Is My Dating Relationship Idolatrous?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Podcast listener Nora writes in,
00:00:06.960 | hello Pastor John, I'm a freshman in college
00:00:08.960 | and just started a relationship.
00:00:11.180 | We are both Christians and want to keep God
00:00:13.200 | in the center of our relationship.
00:00:14.760 | However, I find myself making our relationship
00:00:16.920 | and my boyfriend an idol.
00:00:18.920 | I depend on him for my happiness
00:00:20.560 | and I think about our relationship
00:00:21.980 | more than I think about my relationship with God.
00:00:24.880 | How can I stay away from that
00:00:26.440 | and what does relational idolatry look like
00:00:28.920 | for someone in a new relationship like mine?
00:00:31.520 | - Well, amen to their mutual desire to keep God central.
00:00:38.040 | Amen, amen.
00:00:39.760 | Would every couple be like that?
00:00:42.080 | Seems to me that Nora already has a significant picture
00:00:46.540 | in her mind of what idolatry looks like
00:00:48.200 | because she thinks she's in it.
00:00:51.040 | At least in some measure,
00:00:52.480 | I think she's being really honest there
00:00:54.760 | but her heart is against it, which is a good sign.
00:00:58.800 | I wonder if it would be more helpful for me,
00:01:03.800 | to her in describing the positive alternative to idolatry
00:01:09.440 | in a new relationship so that she might recognize idolatry
00:01:15.040 | as the opposite of these things
00:01:18.800 | and so would be able to put her energies
00:01:23.200 | not so much into avoiding something
00:01:26.600 | as pursuing something.
00:01:29.280 | So that's the approach I'm gonna take.
00:01:30.920 | It seems to me that there are at least three ways
00:01:34.360 | that Nora can think about the way her new romance
00:01:38.560 | relates to her relationship with Jesus.
00:01:40.320 | First, she can think about it comparatively.
00:01:44.300 | How does her affection for the boyfriend
00:01:46.720 | compare to her affection for Christ?
00:01:49.880 | She's sort of thinking that way already.
00:01:52.240 | Second, she can think of her relationship
00:01:55.480 | to this young man as an expression
00:01:58.880 | of her relationship to Jesus.
00:02:01.280 | And third, she can think of this new romance
00:02:05.640 | as a way of strengthening
00:02:08.600 | or building her relationship with Jesus.
00:02:11.320 | So let me take those three one at a time
00:02:13.800 | and just point to the scripture
00:02:15.320 | and how she can think about those.
00:02:17.720 | The Bible speaks of our relationship to good things
00:02:20.960 | or good persons that God has made
00:02:24.040 | as if those things were in a sense
00:02:26.640 | nothing in comparison to him.
00:02:29.660 | But it does so comparatively speaking.
00:02:34.160 | That is, in relation to the infinite value of Jesus,
00:02:39.160 | the value of other things or other people are as nothing.
00:02:44.640 | So for example, Psalm 73, 25,
00:02:47.200 | "Whom have I in heaven but you?
00:02:49.240 | "And there's nothing on earth I desire besides you."
00:02:53.840 | She loves her boyfriend.
00:02:55.520 | "Nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
00:02:58.240 | "My flesh and my heart may fail,
00:03:00.020 | "but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
00:03:02.680 | Or here's the way the Apostle Paul puts it,
00:03:04.720 | Philippians 3, 8, "Indeed, I count everything as loss,
00:03:08.400 | "boyfriend included, because of the surpassing worth
00:03:13.160 | "of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord."
00:03:16.260 | Now, we know from other things that the psalmist and Paul
00:03:22.280 | say that the good things that God has made,
00:03:26.400 | like the people of God, whom both the psalmist and Paul
00:03:30.880 | say they find great delight in.
00:03:33.800 | I mean, Psalm 16, 3 and Philippians 4, 1,
00:03:37.880 | both the psalmist and Paul talk about their,
00:03:40.760 | the people of God as their great delight.
00:03:43.980 | So they're not nothing, they're their great delight.
00:03:47.440 | So we know from those statements
00:03:49.080 | that God's creation is not counted as worthless
00:03:54.080 | or as merely an occasion for idolatry,
00:03:57.860 | but the test, they're the test of our faithfulness.
00:04:02.860 | And the test is, are we able to say with the biblical writers
00:04:06.720 | that if I lost everything,
00:04:09.540 | God would be enough for my everlasting joy?
00:04:13.120 | That's the comparative idea.
00:04:16.000 | So she can view this relationship comparatively,
00:04:18.720 | and that's the one she's having trouble with.
00:04:20.600 | So maybe these next two will help her
00:04:23.880 | manage that one better.
