at certain mornings and then I just started crying. It's like, "Oh, okay." It's so distracting. Like praise and prayer, we're back there.

You know how hard it is to pray in that room with like 10 sinful, crazy children running around? It's hard. Develop these things today. Spend time evangelizing. This is awesome. There is no time like now for what you can do in terms of evangelism. Really. Ask any of the staffers.

They're going to say, "Dude, for sure." Like your classmates, it changes every quarter, it changes every semester. You have lab partners you're forced to spend time with. You guys commiserate together when there's a bad professor. There's all this opportunity. You're living together with random people all the time. Dude, evangelize.

Spend this time well. What else can you do? Go and serve. Serve the church. Just--just go and serve. It doesn't mean you need to take up a position. Many of the things here at church, you actually have to be a member before you can do. There are different things that you don't have to be a member to serve at church in.

But serve doesn't just mean, you know, I got to figure out what service team to be a part of. By serve, it means to go and serve others. That might just be as simple as seeing someone who doesn't seem to have that many friends at church and go and sit next to them and be their friend.

Yeah, get your group of people and go and sit down next to them. Like if four of you guys are saying, "Yeah, after this, let's go get some boba," then include other people. Like these are ways to serve. And obviously, there are so many other ways, right? Serve--like serve, serve till you drop, you know.

I know--I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, I don't want to burn out." That's true. You don't want to burn out. And you don't want to stretch yourself too thin and all of that. But whatever capacity that you have to serve, like just serve like crazy, you know.

I like to say, "You're going to rest in heaven," right? Like here, we have a limited amount of time. If someone's running a marathon and then in the middle, they're like, "Oh, no, I just got to rest." And then they start--they like put out a picnic and then they start eating.

You're like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "I just need to rest." Like do rest when you're done. Just finish the race and then rest. You can rest for days after that. No, it's a similar thing. Become a dateable person. That's something you could do to prepare now, to spend your time well.

And we already talked about that in the killing sin part. But don't just sit there and wonder why no one likes you. Sorry. I thought it was funny. Or think like, you know, like I don't know, like that you're the--like a pretty good looking person or like, you know, I'm fairly godly and you have all these things about yourself.

But understand that like for you, stop wondering about other people and stop looking at like, "Oh, I would like to date that person." Actually work on yourself. You know, really become someone who when someone--like if you were to ask them out, the other person would be like, "Oh, dude, I can't say no." You know, that's the type of person you want to be.

Like, "Man, this guy is awesome. This girl is great." You know, that kind of thing. Yeah, because if you go down the path that you're just kind of going and looking for people that's going to fit you and later on you're like, "Why isn't that person asking me or why--when I ask that person, they don't like me or it doesn't seem like this--like they like really have any interest in me." And you're thinking--sometimes I sit and like, "Well, you just spent all your time just studying by yourself or just hanging out with the same people or just in your room playing a video game or--you know, there's so many things.

But to become someone that is dateable. We're not going to go into this one but I wanted to give you guys two resources, Disciplines of a Godly Man and Disciplines of a Godly Woman. This is--if you pick up these books, then you can start to apply that into your life and see how can I become a godly man?

How can I become a godly woman? Read through it and become that person. Next, fix your eyes on the kingdom to come. There's a short amount of time here in this world and you might be tempted. Many of us might be saying or thinking, "Jesus, come after I get married, please.

I would like to experience marriage." But if--as--that might be a joke and we might say that with a smile on our face but honestly, I think that's how we live. You know, we want to experience the good things of this world because we don't quite understand that we live for a better kingdom to come.

It's like not even close, right? Like the one that's to come is going to--it's going to just leave everything here in the dust. And so that's how we have to live. All right, thirdly, be content in God alone. If you are not content without a spouse, you won't be content with a spouse.

When you are at a wedding, what do you feel? Do you feel true joy or do you feel the sting of loneliness and the pains of jealousy? Then where would you say your heart is at? If you're to think about that, you would say, "Man, I am not content in God alone." And it's not wrong.

It's not wrong to feel the pains of loneliness and you feel like, "I just want someone, you know, by my side," or something like that. That in and of itself--remember, desire is not wrong by itself. But when that starts to manifest into things and idolatry, then you can truly say, "I am not content in God alone." And as soon as you're able to say that, you might start looking inwards and say, "Dude, maybe I'm not quite ready to date right now." If you are not content in God alone in a dating relationship, that's not going to make you content.

