Untitled Sermon

Awaken- Why Pursue Jesus?

ME

We are not going to be able to cover all that needs to be said about dating in one short conversation so I want to make you aware of some resources that would be beneficial for you to consider looking into that would cover more than what we are going to cover tonight. 

Intro: Its 2018 fam! How was everybody’s break? Well I got a break too and on my break consisted of flying on a Red eye flight on Christmas morning all the way to Atlanta to spend time with our families during the holidays.

During the Christmas season growing up my least favorite tradition which really isn’t a tradition is when we have to get out and put back away all the Christmas stuff.

Lisa brings us up to look at a bunch of old boxes that had a bunch of childhood memories, trophies, and pictures and stuff like that in it.

Well as I looked at my box, I was struck by a couple things. The first is how old and nasty everything in my box looked. I mean there were spider webs, bugs, dust, and all sorts of nasty junk on everything. The Second thing I noticed as my brother and I looked through our boxes was how many trophies he had and how little I had. I had one upward trophy as a 4th grade upward participation trophy to his 30-40 golf trophies.

Looking back on memories causes you to think back on when times where different, when your passions where different, when what you wanted to do with your life where different.

Lets not even bring Jesus into this thing yet but lets take for example, me as a 4th grade kid. I remember being in 4th grade and really wanting to be a college football player at the UGA. (Don’t talk to me about the game). Before that I wanted to be a Jedi. In middle school I began to desire to be nothing. High School - Do Sports marketing for Chick fil a. (I would be horrible at). Then I got saved and lost the right to control my life. SO theres that.

But WHY did I change my mind so much?

Transition: Why do we desire the things we desire? Why does what we desire at times change so often?

WE

Why do we play sports? Why do we hang out with friends? Why do you do what you do?

I am here to present to you the case that the reason you do what you do is because you believe that what you do is going to bring you the most joy and happiness. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.

I believe that the reason I wanted to play football at Georgia was because it was the thing that was the most fun for me and the thing that brought me the most joy. Jedi same thing. Middle School doing nothing for the rest of my life brought me some joy.

We do what we do, we desire what we desire because we believe that it is going to provide us the most joy.

Don’t be afraid of this. I know we are in church but think with me for a minute, “Why do you play the sports you play?

Well because you enjoy it.

Why do you post what you post on instagram?

Attention: And when we get the attention you desire it brings you joy.

Why do you do your homework?

Because doing good in school brings you joy.

Why do you not do your homework?

Because doing homework takes away your joy.

Why do you come to converge?

“I don’t want to come to converge my parents make me!!”

Well, you are here right now right? yeah, well the reason you are here and the reason you gave into coming to converge is because you believe that doing what your parents want you to do is going to in the long run be better for you than for you to lose your mind and cause a lot of trouble. You are here right now ultimately because you believe that doing so is going to provide you with more joy than fighting your parents will.

Point: Trenton where are you going with all this?

I believe that ultimately at the root of every decision we make in life is the root desire for joy.

If you don’t believe me, I promise if you come up to me after the service and provide me the situation, I believe that if we peeled back all the layers we need to in order to get to the root, I could find joy driving the decision.

Point: At root every decision we make in life is driven by the desire for joy.

And tonight I am here to declare to you that if that is true, there is no better place in the world for all of us to be than here at Converge tonight.

Let me explain why…

GOD - You know God created you right? tells the story of God creating humanity. In We see that God has created you, and he created you intentionally.

English Standard Version Psalm 139

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

14  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

15  My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16  Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Because God made you. He created you. He is the designer, you are not. He knows whats best for you. You do not.

Illustration: Play-doh : How crazy would it be for this piece of play-doh my creation to go, “Hey I know Ive only been created for like 5 seconds, but I don’t really like how you’ve created me and I think my way of living is better than what you have for me.”

Does a baby know whats best for them when they are 6 months old? Karis tried to eat my elbow off last night. Clearly she doesn’t know whats best for her. But, her mother does.

Point: God created us, and because he created all of us, he knows what is best for us. He created you a certain way and the way he created you is for joy to drive the decisions you make.

Here me say this…The reality that joy drives our decision making is really good news. Its good news because the greatest level of joy possible is experienced only as we encounter the presence of Jesus.

