Some Myths About Dating Series

Some Myths About D?, M?, And D?

5/21/00 Proverbs 5:7-20 1 Corinthians 7:1-16

As Christians, we are living in two different worlds with very different value systems. Sometimes the values of one, pour into the other and we come up with a strange hybrid mix. This mix usually has the message of TV, friends, and personal opinions as its foundation, with a little bit of Bible verses and Jesus talk sprinkled on the top to make one think its Christian.

For instance, when two people start living together and being sexually active with each other, the world says as long as the two people love each other, what difference does it make whether or not they have a piece of paper. Then you sprinkle in a bible verse which says, God is love and throw in Jesus saying, judge not lest you be judged, and love thy neighbor as thyself. You now have a hybrid of a relationship that sounds good but is not biblical.

You will come out with an entirely different picture if you start with the Scriptures as your foundation. The Scriptures will tell you it’s wonderful that a man and a woman has fallen in love with each other because its one of the gifts of God’s creation to humanity. The Scripture will inform you that both people are of immense value and worth to God, and God has guidelines for the good of those individuals which no one is allowed to violate. God has a plan and a purpose to make their union a blessed one and an enduring one.

Here are the steps to that journey. Choose to make a lifetime commitment in marriage to each other, enjoy one another’s body, be there for the other in the best of times and the worst of times. Never let anyone or anything come into your lives which will drive a wedge between the two of you. Always think of what’s best for the other person ahead of your own needs and desires. Now that’s the Christian version of how a man and a woman are to live together who love each other.

In the next couple of sermons that I preach, I want us to deal with three topics which have myths about them floating in our society and in our church. These myths are misleading and setting people up for failure and disappointment. In Hosea, we have learned that God’s people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge. The three areas we are going to look at are dating, marriage, and divorce. You may say, well I’m not planning on being involved with any of these things so why should I listen. You should listen because God is going to send people into your life to ask you about these things. As a Christian you need to be able to give a Christian response.

But before we even get to the point of dating, we have to understand how incredibly valued we are as people. A couple of weeks ago, there was a lottery jackpot worth over 300 million dollars. The odds of winning the money was 1 in 76 million. I’m told those odds are the same as if you had the names of everybody in the United States in a book and you randomly open the book, with your eyes closed, you pointed to a name, and the name would be one of our ex presidents. Now the two people who won that jackpot probably said, "it’s a miracle, I can’t believe I won."

But do you know, you have a beginning that’s far greater against the odds than winning that jackpot. When you were just part sperm, there were millions of sperm around you trying to reach the egg inside your mother. Some of those other sperm no doubt would have been smarter than you if they had gotten to the egg first, some taller, some prettier, some more handsome, and some a whole lot of other things. There were millions vying for that one egg.

As a matter fact, based on the number of sperms your father produced, you had about a 1 in 2 billion chances of being born. You are a miracle. How was it that you got to the egg and the others did not. You didn’t say, step aside I want to be born. Get out the way one day I have to serve at Glenville New Life Community Church. No you didn’t even know there was such a thing as life. So was it mere chance that you accidentally fertilized the egg.

No it was not an accident. There was a God in heaven, present during the time you parents were having sex. God saw all the sperm that were present, and God said, "I choose that one for the plan and the purpose I have in mind. Let all the other millions go by the wayside. That’s the one I have chosen to love." Tell the person next to you, "from the beginning, God chose to love You." The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."