Bearing Fruit in Every Relationship

Intro: Lucy

Welcome: I’m honored to be here with you Haven City, and I’m honored to share with you in this series on bearing fruit! I hope this message today is encouraging and gives you more understanding of how we become like Jesus in our relationships.

(Transition) When your pastor asked me to speak on this topic it got me thinking on my life when I first moved out here. I remember I was just trying to meet people, hoping I’d fine my wife.

(Side rant) And let me just say, the movies I saw about finding love in this city was probably the biggest scam. Listen we all know the scams for the Broadway ticket guy who has 2 amazing seats! Or for the most luxury apartment and you’re already approved! None of them are as dishonest as trying to find someone to date whose normal!

So it brought back a specific a memory. I was in the Upper West Side playing pickleball when I met someone named Lucy. Lucy was mid 60s and amazing at Pickleball and we’re talking in between games when she asks me, “What do you do for a living?” Which is always my favorite question, so I told her, “I’m a pastor.” And she looked back, and said, “Oh! I’ve never met a priest before!” (She still hadn’t, because I’m not a priest). “I’ve never been to church, are priests allowed to get married?” I told her, “Yes, I’m allowed to get married.” She then said, “That’s great! Again, I’ve never been to church, so are you married?” I responded back “No, I am not.” She then looked at me and said, “Well why aren’t you married?” And I looked back and said, “You know for someone whose never been to church, you sure sound like someone whose been to church!”

Tension: I don’t have control

Can we all just agree that when it comes down to it life, no one has every relationship in their live completely together and where they want it.

[Friendships] Think about just your friendships for a second:

(Isolated) Do you find yourself getting home from work with the desire to just want to be with your people but you don’t know who your people are? Good news happens and you don’t know who to call, who to share it with?

(Grieving) Are you at the place that you’re grieving the loss of friendships that walked out of your life, “why did that friendship end? Why did they just leave my life when I can watch them posting things they’re doing with other people?” It might not have been your fault at all, but there’s questions you’re asking, like, was it me?

(Joke) I heard once that Jesus greatest miracle was keeping 12 friends over a period of 3 years.

[Dating] Ok, This series is meant to focus on some of our romantic relationships and bearing fruit. Which is ironic because NYC has been voted the worst place to date someone in probably the whole country!

Broken dreams

(No options) Do you feel like trying to date is impossible? Do you feel like all the normal people got snatched up in college and you’re just trying to find someone who isn’t a serial killer, psychotic or someone whose in a cult!

(But how) You might be asking, how do I even date in a way that honors Jesus? The Bible doesn’t give us any playbook for this! I have song of songs and those pickup lines fall flat everytime, trust me I know! “Your teeth are like a row of sheep” doesn’t land.

(Single and enough) Maybe you don’t want to date at all and you’re just wanting to live a life connected to other people and you’re dealing with everyone pressuring you to live their lifestyle.

[Church] Whether you’re single, dating, married, this message is for you. Because this is a part of life that we haven’t been equipped for well and our culture is failing to equip people for.

(Culture) “Download every app, set unrealistic standards, sleep with as many people as you can. If you’re single…it’s because you are unwanted and not valuable.” Are we as the church creating a place where we are actively speaking against this or through our lack of awareness are we enforcing it?

(Pressure) The best description of what dating feels like in church is “pressure.” We pressure people to get into relationships, we pressure people to be perfect in side of those relationships, we then pressure them to get married, and then if a relationship ends we pressure them to move forward without properly experiencing grief. It’s a lot of pressure to be single in church!

(Empathy) Look if you are in the single and dating phase in church let me just apologize to you. Church is not always an easy or safe place to be. I was single for 28 years in church, it’s difficult. No one can guarantee a result, but you should have been guaranteed a safe environment.

Gospel Angle of Dating

(Creation) Let me validate some emotions for a moment, it’s never been God’s desire for us to live life alone. Genesis 2:18 “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.”” You’re not messed up for wanting other people in your life!

