The Right Seasoning

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. All right, let's get started with what we are talking about. We are right in the middle of a series. In fact, we started it last week called the Song of Solomon.

Song of Solomon. And if you know anything about Solomon, he was a very wise king. He was the son of David. He was a poet, and he knew it. Okay?

Yeah. He definitely knew it, because he wrote over a thousand songs. And the Song of Solomon is the song above all songs. In fact, that's why we call it the Song of Songs. In the original language, in the original Hebrew, they would call it the Song of Songs, because it was like the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

It was the Song of Songs. It was the Song of Songs. And it was a very prestigious song for him. And this Song of Solomon, as we walk through it, we learn a lot about relationship. About what it means to be in an intimate relationship with someone.

And we see several people in this song. And it's written in poetry form. Poetry form. So it's not like this chronological narrative order. It's kind of sporadic.

It deals, certain sections deal with certain things that are going on. It always ends, it begins with this man, the lover. We call him Solomon. And then we have the woman who is his beloved. And he's speaking to her.

And she's speaking back to him. And they're kind of sharing this poetic love song, love story, you know, with each other. And then every once in a while, these women will chime in. Oh, look, I love your relationship, you know. So it's kind of weird, but the way for us today, but then it was very poetic.

And if you understand the construct of it and how it's created, it can be a beautiful thing to dig into the Song of Solomon. So going back to the very first chapter and first verse, this is kind of our theme scripture here. We'll just kind of hit this once again every week. And it says this, Solomon's Song of Songs. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is more delightful than wine.

Pleasing is your fragrance of the perfumes, and your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you. What are they saying here? What is he saying here? She's talking about this man, this lover, this king, this king called Solomon, or this man called Solomon, or, you know, the lover in this.

And she's talking about his character. It's not just about the physical attraction she has for him. She said, your name is like perfume poured out, like people love you. When you walk into the room, people like the way you love others. You have this charisma about you.

You have this thing about you where people just love you. And I'm attracted to that part of you, not just the physical part. You're a very handsome man. You're all these things, but there's something special about you. And we're looking at that today.

We need to learn how to love well. It's not just loving our spouse well, but loving people and having a name, being like Jesus. Jesus was one who loved everyone. There was something special about Jesus. And people were attracted to him.

And we want to be that way in everyday life, whether we're in our job, whether we're with our family, and especially with our spouse. And this is a very provocative book, okay? It really does get kind of deep, you know, like the way they go back and forth. Sometimes it will make you blush reading it. In fact, you had to be of age as a young Jewish man to even read the book, you know?

It was actually, as I mentioned last week, there was Jewish councils that took place where they were trying to decide whether they should even keep this in the Jewish canon because it was so provocative, you know? But it's a beautiful book if we look at it. There's a reason why it's canonized today. There's a reason why we have this as a part of the love letters. The love, I call the whole Bible, all these books are just love letters of God, just communicating his love.

And there's a reason this is a part of it because it really does show on a grand scale the love that God has for us, Jesus has for his church, God had for Israel. And it's just a beautiful book. So there are some ground rules we need to start off with because these are very practical messages. These are very practical talks about relationship. And one of those rules we talked about last week is don't judge your spouse.

Don't judge your spouse. This is about you, right? Don't judge your significant other. Don't judge your boyfriend or girlfriend. Don't nudge them.

Hmm, that's you, you know? Don't do that. Don't judge them. This is for you. This is what you can work on.

This is where you need to look at yourself and say, how can I improve? How can I become better in my relationship? The second thing is don't be discouraged, okay? I mean, people come, oh man, that message really just brought me down, man. I'm so, I'm not there.

You know, it's okay. That's the point of this. You can start fresh today. God's standard is only obtainable by grace. That's why I love Jesus, because he offers grace to us.

Isn't that great that we can, we know that no matter how much we've messed up in our relationships, how many divorces we went through, how many relationships we may have messed up, the damage that we caused, that God is gracious. And Jesus brings conviction, but he brings a way out as well. Amen? And we can be convicted, and we can feel that on our heart, but he offers a way. He offers the way of grace.

And the third rule is this is PG-13. The things that we talk, yeah. I mean, the things we talk about today, they might raise some hairs, you know? Woo, you know? That gets me going a little bit, and that's okay.

So this is PG-13. It's good for kids, 13, teenagers, 13 and up. But if they're under 13, it might be a little too much. If you're not ready for them to hear this, then we have a great children's environment. Get them checked into our children's environment.

We'd love to have them there. But 13 and up, I mean, they're hearing about it. Heck, they're hearing about it 12, 11 years old. So it's better to hear it here than hear it out in the world. Amen?

