Summary: Understanding who we are before entering the dating world

Purple - Pre-Purple

Our identity before our unity

Before a man loved a woman, long before the birds and the bees, God created a man, and then a woman. God created a man in His own image with a purpose before he created man’s wife.

Before he created the first marriage, he created the first individual.

While he created the first individual, it was in that same day he instituted the same marriage.

Let’s take a look at how all that went down:

Genesis 1:3-4

9-10

11-12

16-18

20-21

24-25

26-31

Here in the creation account of man, we see that he wasn’t “alone.” He had all the birds of the air, beasts of the land and creatures of the sea.

Jump over to chapter 2:5-15

He gave Adam a place. You see in verse 8 that God planted Eden AFTER he formed Adam. Eden was created for Adam not Adam for Eden. God didn’t create Adam because He NEEDED Adam to be his farmer.

No Eden was created for Adam, God made a place for him.

The first thing I need you to hear tonight is that before you go looking for someone that you believe to be “your person” you need to pay attention to where God has placed you.

Where you are isn’t some chance or coincidence. Your parents living here isn’t just a coincidence. If He wanted you to be somewhere else, He would most certainly pave the way for that to happen. But He has you HERE.

One of the things you have to discover for yourself is your place in life. Where does God want me? Why has God created this place for me? See if you can’t understand why God has you here, then you certainly don’t know what you need in a significant other.

After He placed Adam, we see that in that place Adam had a purpose. This is even more important understanding your place. So many students and even adults walk around with no idea of their purpose.

Verse 15 shows us that Eden was to be tended by Adam. But God didn’t NEED Adam for that, Adam needed God to provide His purpose. And we are no different.

We have an innate need for purpose, and most people spend a lifetime looking for it and never finding because they are looking in the wrong place. Your purpose will not be found in any girl or boy, not even when you are old like me and get married. My purpose is not found in Adrian, my purpose is found in God and God alone.

So we are in the middle of day 6 of creation, and we have heard God say over and over that it was good but in verse 18 we here “it is not good”

Uh oh, it must be pretty serious if God says its not good. So what is he referring to?

It is not good that man should be alone. Here is why:

We were designed for relationship. God said let US make man in OUR image. God wasn’t talking to Himself and saying Let ME make man to look like me. No He used plural possessive pronouns because God is always in constant relationship being three persons, Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Here’s what we need to key in on, each of those three persons have their own unique purpose even while they are all the same God. So that would scream emphasis on us needing to know our purpose before any type of harmonious relationship.

God the father is the one who disciplines, the one who is the head of the trinity, the one who is sovereign over all things in our life. God the father isn’t the one who lives in us or who came and gave up His life.

God the son, Jesus, has his purpose. Right now this very moment he is at the right hand of God the father praying for us, but he also came and spent 33 years on earth for our redemption.

God the Holy Spirit, his purpose is to live inside us, to guide us in the way of the Father, to convict us.

So if we were designed for relationship and community then, no it is not good for us to be alone. But it is better for us to be alone and searching for identity in God than be in a relationship with someone, clueless to who we are.

So in verse 20, God creates a helper for man, and the Hebrew word for helper here means “one who supplies strength in the area that is lacking in the one who needs help.

Now how on earth do you know what you need in a helper if you don’t even know anything about how God designed you? If you don’t know where you are weak, how can you know where you need to be strengthened?

Look at my wife and I. I very rarely cry or deal with emotions, Adrian cries all the time. Her dealing with her emotions have helped me deal with mine and me not responding with emotion to somethings has helped her work through that as well.

The question you have to ask if you get to the point of a relationship is this, “Is ________ good for me?” If they aren’t bettering you in any way, why on earth are you wasting your time?

In middle school and high school, you have no idea who you are, what you are is typically what you are told you are, here lets look at this example:

Illustration

Closing

No one wants to be alone, we weren’t created to be alone, but dating just to date isn’t worth the heartache when you haven’t ever begun to search for your purpose and your place. Do you know who you are without so and so? Or are you just their boyfriend or girlfriend and thats your identity? What happens when you break up, who are you then?

Our identity isn’t in the place we are in, it isn’t in our purpose, it isn’t in our person, its in the Creator, the one who gave us our place, gave us our purpose and eventually allows that person to be in our life.