Podcast listener Brian writes in to ask this. "Good day, Pastor John. I've been searching through the Internet on how to handle relationship breakups or rejection in a biblical way. I noticed that no pastors or matured Christians seem to care about this topic. I know we have all been through this, but do you have any suggestions or anything that would enlighten us and help us through a painful breakup?" Let me clarify first what I'm not talking about, because I think I get what Brian is asking, and I want to make sure we don't think what he's not talking about.

I don't think he's talking about being persecuted for righteousness' sake. In other words, the kind of rejection you experience just because you're a Christian, although that could be part of why a girl or a guy might dump you, that's different than what he's really getting at. So the Bible has lots to say about "blessed are you" when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you.

Yes, we can talk about that another time, but here's what I think he's talking about, and if I miss it, then he can write back. I think he's talking about the kind of thing that ranges from the early teen years on up into adulthood. So here would be a few examples.

One, a 13-year-old girl has a best friend at school, maybe her only friend, and she gets a note. "I don't want to be your friend anymore." Number two, two 20-somethings are dating, and you, one of you, might be developing a sense that this could be going into something beautiful and lasting, and then she says, "I don't think we should keep seeing each other." Third, you're engaged to be married two months before the wedding when everything is in full swing.

He says, "I just can't do it. I can't go forward. I don't think this is going to work." Or fourth, maybe you've tried over and over again to be a part of various groups, church, or work, and nobody ever reaches out to you. Nobody ever follows up. All your initiatives at friendship lead nowhere, and you're alone most of the time, and nobody calls, nobody invites you to go anywhere or do anything.

Now, those are the kinds of things I think Brian is asking about, and they are incredibly painful. For a 13-year-old girl, I mean, sometimes we joke about drama in the house, but the drama is real to her, right? So let me mention six possible responses that are not addressing the issue.

They are escape, and so I hope and pray that people will hear these and say, "There's another way forward." Number one, suicide. We have invested that much in this relationship that without it, life simply doesn't look worth living. Number two, we might express our pain with anger. "What a jerk!

Who needs her anyway?" Number three, we might retreat into utter reclusiveness and become a social hermit and never risk that kind of relationship again. Number four, we might try to medicate our sorrow with alcohol or overeating or by throwing ourselves totally into our work with no attention to people at all anymore.

Or fifth, we might respond with self-hatred that expresses itself in anorexic extremes or cutting ourselves. I once asked a young woman who was cutting her stomach every few months. "You have to go to the hospital to get stitches." I said, "Can you share with me anything that would help me understand what this means?" And she said, "I enjoy so much the attention I get in the emergency room and the touch of my body." So you could go to that extreme of cutting yourself or starving yourself.

Number six, we might double down on external improvements so that we can finally earn somebody's admiration. So she's going to work on her figure. She's going to work on her hair. She's going to work on her wardrobe. And he's going to work out more. And he's going to take some classes on how to be a good conversationalist.

And I'm going to fix my outward person so that somebody will finally like me. Now, all of those responses leave pretty much untouched the core issue. The huge, painful question mark that this breakup caused my core identity, my core relationship, my core joy. It all seems to be called into question.

And none of those six responses address my core identity or my core relationship or my core joy. So here's where Jesus, the Lord of the universe, the Savior of the world, is absolutely essential in addressing those things. He does four things for us. Number one, he created us so that it is a matter of trust now in his wisdom and sovereignty and goodness that we not throw ourselves away as defective and worthless.

If we do, we're not trusting him. He made us with our basic intelligence, our basic personality, our basic body. And if we make the judgment that we can't be redeemed, we can't be loved, we can't be useful, we are lying about him. We're not trusting him. So first, he gives us our basic significance on the earth since he makes no mistakes in what he creates.

That's number one. He created us. Number two, he accepts us and forgives us and loves us in spite of all the effects or defects that may push others away. If we will trust him, he justifies us freely. This is the great precious doctrine of justification by faith alone. We don't first measure up and then get accepted with God.

We may with others, but not with God. We are accepted because of Christ, because of Christ and his perfections, not our perfections. And we tap into that through faith alone. That's the rock bottom fact of our existence and identity. That is our core relationship, and it is a gift, and yet it outweighs in preciousness all other relationships.

Number three, he satisfies us, Christ satisfies us with something infinitely greater than a good self-image, namely himself. The greatest happiness is not standing in front of a mirror and liking what we see. The greatest happiness is not standing in front of the world or your girlfriend and having them or her like what they see.

It's not standing, our greatest happiness is not standing in front of God and having him like what he sees. I admit that's spectacular, and I want that, and I'm going to get that, Lord willing, because faith is tapped into Christ. But what is the supreme satisfaction of our souls is that we stand in front of God and are thrilled by the beauty of God outside of us.

Not primarily, but subordinately, not primarily by what he thinks about us. He is all at that moment, and the highest joys are self-forgetful joys in the presence of infinite beauty. And the last thing is that because of having now a core identity as created by God and for God and a core relationship as accepted and loved by God through Christ on the basis of Christ, and a core satisfaction because we see God as supremely beautiful, on the basis of all of that, we now have the inner strength to move out into the world not craving other people's acceptance, but pouring ourselves out to serve other people.

All our relationships, then, are not rooted in craving, but in serving, which may or may not have the spinoff effect of people wanting to be with us. But that's not the point. That's spinoff. So I'm not saying that life is without relational pain. All those losses that I described, they happen to Christians.

They're going to happen. What I'm saying is that in Christ, we have all we need to live useful and joyful lives through that kind of rejection and pain. Amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of dating and singleness, we have a list of episodes in the podcast archive that we recorded with Pastor Matt Chandler.

We talked dating and singleness with him back in February on the podcast. Those episodes are in the archive. And for written materials, be sure to check out the piece on breakups by our very own Marshall Siegel. It's titled, "It's Not You, It's God. Nine Lessons for Breakups." And you can Google it or find it at Zariagod.org.

Again, it's titled, "It's Not You, It's God. Nine Lessons for Breakups." It's an article you won't want to miss. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We return tomorrow with John Piper. . . .