And we want to do it the right way. Okay. So those are the ground rules we're going to stand by. So we talked last week, and we got an outline for this, because we're kind of walking through the scripture here. And last week, we talked about attraction.

How there's a deeper attraction. The art of attraction is much more than how somebody looks, right? It's not just the physical. There is a spiritual attraction. The way we love God, the way we serve people, and we serve one another.

There's a spiritual attraction, and there's also an emotional attraction. Emotional attraction is dealing with the emotions of the other person, the emotional needs. And we talked about some of those emotional needs. And if you get those things in order, then the physical attraction part is even better. It's so much better that way.

We often start with physical attraction, and then we kind of throw out all the other stuff. But if we start with the right order, you can have the very best in the physical aspects of your relationship. Amen? If you did it right. And next week, we're going to talk about intimacy.

We're going to talk about sex, okay? We're talking about sex next week. Y'all hear that? Okay. Godly sex.

We're gonna talk about the physical stuff, the stuff that is important. God made it, and it's beautiful, and it's a good thing. Amen? Everybody said amen, okay? I mean, he made it good for a reason, okay?

He could have just said, y'all go procreate another way, but he said, I'm gonna make it good for you because he wanted us to enjoy each other, amen? I was gonna say he likes sex, but he does, right? He likes you to have sex. He wants you to enjoy within the right bounds of your relationship, the way he created marriage and the way he created couples being together. Amen?

Amen. So we're gonna talk about that next week. So invite somebody. In fact, invite somebody you've never invited before because when you mentioned that my pastor's gonna talk about sex next week, you're like, what? Huh?

You know, church? Yeah, church, come on out. You might get them to come here next week, see what it's all about, right? So we're gonna talk about intimacy next week, and then we're gonna deal with conflict the following week, talking about fighting right, doing it the right way because you're gonna fight, right? And we wanna do it the godly way.

We wanna honor each other by fighting fair. There's a fair way of fighting, there's an unfair way of fighting, and we're gonna talk about that. And then finally, we're gonna end with a deepening commitment relationship, a lasting marriage. How do we have, pulling all of this together, how do we have a lasting marriage? And it's just gonna be an awesome series.

You don't wanna miss any part of this series. We kind of build on it each week, and I think you're going to enjoy it. And I wanna mention the week after next, during that service is gonna be really special because one of our couples here in the church are going to renew their vows in front of the church. Isn't that cool? And you're gonna hear about their testimony, so that happens the week after next, and it's gonna be really cool.

We're gonna have their testimony up here. So if any of you are struggling in marriage, if you're hurting, or maybe you're trying to find the right person, this is just the perfect place to be, the perfect time to be a part of this, to hear stories, and perhaps something here will help steer you back to where God wants you in your relationships. So today we're talking about seasons. Because there's a season for everything. And I know that many of you here probably are struggling with being single.

And this message is a little more for single people, but it's also for married people. Don't count it out, because the seasons that we go through apply to us who are married. But I know what it's like to be single. I got married at 28 years old, so there was, you know, 20-something years. A lot of people are like, well, that's like, well, I guess the average today is probably around 28, 30 years old.

So some of you are spending a good portion of your life single, and you're trying to find the right person. And I know that the struggle is there. It seems like you're there forever, right? When is that person gonna come? And who's that person gonna be?

And you get bothered by your friends and your family about it? And they're like, you know, when are you gonna find that right? You know, look at them. You should, you know, I was there, you know, my mom and my aunts and different people. You know, when are you gonna find that right?

You know, look at her, look at her. You know, they're trying to push you into those relationships. And it kind of makes it worse rather than better. And when you have that older aunt, you know, that's pushing you to get married, sometimes you just want to kind of nudge her at a funeral and say, you're next, you know, you're next, right? I mean, no, don't do that.

That's terrible advice, okay? Don't do that. But it just seems you get so aggravated. And I know where you're at. And married, you know, it's just a frustrating time in your life.

Sometimes it can be lonely. Sometimes it can be depressing. But let me offer you hope today, because I think this message is really going to help you. Because here's the way the world usually does it. Let me just give you a little outline of the typical dating scene today.

The modern dating scene. Boy meets girl. And boy asks girl out on a date to go get some food. Boy panics because the girl orders something expensive. How am I going to pay for this?

Afterwards, boy invites girl to house or vice versa. Girl invites boy to home. And boy looks at girl and girl looks at boy. And they get those googly eyes. And then they start to kiss.

And then they go over to the couch and they lay down with each other. And one asks the other, you know, why don't you stay over? And obviously the other one replies, okay. And then they begin to play house. They move in together.