Fall: Conversely you are also normal if you find relationships fading and yourself wanting to isolate. The very moment sin entered the world our relationships took a massive hit, distortion and separation flooded in. Because of this, from the very moment we were born we were born with a disadvantage. Relationships are going to be painful, hard and unfair. Our bodies are naturally drifting towards a day where we are permanently removed from connection to human beings called death. This is the reality we live in.

Jesus: But here’s the good news we have available to us today. There is a God who loved you so much, couldn’t bare to leave us alone and chose to send his son Jesus here to this earth so that our relationships could have a new chance forward being transformed to reflect Jesus himself.

Restoration: This means that on earth we get to experience the transformation of Jesus in our relationships.

Where once there was brokenness we can now see healing

Where was the betrayal, we can now find loyalty.

Where was there was bitterness, we can now find forgiveness

Where once there was isolation, we can now find family

Renewal: All of this points to the fact that even after death, in Jesus we will live in perfect union with him again!

Main Point:

As far as how we live today in all of this, Paul when he writes to the Romans gives us a number of statements on how our lives ought to be a sacrifice to Jesus. And this serves really as the core of this message today, relating to dating and all of our relationships. Romans 12:9–10 “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.”

Here’s the main point of this message today, what these scriptures compel us to understand: If you can’t navigate relationships well, you won’t follow Jesus well either.

I know, Colin this message is supposed to be about dating and navigating singleness- I promise we’ll hit it. But we need to start at the foundation. All of our relationships are connected.

You won’t find yourself having a great relationship with a spouse while being mean to all of your friends.

You won’t find yourself being able to go on dates well if the relationship you have with yourself is one of poor self-esteem.

Relationships are often the way God transforms us, heals us, builds us— if we can’t navigate these, we won’t become like Jesus and our relationships will breakdown. Like what Paul said, don’t pretend, really love people!

Bible Setup

Intro: So today, with this scripture in mind, what I’d like to do is walk through a story in the Bible that acts as a case study, that is incredibly dramatic, and we’re going to touch on it at various points. Let me encourage you to read through it on your own. It’s the story of Isaac in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. What we’re going to do is look at a few moments from his life that help us navigate our relationships well and then we’re going to do some real introspective work to see how we need to respond in the midst of our relationships.

Setup: We jump into this story where Abraham, this man that followed God is now navigating the future. He is told that from him would come a great a nation, but only has 1 son, Isaac, and he’s starting to plan for the future.

Point #1: I Learn Intentionality

Genesis 24:1–4 “Abraham was now a very old man, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. One day Abraham said to his oldest servant, the man in charge of his household, “Take an oath by putting your hand under my thigh. Swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not allow my son to marry one of these local Canaanite women. Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.””

(Point) There’s a lot going on here, and to just give the short summary, this servant does go out and get Isaac a wife and as we’ll see in a little bit, his passivity brought it in so many issues. So here is the important lesson we learn from Isaac. I learn intentionality. How do I learn that lesson?

(Context) Isaac was not involved in finding his wife at all! Commentators find the lack of mention to mean that he was passive about this entire situation.

Principle: There are two many things that we as followers of Jesus are too passive letting exist!

We’re too passive as we’ve allowed politics from the right and left invade our church!

We’re too passive as we haven’t been the catalyst of racial healing for our country and sat by as our president attempts to open back up these wounds.

We’re too passive as we’ve allowed what we post online to be where we speak but then we won’t show love in kindness in person.

Romans passage: Remember Romans tell us to not just pretend! But to really love them! Hate what is evil! You can’t hate what’s evil if you aren’t involved.

Church Culture: We have become way to comfortable being passive. Can I have your permission to offend you for a moment? Showing up to church on Sunday isn’t enough. You can be passive like Isaac, still receive and see the results Isaac got, and miss everything important. We can’t afford to be passive any longer.

(Bring it back) Let me say this, we can no longer afford to be like Isaac and be passive in our relationships.

So what does intentionality look like in my friendships? We have to start here first.

Personal- I was once at a point where I didn’t focus on these relationships and was focused on getting a girlfriend. I didn’t have any close friends in my life so all of the emotional relational weight was put on a romantic partner instead of on friends.