And so you're going to become not content in God alone there and then you're just going to pull someone into your mess. So grow in faith. Ask yourself that question over and over again, "Am I really content in God alone? Do I believe in the words of Scripture that He is God and there is nothing else I need?" Embrace sanctification.

It's going to be hard. The desires can feel overwhelming many times. The battle was so hard. I told many of you I was an emo kid in college. Like UCSD was right next to the Ohio Shores. I would go out with a guitar and stare out at the ocean and sing praise songs at the top of my lungs and crying "Woe is me" and putting ash cloth, that kind of stuff on me.

I remember, I know it's hard. I don't want to downplay it. When you guys come and say, "You guys are crying and saying this is so hard." I never once go like, "Oh my, come on, suck it up." I know it's hard. I know you're lonely. I know you like them so much you feel like you're going to die.

I know. It's hard. It's a trial. But embrace it. Embrace that as an opportunity. Embrace it as a trial that's going to sanctify you. That in it, it will mature and start to test your faith and ask this thing about being content in God alone. And then, wait earnestly.

I think this is very helpful. Here's what Shana and Spencer say. I use first names. Singles often experience unnecessary guilt because they don't understand the idea of earnest waiting. Earnest waiting happens when the truths of God's sovereignty and our responsibility meet in the suffering of our lives. So we think that it just means like, "Oh, does that mean I just kind of sit on my hands and I just wait for God to bring someone into my life?" It's not what it means.

Earnest waiting means that we are actively pursuing God with all of our hearts and our eyes can be open. It's okay to grow attracted to people and things like that. Don't think like, "Oh, I'm sinning because I kind of like have a crush on that person." It's not. It's like that's natural.

But, earnestly waiting is going to be this understanding of faith and then what's coming at us and how that kind of collides and meet together. D, deal appropriately with opposite gender friendships. That's a creepy guy, right? So quit the idolatrous scoping. That's what he's doing there. This is weird, guys.

If someone were able to look into our minds, if that person that you like were able to look into your mind, this is strange. At a certain point, it's okay. But past a certain point, it just gets like twilight zone-y, you know? Beware of this. Especially if you feel like you're not ready to be in a relationship, keep your eyes fixed firmly on Christ.

Don't get distracted. Again, attraction is okay. It's okay to be attracted to someone. Don't be guilty about that. But what you do with that attraction, whether your eyes linger, whether your mind fantasizes, all these things can grow very dangerous. And so don't mentally go after everyone you're attracted to.

This is elementary, but I think it needs to be told. And this doesn't actually mean I'm going to go and tell them I like them. Many of us are just too afraid to do things like that. But mentally going after someone you're attracted to is just kind of playing with those thoughts in our minds about what it would be like to be in a relationship with them, and how can I impress them whenever I'm around them.

You know, youth students are notorious for it. You can just tell when they like each other, and they think that they're being so clever, and you're watching, and you're like, "Oh my goodness, this is so funny." You just know, right? You guys know. You can't see youth students. "Oh, yeah, that's so funny." But the funny thing is, like, the staff, we can see you guys, and we're like, "Haha." You know?

Think about that. Treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. That's how you want to deal appropriately with the opposite gender friendships. That's what they are. That person that you like is nothing more than a brother or a sister to you. That's it. 1 Timothy chapter 5, it says, "Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters in all purity." He's talking about the church being a family, like, treat each other like family.

Some practical things about that, treat each other--when you're thinking about treating each other as brothers and sisters, don't spend too much time alone with them, especially late at night, and just say, like, "Oh, we're just hanging out." You have to kind of think ahead, too. Like, if you find yourself in a place where--I highly recommend when you guys are driving each other home late at night and things like that, just as much as possible, I highly recommend, don't let it be like you and someone of the opposite gender at, like, 1 a.m.

in the morning, like, dropping someone off. You're going to fall in love with the person. Okay? I hope I put a screeching halt to any of that now. Another way to think about brothers and sisters is if you want to get to know them, like, just serve. Like, that's the best way to actually get to know other people without, like, making it, like, "Oh, hey, you want to grab some coffee?" Or, like, "What do you mean by coffee?" You know?