They start life together. They practice marriage together. Until boy meets other girl. And then girl meets other boy. And they repeat the process over and over again.

Until one day, boy meets special girl. And girl meets special boy. And they get married. Then a few years later, they divorce. And they ask themselves, why?

Why are we divorced? Why did this happen? Because nobody goes into a marriage saying, oh, in two or three to five years, I'm going to be divorced. Nobody walks into a relationship saying, oh, if, you know, I'm going to get married and then I'm going to have three kids and then we're going to divorce. And then the kids are going to be split.

And then we're going to have to go through a lot of lawyer bills and things like that to get everything straight. Nobody goes into a relationship thinking that. But we often ask ourselves, why did this happen? And here's, I like how someone said this. It says, you play like you practice.

You play like you practice. We understand this in any other area in our lives. The way we practice now, and when the actual game comes, how do we play that game? You play like you practice. We understand this in academics.

We give our time. We sacrifice to pay for school, to get an education so that later on it will pay off in our career. We do this with money. If we can sacrifice, if we can save, if we can eat less, if we can do things differently, you know, if we could cut back on this and cut back on that area. If we put in the hard stuff now, it can be much better later on.

We'll be financially free. We do this in our jobs. If I pay the price while I'm young, if I pay the price now, if I pay right now, then when it comes to later on, I'll have a career that's much more successful. And if I pay the price now, I will reap the benefits later. And in every area of our life, we think about this except for relationships.

In relationships, we think, well, I want to sow my seeds now, right? I want to sow my oats now. I want to have fun. I want to test out things. I want to test out the world.

We want to practice before we actually play the game. And then we ask ourselves, why is my relationships not working? Why are my relationships, why are my marriages failing? Why are these things happening in my life? Because we practice that way.

And then when it's time to play the game, to actually do the real thing, it doesn't work. And God has a much better way, but we ignore that way. Because we like to practice and we play like we practice. So today I'm going to talk about some seasons. Some seasons that we are all going through in relationships.

And how to navigate those seasons so that we can have great relationships, great marriages. Because I believe this, I'm tired of relationships failing. I'm tired of the family being torn apart. Because God created family as a substance to the church. Like the church flourishes when the family is whole, when the family is healthy.

When marriages are healthy, the church flourishes, and I don't want to see a broken-down church, and I'm not just talking about Salt Church, and I'm talking about the church as a whole, but right here at Salt Church, our foundation, I'm tired of hearing about failed marriages and failed relationships. One of the number one issues we have in our church is struggles in marriages, and God wants us to have whole, wants us to have healthy marriages, wants us to have good families, healthy kids. He wants to give us that, and if you'll listen to what he has to say instead of following your gut and following your feelings, you can have a really good marriage. Because feelings steer us in the wrong direction every time, amen? If we follow our feelings, if I followed my feelings, Salt Church wouldn't be here.

I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't be up here right now if I followed my feelings, but we don't follow our feelings. We follow God. We don't follow our heart. Our heart can be deceiving.

So listen to what God has to say about our marriages and our relationships. In fact, Solomon wrote this in Ecclesiastes, another wisdom book that he wrote in 3.1. It says, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. Some of you probably know this scripture as a bird song back in the 70s.

I believe it was the 70s, maybe 60s, 60s, 70s. Was it 70s? Okay. To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season. They didn't write that.

Solomon wrote that, okay? That was Solomon's song. So Solomon wrote a nice song for the birds. But everything has a season. Our relationships has a season.

And we want to talk about that today. So the first season that we're going to look at, if you're following your notes, you can write this down. There's a season of infatuation. A season of infatuation. And in Song of Solomon, as we walk through this in chapter 2, starting with verse 8, we see this infatuation happening.

I love how they put this together. Listen, my lover, look. You know, she's looking at him. And here he comes, leaping across the mountains. Can you imagine that?

Just leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My lover is like a gazelle or a young stag, you know? Look at my young stag coming across the hills, right? Miranda used to call me a young stag. Now she calls me a middle-aged stag, you know?

So, just kidding. Yeah. Look at my young stag. Look! There he stands behind our walls, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.

And I could just imagine what that looked like. He's playing peek-a-boo, you know? Hey! Hey! Hey, girl!

What's up? You know? Come on, I'm leaping. I'm walking across the hills here. Look at me.

Look at this. It's like this dating relationship that's going on. He's kind of like stroking his ego a little bit. Stroking her ego a little bit. Kind of playing peek-a-boo here.

And they got this going on. And then she says this, My lover spoke and he said to me, Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. So, he's inviting her out. Come with me on a date. Let's go date.