(Principle) Why do friendships matter when I date: Dating is a team sport. If you don’t have a team you shouldn’t be playing.

You need a team that can tell you whether they’re crazy! Your perspective when you date is not always there. If you have people close to you in your life, you will date better! If you don’t, you will lose.

There are times when these friendships become co-dependent and become pack. There’s a difference between a team and pack. A team let’s you go out on the court. A pack keeps you on the bench. No guy is going to come to the bench to ask you out, they’ll ask you out on the court. “That’s why we call it courting.”

What does intentionality look like as I date?

You might have heard and intention and your actions are to try and take control. Intentionality and Control are two different things.

Control is when you dictate how they look, what they make, ethnicity, hobbies, what kind of family they come from. And hear me correctly, you deserve something and someone great. But when you try to control people you will find yourself confused and disappointed, unable to accept people. It goes completely against what we read in Romans- we do not delight in honoring anyone.

(Practically) So how do I be intentional in dating?

Men: Be intentionally clear- just say to a girl, “Can I take you out on a date?” I know this is scary. (Practice real quick, turn to your neighbor, I’m kidding!) What if she says no? Listen I was there, just be ready.

Women: Be intentionally available- Remember, don’t stay as a pack. Go and talk to a guy and ask him questions. It might be a few conversations, like 4-5 before a quality guy finally asks you out. Give him some confidence!

Bible- bring all of this back to Romans: Paul is telling us to take delight in honoring each other. You cannot honor if you do not know what place they are in! So remember, to live in intentional relationships and follow Jesus well, I learn intentionality and my place.

I Learn My Place

Setup: We jump ahead to see what passive dating lead to. He’s married and has two kids.

Genesis 27:1–10 “One day when Isaac was old and turning blind, he called for Esau, his older son, and said, “My son.” “Yes, Father?” Esau replied. “I am an old man now,” Isaac said, “and I don’t know when I may die. Take your bow and a quiver full of arrows, and go out into the open country to hunt some wild game for me. Prepare my favorite dish, and bring it here for me to eat. Then I will pronounce the blessing that belongs to you, my firstborn son, before I die.” But Rebekah overheard what Isaac had said to his son Esau. So when Esau left to hunt for the wild game, she said to her son Jacob, “Listen. I overheard your father say to Esau, ‘Bring me some wild game and prepare me a delicious meal. Then I will bless you in the Lord’s presence before I die.’ Now, my son, listen to me. Do exactly as I tell you. Go out to the flocks, and bring me two fine young goats. I’ll use them to prepare your father’s favorite dish. Then take the food to your father so he can eat it and bless you before he dies.””

Notice what happens, Isaac didn’t learn in dating? He didn’t learn his place. He didn’t learn what the relationship was supposed to look like in a healthy way, the dynamics that were good and bad, who he was supposed to be. This is what we learn from Isaac, I learn my place.

Isaac didn’t get to learn about this person, didn’t get to understand how their relationship works, and how it breaks down.

(Principle) My relational position will affect other people. This is probably one of the most tricky things when it comes to dating is understanding what your place your at. It’s vague and confusing, and if you have some unique cultural influences into this it becomes more messy.

Dating typically runs in 4 phases- let me give you a blueprint

Phase 1: Preparation [Singleness]: This is where I get prepared. I learn how to be enough with myself. I learn about myself, my hobbies, what I like, my identity outside of a relationship.

Phase 2: Interest [Talking]: This is where we look for some chemistry, interest.

Healthy Evaluation

Emotional Spark (Some of the indescribable chemistry that draws us together)

Phase 3: Exploration [Dating]:

This is where we look for clarity and reality

Phase 4: Exclusivity [Relationship]:

This is where we build trust.

If you needed to know healthy progression, do this. Great resource for this is called Boundaries in Dating. Healthiest dating book I ever read.

(Callout) Church family, we need to learn our place in dating as well.

Personally- I used to get jokes made about me every time a

Galatians 6:2–3 “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.”

