(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. Today we finish up our 2015 conference for pastors here in Minneapolis. The conference festivities this morning will be streamed online and you can go to DesiringGod.org/live for the schedule of events and to find the video stream. On the podcast today we're joined again by a man who once ventured into a Minneapolis winter for one of our pastors conference and who vowed to never do it again, Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church.

He joins us by phone from the warmth of Dallas. Matt is the author of the new book, "The Mingling of Souls, God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption." And we're working through 10 questions on relationships and we're moving on to question number five, Matt. This is a very common question from single men that we get.

If I'm not physically attracted to a godly woman, should I still try to romantically pursue her in order to cultivate those feelings? If so, for how long until it becomes unwise or even hurtful? - Yeah, I don't encourage a young man to pursue a godly woman romantically that he doesn't feel he's physically attracted to at the time but what I do adamantly encourage young single men to do is to pursue godly women for friendships in the hopes that it does grow into more.

And so there are, in fact, I did a wedding this past year of one of the guys that kind of spent time at my house and had been around Lauren and I a ton and just really saw this young woman at our church that they were so faithful to serve the Lord and such a godly woman, but just that physical piece wasn't there, but he loved hanging out with her, loved.

And so, man, I just encouraged him, hey man, just stay in proximity, grow in your friendship, and let's hope that something grows from there. And so I wouldn't want him, for her sake, to just go, hey, I'm gonna romantically pursue you in the hopes that one day I am physically attracted to you because I just believe, I keep saying it, that godliness is sexy to godly people.

And so if you get in proximity and you see the godliness and character of a woman, or you begin to take more serious compatibility and godliness and gospel partnership than just physical attraction, and in the first part of mingling, I really address attraction as a good thing, but not at the level to where our culture has put it, because gravity always wins.

I mean, you can be physically attracted to someone, but we're all wrinkling, we're all, you know, the nose and the ears never quit growing. I mean, it's only a matter of time till that little component that we're basing so much on starts to vanish and is replaced by an attraction founded on character and covenant.

And so a way that I've tried to help people understand this is when I got cancer, everything that was sexy about me vanished. My strength, my vibrancy, my sense of humor, my creative romantic pursuit of Lauren, all of that was gone for two years. And my hair's out, and I just become a shriveled up version of what I was before the cancer.

And thank God that Lauren's not going, "Man, "I'm just not physically attracted to him right now." But she entered into covenant with me, loved the character that God had formed in my heart, and now my character, my godliness, are what fuel her attraction to me physically. And so I think we've got it backwards.

I think we've been discipled by the culture that physical sexual attraction is first, then once that's there, then let's see if character, godliness, and compatibility is there. And I think it's backwards. I think character, compatibility, godliness, once those are there, I think those fuel attraction in the way that would please God and is much safer for our souls.

But at the same time, I wanna protect the heart, particularly of young women, from godly men teasing them with pursuit. And so I wanna be careful answering this question. So I say pursue 'em as friends and hope that it grows into more and want it to grow into more.

And I'm confident that over time, character and godliness win the day. - Thank you for that wisdom. That's Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Dallas, and tomorrow we'll return. I'll ask whether or not a boyfriend should lead his girlfriend. If so, how and when and where?

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. (silence) (silence) (silence)