Let's go be together. Let's court. Court. That's the old-fashioned way of saying it. Dating is just temporary stuff.

But courting is actually taking it seriously. He says, let's go court. And let's go out together. So, the first season is this season of infatuation. That's what we see here.

They're happy. Everything's wonderful. Everything's perfect, right? When you meet that person for the first time, it's like there's this thing in your gut. You know, woo!

It just feels so good. And they're so perfect. And every song on the radio is perfect, right? Oh, this is, oh man, I'm just thinking of her. Or I'm thinking of him.

Man, look at that song. Even if it has nothing to do with love, it's like, oh man, you know, I heard eyes in that lyric. Oh, I just think of his eyes and how beautiful they are. He's just so perfect. And you walk into the card shop and you pick up the card.

Oh, this is just so perfect. You guys watch Kevin James stand up. I mean, he's got this like skit or this thing where he's talking about finding the perfect card. You got to go see that online. But I think about that as people are in this infatuated state in their relationship.

Like everything is perfect. Everything they do is right. They can't do any wrong. But like a new job where you first walk into that job and you're like infatuated with the job in some way, shape, or form. And you're like, oh, this is the best job.

And you're learning all this. After a while, it gets old, right? And it happens in relationships too. The infatuation is only for a short season, but it eventually subsides. Because love is blind.

It really is. I mean, our feelings lead a certain place, especially in the infatuation season. And it usually lasts for about a day. Infatuation lasts for a day. It can go up to six months usually.

And in some cases, maybe two years. Two years. And then it kind of fades. That's a really long. I heard somebody say, that's a really long infatuation process.

So she's in the infatuation process still. That's great. Amen. But maybe she needs to come up here and preach a little bit and tell us how to stay infatuated with that person. But it does, in every relationship, it does eventually fade.

And we need to learn how to make love real. I remember a Sunday school teacher that I had back when I was a teenager. I was about 14, 15 years old. And he had a way of just kind of sharing things in our Sunday school class, you know, to kind of help us as young teenagers as we're all infatuated, you know, with the opposite sex. And he said, okay, in your dating relationship, I want you to think about that girl and waking up in the morning with her and her hair's all over the place and drools coming out of her mouth and she has no makeup on.

And do you still think you love that person? Well, you need to think differently because that's what you're going to wake up to every morning, okay? And on the women's side of the house, same thing. You know, the man, you know, he smells his breasts bad, you know, his teeth are, you know, he needs to go brush his teeth. I mean, are those things that you think about while you're dating?

Obviously not, but it really brought perspective to us as young people. It's like, oh my, you know? So love has to be real. We have to look at it. We have, and you have to work through this season to know what you're feeling and if the feelings are real because you're going to be with this person a very long time and there's going to be a lot of seasons in your life, but this season is significantly important.

So you need to have a set of rules so that you aren't following your feelings. So I'm going to give you three things. First of all, limit your time. Limit your time. Secondly, limit your talk.

And thirdly, limit your touch. Let me just dig into that just a minute. Limit your time. Spend, I'm talking about the time you spend alone with these in your dating season. Spending time alone.

It's good to spend time alone, but if you're spending all of your time alone with them, you're putting yourself in places where it could potentially go the wrong way. There's a lot of temptations there. And they're good feelings. Infatuation season, when you have these feelings, they're good feelings. It's a good thing.

I'm not saying they're bad things, but if they're directed in the wrong way, then it's the wrong season. It's the wrong season for those things. So you need to hone them in. Good feelings, wrong feelings. So don't spend all of your time with that person, okay?

I watch these people come into relationships, and man, they're only like a week in, and they're so infatuated, and they think they're just wonderful, and then you don't see them anymore, and then two weeks goes in, and then three weeks, and then four weeks, and then they spend, you know, it's like six months, you don't see them at all, and then the relationship fails. And no telling what and where they went with that person. So limit your time. You learn to appreciate people when you limit your time. And don't cut out everybody and everything in your life.

You've got a life. life. There's things that are going on, that God's place you and put you. you got jump You got a job, you got friends, you got family, you've got all these things, and if this is the person for you, you'll have plenty of time with this person, I promise you. You're gonna be with them all the time, so don't take it too far, too quickly.

Limit your time. Also, limit your talk. Refrain from saying things like, I love you, or you're the one. I just love, you know, I see those people. I see those posts on Facebook, you know, they just started dating somebody, like, oh, I finally found the one all my life, you know.