(Match Maker vs Supportive) Your job is to support, not to solve. Can I share something unique with you? The brain receives unsolicited advice as an insult. Look it up. Have you done that before? The single people don’t need advice they need connection. They don’t need you to solve, they need you to sit next to them and say, “Yeah, this sucks.”

(Disease) Stop treating your single people like they have a disease. We all know at least one wildly unhappy married couple that should have never gotten married, can we stop acting like this is the only way to live a fulfilled life! Single doesn’t mean sick.

I Learn My Patterns

The last thing we learn from the life of Isaac that relates to our relationships is that I learn my patterns. Paul writes for us to “Hold tightly to what is good!” I cannot hold tightly to good when my life patterns hold tightly to something else.

It’s both interesting and sad to see how many of the unhealthy decisions and habits Isaac had that he learned from his dad and passed on to his children. I want to share some of the patterns that are clear in the book of Genesis between Isaac, his father, and his own children.

First Pattern, Both Isaac and his father lied about their wives in Egypt, claiming their wives were their sisters because they were afraid they would be murdered.

Second Pattern, Isaac had an older half brother who was expected to get the blessing from God but didn’t. Then Isaac has two kids, Esau the older son, and Jacob the younger. God spoke to them and told them in advance that Jacob, the younger would get the blessing, but Isaac decided he wanted it a different way, he wanted Esau to get it. He was following in his father’s footsteps in choosing to do things how he wanted instead of how God wanted it.

(Pastoral Moment) Can I just pastor you for a moment? And this applies to any area of your life. You have patterns and cycles in your life that may not have been your fault, but they now are your responsibility. The reason is exactly what I just described to you, if we don’t understand our patterns, adjust them, and move forward— we will inconvenience someone else. Moreover, we will make it more difficult for other people to follow Jesus.

(Principle) Here’s the harsh reality: If I don’t understand my patterns, I will repeat them. And the first place we repeat patterns is with the people we become most vulnerable with- the people we date.

Now my fiancé doesn’t have any patterns. She came into our relationship 100% ready to go, as she has helped me discover, I brought the patterns. One of my patterns is that I get a tone when I feel like I’m not being heard. It’s a tone that’s very dismissive, very defensive, and borderline aggressive. There are people who have known me my entire life and never heard this tone, but it took 4 months for this tone to show up when we were dating. I remember this tone, it’s something I used to do as a kid because I was the youngest and I always felt like no one was listening to me, so I tried to talk like an adult, instead I sounded like a maniac! I remember I had to sit down and start digging into where this tone came from. Do you know what I discovered? I had loads of patterns!

Patterns you might have:

I date men who are aggressive because the people who cared for me growing up modeled that for me and it’s what I’m familiar with.

I date women who look like and remind me of women in adult content I watch online.

I date men who are broken because it makes me feel like I’m always above them

I date women who appear emotionally vulnerable because it gives me the idea I can finally be in control.

I’m picking on my single folks, but listen if you’re married, the only difference is your deeper into the mess. We all have patterns, we all arrive into the world with baggage, with problems, and the people we develop into pile on more!

(Hope) But we serve a God that changes patterns into praise! Who changes generational trauma and abuse into a legacy of healing! There’s nothing too toxic or too damaged that God cannot redeem and restore. I don’t care how many marriages, how many failed relationships, how many dates gone bad, one night stands, or rejections you’ve encountered— Jesus can redeem your life to a place of ultimate connection and meaning.

Conclusion: Will navigate my relationships lead to Jesus?

Recap: Navigate relationships well so you can follow Jesus well! Learn intentionality, learn your place, learn your patterns. This will revolutionize your singleness, your dating, your marriage.

I wish I could end this message by saying, do this and you’ll get your spouse! That would be dishonest and a lie. What I’m equipping you for is a foundation for connection, deep connection, connection that a spouse, a family can live on.

Prophetic: don’t be dismayed by what you see externally. It’s easy to look externally, I’m calling you back to look and live by faith. I want the eyes of your heart open not just your physical eyes. This is a season of revelation in your relationships. As you seek me you will find me in your relationships.