Just serve. Like, as you're serving, you're going to see brothers serving next to you. You're going to see sisters serving next to you. And these are great ways just to see, like, in the context of not, like, putting up the best front. Do you guys realize that? Like, when you're on a date or when you guys are interested in each other and sitting across from each other, everyone comes in with, like, the best of themselves, right?

Come and they put out, like, they're going to make sure, you know, you flush, you brush your teeth, and you gargle. And then you come and you make sure that everything's in the right place and you present the best of what you are to them. But when people are serving, not that it's not like that, but then what you see is in the context of a serving heart, in the context of ministry, you're not going to see someone trying to please you, because that's what's happening in there.

But you're going to see someone who's trying to please God, and you get to see the reality of what that person is. I'm not trying to say that just because people are serving, it means that they're all godly people, but I think these are great places to do that.

Be aware of flirting. I think many of us don't understand what flirting even is. Like, there are some of us in this room that might be flirting and we don't even know. And I'm not going to go into the nitty-gritty of, like, what that looks like, you know? Like, is it a hand gesture?

Is it laughing at their jokes? You know, I'm not going to do that today, but be aware of these kinds of things. And I don't want us to police each other and be like, "Hey, bro, you're flirting. You're flirting for like 30 minutes, man. What's the matter with you?" Don't do that, but if it truly was flirting, then call them out, you know?

You know, do that. Like, if there's a sister and they don't realize it, but their friendliness is actually getting misconstrued, maybe you can be like, "Hey, you may not realize it, but I think, like, a bunch of guys are falling for you right now because of how you're acting." I don't know.

Don't kill me right now, okay? Just trying to put out different things to say, like, just be aware of this. Another thing, beware of fake digital relationships. I grew up in a time of something called AOL Instant Messenger, AIM, and we would all come up and it was crazy.

Like, I would talk to people online, and then the very next day I would pass them in the hallways at school, and then it would be so awkward and not want to make eye contact with the person. Like, "What is this? This is so weird," you know? And it was weird.

I remember, like, in college I remember even thinking, like, "It's crazy that I would type something up and I could look at what I type and then shape it and edit it and form it and then send it out." You know, I could do stuff like that, and, like, it becomes very fake.

That's not actually who you are. You're presenting and putting -- it's like a filter, right? Instagram filter. Like, you put on a filter, but it's over your personality. And then you display it to people, but try not to, like, make your relationship -- like, if you do text or talk on Facebook Messenger with someone of the opposite gender, I'm not saying keep it limited, but maybe keep it limited.

But what I am saying is if your actual relationship isn't greater than the sum of what that messaging thing is, you might want to kind of rethink that. Because there's a lot of, like, hidden traps there. We can't go into -- that's a social media seminar. And then also don't forget that while you can guard your own heart, you can't guard another person's heart.

And this is what I mean by that. I've heard some people and I'd see, like, "Hey, dude, like, what's going on? You guys are spending a lot of time together." And then the girl would be like, "Oh, dude, that's me. Ugh, no. He's like my brother." And he's, like, standing over there, he hears it, he goes, "Oh." You know?

We all know what we're talking about here. So what's going on? She's like, "Oh, I don't even need to guard my -- my heart is guarded. It's like a fortress, Pastor Nathan. Like, you have no idea. You can't control his heart." You know? Same thing with guys. Guys are like, "Dude, Pastor Nathan, no, I'm not ready to date.

I'm not going to do it for two years." And I believe that. I believe this guy. And then he goes -- and then so, like, "Oh, but why are you spending so much time with her?" And he's like, "Oh, because I want to be a good brother." And things like that.

I'm like, "But you're not guarding her heart." You know? And so you have to be aware of this when it comes to these brother/sister relationships. Okay, look for the right qualities. Godliness and character are the name of the game. So this is what you want to look for, godliness and character.

This isn't just a cherry on the top because I think what we actually look for is we look for the package and then we look for the godliness to make sure it's there. Godliness and character should be what draws us to people because we know that everything else fades.