00:04:25.360 | Nora should cultivate this new relationship
00:04:29.120 | with this young man as an expression
00:04:32.600 | of her relationship with Jesus,
00:04:35.240 | a way of acting out or showing her relationship with Jesus,
00:04:40.240 | not just a threat to her relationship with Jesus
00:04:42.920 | or in competition with it.
00:04:45.440 | For example, Ephesians 5 describes
00:04:47.840 | the marriage relationship between a man and a woman
00:04:50.320 | as a drama or a picture of the relationship
00:04:54.480 | between Christ and the church.
00:04:56.600 | Now that deeply changes the way a man and a woman
00:05:00.320 | look at their relationship.
00:05:02.040 | It's not just about them, it's about showing him,
00:05:06.560 | showing, expressing him and his covenant relationship
00:05:10.800 | to his bride and the church,
00:05:12.000 | and therefore an intense love for a man by a woman
00:05:17.160 | or a woman by a man can and should be transposed
00:05:22.160 | into the music of a divine drama
00:05:26.240 | so that the intensity of the emotion for the person
00:05:31.240 | is not in contrast to emotion for Jesus,
00:05:35.760 | but an expression of emotion for Jesus.
00:05:40.160 | So here's the principle that Paul laid down
00:05:43.120 | in Galatians 5, 6.
00:05:44.160 | He said, "In Christ, neither circumcision or uncircumcision
00:05:48.400 | "is of any value, but only faith working through love."
00:05:53.400 | In other words, faith doesn't exist
00:05:57.600 | in a vacuum of spirituality.
00:05:59.320 | Faith expresses itself, faith shows itself,
00:06:03.120 | and the fundamental way that faith shows or expresses itself
00:06:07.720 | is in the fruit of love, faith working through love.
00:06:12.680 | So Nora should ask herself, "As I love my new boyfriend,
00:06:17.680 | "is it merely competing with my faith in Jesus,
00:06:22.320 | "or is it expressing my faith in Jesus?"
00:06:26.880 | And the last one, the third way to look at her relationship
00:06:31.880 | with him is, is this relationship strengthening
00:06:36.560 | and building her faith and his faith?
00:06:40.760 | When the Bible thinks of relationships in general,
00:06:44.600 | it uses this principle, 1 Corinthians 14, 26.
00:06:48.280 | "Let all things be done for building up."
00:06:53.280 | That's the meaning of relationships.
00:06:55.760 | Let everything be done for building up.
00:06:58.360 | For example, Hebrews 3, 13.
00:07:00.460 | "Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today
00:07:04.820 | "that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
00:07:08.440 | So the aim is that the relationship would serve faith
00:07:13.440 | and serve holiness, serve the overcoming of sin.
00:07:18.340 | So the question for Nora is,
00:07:21.480 | is the new relationship working, is it having the effect
00:07:26.220 | to build me and him up in our faith?
00:07:29.840 | Are we trusting God more?
00:07:31.720 | Are we loving God more?
00:07:34.080 | Are our lives marked by more passion for holiness
00:07:37.920 | because of what we're finding in each other?
00:07:42.000 | Is it strengthening or is it weakening our love for Christ?
00:07:47.000 | So here's a summary.
00:07:49.200 | Nora, pursue the relationship in three ways.
00:07:52.720 | One, pursue it as a good thing,
00:07:56.560 | which in comparison to an infinite thing is a no thing.
00:08:00.760 | Two, pursue it as an expression of your faith
00:08:07.280 | in Jesus, not a competition with your faith in Jesus.
00:08:11.200 | Find ways to express your faith in this relationship.
00:08:14.760 | Number three, pursue it as a means of strengthening
00:08:19.760 | and building up your faith and his faith,
00:08:23.460 | not weakening them.
00:08:25.440 | And if those three aims are being realized,
00:08:29.340 | I think the Lord is keeping you from idolatry.
00:08:34.340 | - Brilliant, thank you, Pastor John, for that balance.
00:08:36.840 | And we return tomorrow.
00:08:38.080 | A podcast listener has a question
00:08:40.200 | about how you, Pastor John, would counsel someone
00:08:42.160 | who is addicted to human approval.
00:08:44.720 | It's a great question.
00:08:45.600 | It's a very necessary one that we need to tackle
00:08:47.960 | and we'll do so tomorrow.
00:08:49.920 | For more information and to download our apps
00:08:51.760 | and past episodes and to get a question into our hands,
00:08:54.280 | find us online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:08:59.200 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow.
00:09:01.640 | (upbeat music)
00:09:04.220 | (upbeat music)
00:09:06.800 | [BLANK_AUDIO]