Simple: If you want to experience the greatest joy possible, pursue Jesus.

Let me prove it to you, turn in your bible to

Hope’s Sermon series called the Talk: an Honest conversation about God’s design for sex and purity. 2015Book - Single, dating, engaged, married:Navigating life and love in the modern age. By Ben StuartThe Mingling of Souls by Matt Chandler - This book dramatically shaped how Griffin and I dated and pursued each other and I would highly recommend it. 

English Standard Version Psalm 16

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Context: David is talking again and he is talking to God.

He says two things about the joy that we all so desperately desire.

With that being said, let me introduce our topic tonight this way...

Where Joy is Found.

In the presence of the Lord

Here is the reality tonight, we can find joy in a number of different places. God is a good Father and he gives his children different opportunities to experience Joy all the time. He does it through our friends, experiences, our food! But all those joys a small in comparison to the joy he wants to give us as we seek his presence!

Verse - “in your presence there is fullness of joy”

Fullness - . A lot, more than enough. It doesn’t just mean full, it means overflowing. Literally translated means Superabundance.

God says, hey the things of earth are awesome and they provide good joy, but if you want not just good job but a SUPER amount of Joy, you will find it only in my presence.

But listen this gets better, because its not just that we get to experience an unbelievable amount of joy, but we actually get to experience different types of joy.

Joy- Literally in Hebrew is Plural, its JOYS.

There are joys in this life that I have yet to experience but will only experience as I seek the presence of God.

God wants it to be known to everyone that the joys that we so desire is only going to be found in the presence of God!

How long we can experience it?

Forever - From now until eternity!

Application: So to answer the question: Why should we pursue Jesus?

Because the Joy that we so desperately desire is found only as we pursue Jesus.

All made possible by the Gospel

All made possible by the Gospel

All made possible by the Gospel

This could not happen if it wasn’t for Jesus and his death and his rising.

Holy-Not Holy

For some of you tonight, what I am going to say to you is going to seem so backwards, old fashioned, and not relevant to you, and for those of us who desire to date right and for the right reasons, in many ways its going to seem HARD. 

YOU: I think one of the main reasons you fail to spend time with Jesus on a consistent basis is because you think its boring. Its boring or you feel like your not getting much out of reading a book.

Can I be honest for a minute? If spending time with Jesus is simply reading a book, then i understand why you don’t do it on a consistent basis.

But what if we changed our thinking from reading a book to meeting a person?

What if spending time with Jesus was no longer just about reading a chapter in a book, but rather entering into a meeting with the God of the Universe?

I’ll be honest, thats not boring.

But I want to remind you of something right from the beginning.  

God created the world and you - Designer

WE: I have told you that if God would answer one prayer for me and one prayer only it would be that he would give all of us a burning desire to spend time with Jesus.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them”. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply” v. 31 and God saw everything hat he had made and behold it was VERY good."

What would happen?

What would happen is that we would begin to look like the very people that God created us to be. Things would begin to look like they are supposed to look like.

God also created Marriage and God created Sex and he said it was very good. 

In the same way that God has a good design for the world, he has a good design for how our relationships should work. 

We would begin to experience the Joys that God gives us and we would realize that our friends need to get in on something this good.

YOU: "Okay, but why do I need to know that?” - You need to know that God is for you not against you. He wants to give you the fullest life possible. I would go as far to say that he wants the happiest life possible for you. But here is what he knows and what you need to know. He knows that the only way for that to happen is for you to walk and live in the design that he created. 

Story: Let me be clear and up front with you. The guy talking to you is not perfect or anywhere close to being perfect. Especially when it came to the dating realm of things. You are listening to a guy who has a lot of regrets and knows first hand the devastation and hurt that can come from dating someone in a way that is outside of God’s design. 

Invitation:

Gospel call- Jesus died so that you could enter into his presence. Will you receive the gift?

Dated girl for almost three years not the way God would have me date, and not only did I walk away hurt and with scars that I wish I didn’t have. But she does as well. 

Christian call- Too many of us are looking for other things rather than God for our satisfaction. What if tonight, we repented of those things and decided to pursue Jesus for our satisfaction?

Then I met Griff, and Jesus by his grace helped me date her better, but in no way perfect. 

What do you need to repent of?