I've been searching, and there she is, or there he is. You don't know they're the one. You don't know that because you're still in a season of infatuation, and you're playing with people's hearts when you do that, because you don't know where that relationship is going to go. You can say those things one day, and they're beautiful things, but you don't want to over-speak too soon, because if you over-speak, you will put weight on that relationship before it even has a foundation, and you need to build it on a solid foundation, so limit your talk. As a person dating, you need to limit that talk.

Don't use, I love you, you're the one. I've never, you know, we just have a tendency to go there too quick. Thirdly, you need to limit your touch. Limit your touch, and that's really hard because, man, when, especially come, you know, man, when she smells good, and she looks good, and she's touching you, and there's something about that touch, you know, and when they're next to you, and you want to get close to them, and that's great. That's great in the right season, but you need to first appreciate that person because it can go places that you don't want them to go, man.

You can't trust your feelings. Put boundaries on those things, and think of it this way. I can speak to the guys more than I can speak to the ladies here, but for guys, when you're dating someone, when you're out with someone, respect that person because they may not be your wife, and there's somebody else out there that's dating your wife that God has for you, the person that God has for you, and you want them to respect her, right? Because that's your wife, and you're dating somebody else's wife, so you need to learn to respect her, to honor her, healthy relationships. You got to do that, and we aren't going to build our relationships on lustful attraction.

It just doesn't work. It's not healthy. That's the problem with today's dating world. We build it on lust. Everything on TV, 90% of everything that we see on TV is in premarital sexual relationships, and they teach us that, and we've been programmed for a long time, not any fault of your own for some of you because you've never heard the truth.

That's the way you've always been taught. The outline I gave you at the beginning, that was just the way it was. That was how your family did it. That was how your family's family did it, and we got so far away from it, we've been, that's why we need to be reprogrammed. Limit your touch.

Build your relationship on friendship. Friendship is the strong foundation you place it on. So build your relationship. Limit your time, limit your talk, and limit your touch. Moving on in scripture, in verse 11, it says, see the winter is past.

I think this is significant. Underline that. The winter is past because many of you are in the winter season, and this can apply to any relationship. The rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth, and the season of singing has come, and the cooing of doves.

I think of the spring coming in, and you hear the birds outside. We don't really hear a lot of birds this time of year when we wake up in the morning, but when the spring comes, there's the birds, and it's refreshing, and it says the cooing of doves is heard in our land. So the winter is here, and in the winter season is a time that we need to really focus on ourselves, because the winter will pass. You're not going to be in the winter season forever. For you that are struggling in a single season, you're ready to have somebody.

I'm telling you, the winter will pass. It's going to be, and the season that is coming is going to be great if we focus on what we're doing in the wintertime. If we focus on ourselves and what we can do to make ourselves better. Your spring will be great when you prepare in the winter, which leads me to the next point, a season of preparation. There's a season of preparation, and embrace the season.

Don't be down about the season. Embrace the season. Focus on what you can do, how you grow closer to God, and how you're looking for the right person. Here in Song of Solomon 2.14, it says, My dove in the cliffs of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainsides, show me your face.

Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. See, here in this scripture, Solomon hasn't been running around with other girls. He hasn't been entertaining the thoughts of any other. This is Solomon speaking to his beloved. He says, My dove is in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places of the mountainside.

So he's been in the mountainside. He's been away. He's been thinking of her. He's been focusing on the relationship that is to come. So he's focused on himself.

He's developing his values for her, his character. And anytime you see face in scripture, it means your values or your character. What your character is revealing yourself. In fact, this is a scripture of intimacy, but not physical intimacy. It's an intimacy simply means revealing yourself, revealing your face.

Anytime we hear, when Moses said, God, show me your face, he didn't mean literally show me your face. In some aspects, he did. But he wanted to know God fully, everything he was. And that's what intimacy does. It breaks open the heart and to look inside the person.

So we need to develop our character. And Solomon is developing his character. The lover is developing himself for that season is to come because there's something, what's deep inside of us is what's really important. And that's what's going to be real when we come into that relationship. It's got to be real.

And we're going to enjoy every aspect of a relationship, spiritual, physical, emotional. We're going to enjoy every area. And spring is coming, guys. Spring is coming, women. Spring is coming, everyone.

Spring is coming to church because it really is important for us to know that everything that God has in our relationship is good, but we are going to have to prepare first. And that goes for marriages too. You are always in a preparation season for that next season in your marriage. So here's a few things here that I want to share with you. Become the right person.

Stop focusing on finding the right person, but become the right person. Because when you become the right person, that's more important than anything. Because you're becoming the person, and I love how Andy Stanley says this, become who the person you are looking for is looking for. Become who the person you are looking for is looking for. If you're looking for that special person, perhaps you need to become that special person and work on yourself.