Maybe I should tell Kezia one day this handsome face is going to be gone. You know, it fades. Like, whatever -- a bunch of you guys are working out at the gym. Guess what, guys? It's not going to matter. Like, we do everything. It's going to -- everything goes away.

Even personality. You're like, "Oh, that person has a good personality," right? You think that? Hey, just wait. You get into a relationship with them, we're like, "I'm dating a monster," you know? Godliness and character. This is the name of the game. And I'm not saying you shouldn't be physically attracted or attracted to personality and things like that.

That's okay. But if that's like the hub and then you're putting cherry on top, godliness like that, that's not okay. This is bad. You need to actually question your motives here. And don't flirt to convert. So because of this, a lot of times you might look at nonbelievers and then say, "Oh, maybe, well, he or she is a pretty good person.

Maybe this could be a way for me to bring them to Christianity." No. No, no, no. That's not how you bring someone to Christianity. If you really care for them, I would say break up with the person, befriend them, and then share the gospel with them. Maybe bring them to church and pair them off with like a sister or brother, depending on gender, and then think about it that way.

Second Corinthians 6.14 says, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, for what fellowship has light with darkness." This is not talking about friendship in that way. Like, "Oh, I can't hang out with my friend anymore." It's not that. It's not that same fellowship, like a unity that's going to be happening.

And if dating is about heading towards marriage, then that's not going to work. Romans 8.6-7, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so." If you are dating a non-Christian, then this is who they are.

And we're not trying to, like, say they're a terrible person, but they are sinners. And they are sinners whose mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. That's what they are. And if you're a Christian, you are a friend of God, you are a servant of God, you are a lover of God, and to be very intimately close to this person who is going to be like this, an enemy of God, it doesn't work.

If it does, you're just skirting the issue the whole time. You're saying, "Well, we can hang out and we'll talk about other things, but when it comes to this thing, you're going to hit a wall every time." Oh, I thought this was funny. Isn't that funny? I call that the "flirt to convert" line.

All right. Sorry, did you guys get the cringes? Seek counsel. Boom, bunch of passages. Counsel from the Word, counsel from people. I'll let you guys look at this by yourself. Just take a moment to skim through it. Be fast because I'm going to give you 10 seconds. Don't stress.

You guys have all those passages written there, so you guys can look at it on your own, but seek counsel before you make moves. Because if you make a move and then you seek counsel, do you know what actually is happening? You're not seeking counsel. You're actually looking for someone to confirm the decision you've already made, and that's not good.

Seek counsel. And seeking counsel is not primarily from people your age. That's foolishness. In 1 Kings 12, verse 6 through 19. We'll make this our last point and we'll take a break. So let's go through this. In 1 Kings 12, 6, King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, "How do you counsel me to answer this people?

There is this young king who goes to the elders who are wise." Then they spoke to him, saying, "If you will be a servant to this people today and will serve them and grant them their petition and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever." But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him.

So he said to them, "What counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, 'Lighten the yoke which your father put on us?'" And the young men who grew up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you, saying, 'Your father made our yoke heavy; now you make it lighter for us.' But you shall speak to them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.' Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke.

My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.'" And you're like, "This is foolish advice." But actually, many times, this is the advice you're going to be getting from your peers. To end the story, verses later, it says, "Then King Rehoboam sent to Adam, who was over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death.

And King Rehoboam made haste to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem." So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. Can you believe it? This was actually what split the kingdom. This king, this young king, comes and says to the elders, "What should I do?" And they say, "This is what you should do." And he goes, "I don't like that." So he goes to the younger guys that he grew up with, and he says, "What should I do?" And they say, "This is what you should do." And they're like, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

That makes me feel good, too. So let's do it." And then the kingdom split, North and South Kingdom. Bam. Crazy, right? All that to say, seek counsel. Seek counsel for the intangibles. Like when... There are confusing things when it comes to relationships. It's not all I turn to Scripture, I can find everything.

But even when it comes to like, "Oh, what about compatibility? Like is this a deal breaker? How about the timing on this?" Like that kind of stuff is all stuff you could seek counsel for. Remember what wisdom is? Wisdom, I put up three definitions. It's knowledge applied. Many of us have knowledge, but learning how to apply it is important.

Okay, let's take about a five-minute break here to stretch out. You guys can talk to each other, get some snacks, and then we'll keep going.