So the second thing I want to say to you is not only do I know the pain of doing this wrong, but  I also know personally the grace that is available to all of us in Jesus. Understand something; perfection is not the goal, walking in the right direction is.

The joy that we so desperately desire is found only as week seek after Jesus.

So tonight, I want help you start walking in the right direction. 

And to do so we need to have a proper understanding of what dating is. So here is a good definition of dating.

Dating: is not a status to dwell in, but a process to move through. Its a series of actions meant to lead us towards a particular end - Marriage. 

After an initial season of hanging out getting to know each other as friends, hearing about their reputation, seeing them commit to things, seeing them navigate difficult days, seeing their character, it could be time to start dating. 

Story: Griffin and I tried to do this. Story of how we met and started dating. 

I knew Griffin was the type of person I desired to be in a godly and good dating relationship with.

When I recognized that, we broke off from just hanging out with friends and now we were hanging out with each others family. And eventually it turned into an “Official” dating relationship when I asked her out on October 17, 2014 in Atlanta on a bridge. 

So now our relationship began, and I believe that for those of us who are going try and start walking in the right direction when it comes to dating, there are some things that need to be present in order for a dating relationship to be good and godly. 

Reciprocity - Both of you like each other. Guys - , You and I are to treat women as sisters. We should treat women as sisters to look out for. We should want to protect, encouraged and love  our sisters. Its never okay to make a woman feel unsafe or pressured. If she says its not going to happen, then hear me, its not going to happen. So when you keep  sending texts and she keeps not responding…bout time to move on brother.Girls - if you really like a fella, but he’s just not interested, you gotta move on. Don’t throw down an ultimatum or threaten the little boy. Learn to trust that God has got someone better for you down the road. Point: if you guys don’t like each other, its not going to work. But here me say this, don’t look for someone who only likes you for your attractiveness, look for someone who reciprocates a desire to honor Jesus in your relationship above all else. 

Transition: Which leads to the second thing thats needs to be present in your relationship.

Encourage each other towards Jesus. When you study the book of Song of Solomon, you see Solomon complimenting his eventual wife. Pointing out things she’s good at. And he pointed her towards the only one who could truly satisfy her. Understand something students, there is no person out there who is going to complete you. No one. Not some perfect dude who’s 6 4. Not some beautiful and even godly girl who will play video games with you. There is no human being on earth capable of doing a job only Jesus could do. Griffin does not complete me, and I do not complete her. She’s about as close to Jesus as you can get and she still does not complete me. At times she fails me, and more often I fail her. If I walk around life with the belief that my wife completes me, what am I going to do when she fails me? Whats going to happen is I’m going to put weights and chains on her and vice versa that neither of us were created to bear. By believing that one of us completes each other makes that person a god to us. And can I be honest, I am a pretty crummy god. So in any good dating relationship, you both have to be pushing each other towards godliness and towards Jesus. Application: If your boyfriend or Girlfriend is not making you love Jesus more, then get out while you can. Do you talk about God when you are around each other? 

The third thing that you need to have in a godly and good dating relationship is for it to be…

Approved by Godly CounselAgain when you study the book of Song of Solomon, you see their friends excited and affirming of their relationship together.  says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” Brothers and sisters, if you have godly friends and family expressing nervousness about your relationship, then you would be wise to listen. Love makes you blind. You don’t see everything you are supposed to see. But understand something other people do. Kyle Hurlburt - Mentor never liked my girlfriends. Until griffin. “The godly people in our lives often see things we can’t, or sometime refuse to see.”What have people said to you? Are you listening? Have you sought out counsel?

PurityLet me remind you, it is a good and right thing for you to have a desire fro physical intimacy. God created you for it in the right context.  says, “I adjure you o Daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until its time”. What he means is that don’t get started down that road until its the right time. When is the right time? On your wedding night. God created ALL sexual activity to be enjoyed in the context of marriage and to awaken any of that before its time is to rob you of joy that God intends to give you. To walk in impurity in your relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend is only going to cause you more pain and sorrow than the momentary joy you feel in the moment. What I am about to say to you is where you are going to go yeah thats jacked up, backwards and old fashioned. So then Trenton where is the line?  Let me read you a text. . According to the Bible For guy we have, Mothers, Sisters an