It's not about finding the right person. It's about becoming the right person. And in Jewish culture, this is very interesting, the father had the responsibility to help the son become a person. Did you know that? Become the right person.

In fact, the father would actually supervise the son. And there's this thing called a hub. And some of you have heard it in Jewish weddings, but a Jewish wedding, if you're ever at a Jewish wedding, you'll see a canopy that's put up over the people. It's called a Huppah. And it's symbolic of a well-built home.

And in Jewish culture, the father would supervise the son and have him build a house for his future bride. So he would go through every detail of that house. And if the father wasn't ready for that young man to marry, then he would disapprove the house. And it always went back to the father because he was protected by the father. And in Jewish weddings, we see this.

It's symbolic of a well-built house. It's important to have a well-built house before we invite somebody into that house. And on the other end, the brides, the one marrying this young man, they were supervised by their mother and others, other women. During that season of preparation, they would have them off, away, protecting them, making sure that nothing happened in the relationship. It didn't go places that it didn't go.

They would protect them. And friends were a part of the process, too. That's why we have bridesmaids and groomsmen today. And it was symbolic of the friends that would help protect those relationships. It's just not for pictures.

It's actually symbolic of keeping them protected during that preparation season, that preparation. So we need, we need a time of preparation to become the right person, become who the person you are looking for, is looking for. And the second one, we need to walk in love. Walk in love. Don't fall in love.

Walk in love. Isn't that funny? We use that phrase, fall in love, like we kind of just tripped into it. It just happened, you know? Oh, I fell in love.

You know, that's another feeling thing. We don't fall in love. We don't just trip over. Wow, I'm in love. We don't do that.

It's not an accident. It's purposeful. Love is intentional. It's a choice. We don't fall in love.

We walk in love. And in application, serving others prepares you for love. Did you know that? The reason we have serve teams in our church isn't just so that we can do a church. It's more important than that.

We do serve teams because we're trying to help you understand what it's like to be like Jesus and serve others. And the biggest preparation for a future relationship or your marriage currently is to be involved in serving. Because serving is the greatest emotional need of any... You're serving each other in marriage. You're serving each other in relationships.

It's important to understand Jesus' meaning for serving. And you need to develop that. It teaches you to love like Jesus. And we've got all kinds of teams here and stuff. And we love people to get involved.

But it's not just... I'm telling you, it really helps you grow. Learn to serve. There's something special about doing something sacrificially that really builds you up and helps you become the person you are looking for, is looking for. Amen?

And in your marriage, you're probably saying, I'm trying to make that person be who they are. Well, you need to serve them. You need to learn how to serve them. It's about... It's more about what you can do.

You can't control your spouse. You can't control your significant other. But you can work on yourself. And you can learn to serve. And thirdly, fix all your hopes and dreams on God.

We have a tendency to put all of our hopes and dreams in everything and everybody else. He's my hope. He's my dream. He completes me. You know?

She completes me. I've heard that phrase so many times. No, she doesn't complete you. He doesn't complete you. God completes you.

And what you're doing, you're pressuring that person to be only what God can be. You learn to love and serve them, but they aren't God, okay? They aren't God. You're making them a God. You're idolizing them when you're placing them in a...

You're putting them in a position where you want them to be your God. And idolization turns into demonization. Eventually becomes demonization. So keep your relationship strong on God. Your hopes and dreams have to be built on a foundation of holiness, a foundation of righteousness, a foundation of God's hopes and dreams for your life.

Because your purpose should be aligned with God. We talked about that in our last sermon series. You're having your purpose aligned with God. And only His purposes for you are the best purposes. Amen?

He knows what's best for you. And then season three is a... We call this the season of purity. There's a season of purity. And this works in all relationships once again.

A season of purity. Song of Solomon 2.15 says this. Catch for us the foxes. The little foxes that ruin the vineyards.

Our vineyards that are in bloom. Some of you are thinking, I think I know what that means. It's exactly what you think it means. It means the foxes that ruin the impure things that come into relationships. We need to protect our purity.

Whether it's in our dating relationships, we need to protect the purity in our marriages as well. Purity is very important. Put parameters on your passion. Put parameters around your passion. Passion is good, but fire is good if it's contained, right?

But if it's not contained, it can be devastating. It can destroy. We saw that in California, didn't we, this past year. How an uncontained fire can ruin lives. It took homes away.

Devastation. Some places over there are sort of like a third world country right now. Just complete devastation. Because the flame was not contained. But when flames are contained, they heat homes.

They, you can make s'mores, right? S'mores is good. When they're contained, it can be a good thing. And we need to learn how to hone in our passions. Put parameters.

Put parameters around. Passion is good, but in the right place, in the right season. And our passions and our feelings can always steer us wrong. But keep our passions. Use family as a safeguard.

If you're following your notes, put that down. Use family as a safeguard. What do I mean by that? How do we put parameters on our passion? Well, we have a church family.

We have pastors. We have elders. More importantly, we have small groups. And we have small group leaders. And we are always a step.

Everybody in here is a step away from doing something stupid. Right? We've watched some of the greatest pastors, the greatest leaders, the greatest spiritual leaders fall from grace. Amen? Over a relationship with somebody that got too far along.

Or an emotional need that was met in that particular relationship that they didn't know it was going to go there. Nobody walks into a relationship or walks into adultery thinking, oh, I'm going to commit adultery. Right? It never starts with some type of lustful thing. It always starts with an emotional need.

Meeting somebody's emotional need where they're getting it from you, where they're not getting it from someone else. That could be, you know, they listen to me. They listen to me well. He just listens to me so well. My husband doesn't do that.

Or she cares about me. She approves of me. She respects me. And my wife just doesn't do that. So you have to be careful where you go with people.

You have to put parameters because your relationship, your marriage is the most important thing. And people don't slip into adultery just... Overnight, it just happens over a period of time of not putting parameters in place. It's important for us to put parameters and we do that by having people around us, to having a family around us, to help us. You need to find someone, if you don't have someone, to be accountable to.

If you're in a single place right now where you're not dating anybody, you need to have accountability in your personal life, because you can do something that you want, you can go places. Pornography's out there everywhere, and it's really hard, there are a lot of people who are addicted to it, it's a very bad thing, it's devastating to see, I was a youth pastor for seven years and I could not believe the amount of young people who were addicted to it. I mean addicted to the point where they had to look at it all the time. I had one young man who confessed to me that he actually had it on his phone and even during gatherings with our youth group, even events with our youth group, he was popping open that phone to look at it. That's how addicted he was to it.

And what I loved about my youth group is that we had a young man who established an accountability type code and we had several guys in our youth that were just checking on each other. They actually had access to their internet, what they were doing on their internet, the practices they were doing on there. And it's really important that we do whatever we can to establish parameters, that's why we have friends, that's why we have family. When we go out on dates, do it together. Do it as a group, it's a good thing to do it, just go out and hang out.

You gotta limit your time anyway, why not do it with family, with your church family, with people that are part of your spiritual family. Put parameters on your relationship. And then let Jesus make all things new, amen? Let Jesus make all things new. In everything, there is a proper order, but we want Jesus to be a part of it.

He can make all things new. Don't be discouraged today. If you have fallen, if you're dealing, if you're struggling with a relationship or you've made the wrong choices, today you can make a decision to go Jesus' way in it, amen? Let Jesus make all things new. And if you establish these seasons, if you recognize these seasons, the season of infatuation, the season of preparation, it gets really good.

And if everything is in its proper order, this is what will happen in the Song of Solomon 2.16, and this really gets good here. My beloved is mine, and I am his. Can you say, mm, mm. My beloved is mine, and I am his.

Get this, he browses among the lilies. Can I say it with a sexy voice? Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle, and like a young stag, Randy, a young stag, I do it, on the rugged hills. It sounds just like, it is just like it sounds, guys. It can be great.

It can be really great, but you've got to do it the right way. God loves it when it gets physical for us, but he wants us to do it. He looks at our lives, he looks at our marriages, and when we've done it the right way, he's like, go get them. Have fun. Enjoy each other.

But it's done only in the way I want it done, because it's going to be devastating. Any other way, it can be very destructive. And then he switches scenes in three, one through four, because of lack of time. I'll just give you, in those four scriptures, she's looking for him, and her thoughts are on him, because it goes from that scene to, okay, she's by herself, and she's thinking of him all day long, all day long, because of the things he said about her, and it's just a beautiful relationship. And then it switches to this, and we see this over and over and over, and I think this is what Solomon was really getting at, because Solomon understood this well, because Solomon did it the wrong way.

He had many concubines. He knew how devastating it could be. He had many wives. And he said this, daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field, do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires, until it so desires. Don't arouse love before it's time.

He comes back to that point four times in this song. And in biblical interpretation, if something is repeated over and over again within a scripture, it's important to know that that's really, really, really significant within that scripture. Don't arouse love before it's time. What, pastor, why are you so passionate about this? Why?

Why? Because I've seen it over and over. And, you know, it's just, it's a plague, I feel like, on our society. And God wants the best for us. And I'm here to lead people down a path of restoration.

If you've messed up, I'm a pastor. I love to help people get back on track. But I'd rather help you on the front end than the back end. If you're single today, start on the front end. Because it's so much better.

Because truthfully, the odds are against you. One out of three marriages end in divorce. You know, some people use the statistic 50% of, but that's kind of inaccurate because they see it through the register of deeds. You know, you got the divorces and the marriages of that year, but it doesn't include everybody that's married, been married for a long time. So, but still, that's an outrageous statistic.

Like 33% of people, so one out of every three people here today has had a divorce or is going to have a divorce. That's just sad statistics, guys. And I don't want you just to be a statistic. You know, those type of statistics wouldn't work in any other area, would they? If somebody told me there's a one out of three chance you're going to, your plane was going to crash, I wouldn't get on that plane, you know.

I wouldn't be flying, right? If there was a one in three chance that the food you're eating was poisonous, I'm going to eat that food, right? But in relationships, we're like, we're just going to jump in. But we want to make sure we have the best relationships. In no other area in our lives are these things good.

In relationships, we make the wrong decisions, but God has something so good. The beauty of doing things His way, the marriage that you can have. You know, one study shows that you can increase your odds one out of every 1,126 if you have a spouse that prays together, that reads the Bible together, and goes to church together. And some people will say, you know, I'm so glad I came to church today, Pastor. I'm so glad.

And my response is, you know, so you weren't going to come to church today? So you were kind of thinking about not coming to church? Yeah, well, you know, I woke up this morning and I thought, you know, man, I don't know why you wouldn't want to be here. Because it's good for you. It's good for you to be together with family.

It's good to be in the presence of the Lord. Because He has the best for you. He has the best in mind. It's a place where you can be instructed. It's a place where you can be healed.

It's a place where you can be restored. It's a place where you can have the best there is. Because God has the best for you. Amen? He wants a great marriage for you.

He wants a great life for you. And even... The valleys and all the things that we go through in life, it's just better with Jesus because it's gonna happen anyway because we have a world of sin. Why not do it? You tried it the other way for a long time and it hasn't worked for you, has it?

Logically, that would suggest, you know what, we're gonna do it the right way today. So here's the key I want to make. Here's the key thought I want to make today. The key to building a great marriage is living a God-first life. It's putting God first.

God, you are first in every aspect of my life. I'm not putting you in a box anymore. I'm not putting you in, I'm not compartmentalizing you over here while I deal with my marriage. You are first. I'm gonna serve you.

We're gonna serve you together. We're gonna do this right because, God, my hope is in you. My hope isn't in anybody else. My hope isn't even in my relationship. My hope is in you because you are the relationship that I most long for, that spiritual relationship.

So let me ask you a question. Are you a God-first person? Have you made God number one in your life? Do you have a relationship with Him? That's the question.

That's where it really starts. That's the foundation of it all. Because marriage, kids, job, life, all of that, that, that, those are good things God blesses us with. But unless you have Jesus, we live and die, eat, drink, and be merry, or tomorrow we die, right? That's all there is.

But Jesus offers us eternal life. Isn't that cool? You can have eternal life today. Amen? Amen?

You can have a future of hope. You can watch your family grow healthy together. You can watch things happen in your life because Jesus is first. Amen? It's great.

And I'm inviting you to come to this side of the house. Amen? Let's pray together. And I want to challenge everyone in this room. Just let the Spirit work here for a second.

Some of you haven't made God first in your life. Some of you maybe at one time had a relationship with God, but that relationship wasn't strong. You fell away. Some of you may have never heard about this hope that you can have in Jesus. It's life.

He calls it life and life to the full. That it's not just a religion. It's freedom. And you can have freedom today. Amen?

You can have freedom today. He offers that to everyone who believes. That whosoever believes in Him will not perish, meaning they will not die, but they will receive everlasting life into eternity. Are you ready to make that decision? Ask yourself that question.

Is God in my life? If that's you today, I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to make you come up to the front, but I want to pray for you. If that's you today, if you would just gently lift up your hand and say, I'm ready, Pastor. I'm ready to make a decision for you.

I'm ready. I want to go all in. I'm going to pray with you today. If you would pray this with me. Father, in the name of Jesus, forgive me of my sin.

I have fallen short of you. I've done it my way for so long. It just doesn't work, Lord. So come into my life. Transform me from the inside out.

I am now yours. I'm giving you my first. God first life. I give it all to you, Lord. Come into my life.

Come into my heart. I believe that you are the Son of God, that you rose from the dead, and I can live life everlasting at this moment in time. In Jesus' name.