Going all the way Part 2

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Going All The Way #2

(Music) Well, welcome to week number two of the series called, “Going All The Way,”

as we are looking at God’s principles to take our relationships the distance. I want to

welcome all of our campuses. Thank you guys so much for be

ing a part of all that God

is doing around the world, on the internet, and on television. Thank you, too, for tuning

in. I pray that today God will speak to you in a really awesome way.

Let’s review our key principle from last week. At all of our campu

ses, those of you that

remember, to really be fulfilled in life, you have to find the “One.” You have to find The

One. To really be fulfilled in life, you have to find the One. Who is the One? The One

is ... Jesus is the One. To really be fulfilled in l

ife, you have to find the One. Today,

though, we are going to talk about finding the Two. If God blesses you with a spouse,

your spouse is the Two. Week number three, we will talk about sex. For those of you

with kids fifth grade and under, I would rec

ommend that you do take them to Life Kids

next week, and then week number four, you’ve asked for it, you will get it. Week Four

will be devoted to your questions. Log on the web site

www.lifechurch.tv

, click on

“

Going All The Way.” Ask your questions. Keep them clean. I will address them. The

hard ones, I will ask Amy to answer.

Let’s do this today, “How do we find the Two?” Let me tell you a story that is very

common today. The story often goes like this:

Once upon a time, boy meets girl. Boy

thinks girl smells good. Boy thinks girl looks good. Boy asks girl out for a date. Girl

giggles and says, “Yes.” Boy takes girl to a restaurant. Girl orders expensive meal.

Boy panics. Boy pays anyway. Girl a

sks boy to her apartment. Boy goes to girl’s

apartment. Boy and girl go in. Boy and girl sit down on sofa. Boy looks goggly

-

eyed at

girl. Girl looks goggly

-

eyed at boy. Boy tilts head to the right. Girl tilts head to the right.

Boy and girl kiss.

Boy and girl like each other. Boy stays the night at girl’s apartment.

Boy and girl start doing married things. Even though boy and girl aren’t married, boy

and girl live together. Try out marriage. One day, boy meets another girl. Dumps girl.

Break

s girl’s heart. Girl rebounds with another boy, and does this over and over and

over again. One day, boy meets special girl. Girl meets special boy. Boy and girl

marry different boy and girl. Ten years later, they are all divorced, and they all wonder

,

“What went wrong?”

Obviously, a gross over simplification, but you would have to admit that there are a lot of

common elements to that story to what we are seeing all over the world today. What

went wrong? Well, for one thing, boy and girl often do ma

rried things, even though they

are not married. In other words, they are kind of practicing marriage, playing house if

you will. So, since they are kind of pretending to be married, when things don’t work out

in a very real sense, they are practicing div

orce. And on the road to meeting that

“special” person, oftentimes, people have played marriage with many people, practiced

divorce with many people. Is it any wonder then, when in marriage, things get tough,

why so many people go back to what they pract

iced for years, which is divorce?

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God wants something better for His children. If you are taking notes today, at all of our

campuses, here is our key thought, “If you want something that you’ve never had, you

must do something that you’ve never done.”

If you want to go to a place that you’ve

never been, you’ve got to travel on a road that you’ve never traveled before. If you want

what everyone else has in this world, then travel the road that everyone else travels. If

you want something, though, that

is different, you are going to have to take a different

route. Scripture says it this way, Romans 12:2. The Bible says, “Don’t copy the,” what?

All of our campuses, say it out loud. “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this

world.” Just because ev

erybody else is doing it doesn’t mean that it’s God’s best. “But

let God,” do what? “Let God transform you,” how? “Into a new person by changing the

way you think.” Then you will know what God wants you to do. Today, perhaps, God

will change the way t

hat we think. Let me just say up front, we are going to look at

some things from a different perspective. You may say, “Craig, that’s just not normal.”

Bingo! Because the bottom line is, I don’t want anything to do with what is normal

today.

What is

normal when it comes to finances? Debt! I don’t want anything to do with

normal. No debt! What is normal when it comes to relationships? Divorce. I don’t

want anything to do with normal. Or, staying together for the sake of the kids?

Admittedly, a

good motivation, but less than God’s best. I don’t want anything to do with

normal. So, today when I present to you some ideas that are abnormal, maybe

abnormal is better than normal. Look at scripture. I Corinthians 3:18, “Stop fooling

yourselves. I

f you think you know it all ...” Okay? “If you think you are wise by,” what?

Say it out loud,

“by this world’s standards, you have to become a,” what? “You have to

become a fool.” Why? “So you can become wise by,” what? “By God’s standards.” If

you t

hink you know it all and you are doing what everybody else does, following the

customs and the patterns of this world, maybe today, we are going to talk about

something that a lot of people would say, “That’s foolish!” From the world’s

perspectives, God’s

standards are foolish, but God’s results always exceed the

standards of this world. So, if you are tempted to say, “Craig, that’s kind of foolish

compared to the way that I have been raised,” that’s exactly the point. Today, I will give

you some foolish

thoughts very different from thinking the way the world does. What we

want is a higher standard. We will not follow the standards of this world.

Three areas if you are taking notes, let’s dive into them aggressively. The first area is

this: “I will

have a higher standard on who I will see, who I will date, who I will court,

who I will spend some time with. The bottom line, for me, will not be “what does she

look like,” although I will argue all day long that appropriated attraction is a good thing,

yet it is not the bottom line. Gentlemen, you need to know, be careful whenever a girl

wants to set you up on a blind date with her friends. They’ll mess you up. Okay? Girls

don’t understand, plus they speak in code language. They are saying things t

hat they

are not really saying. Let me just, based on my pastoral studies, let me give you insight.

If a girl says to you, “I want to set you up with my friend and she loves children,” what

she really means is, “She’s pregnant and needs a husband.” You

need to know these

things, guys. Okay? If she says, “Oh, she’s great. She’s the outdoor type.” She’s the

outdoor type? That means she hunts, chews tobacco, and shaves her faces. That is

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what she’s saying about her friend. Guys, if she ever says, “She

has strong family ties,”

either she’s a Mafia princess or she is over thirty and still lives at home. These are the

things that you need to know.

As a Christ follower, if you are a fully devoted follower of Christ, we will have a higher

standard on who

we will see. Scripture says it this way, II

.

Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be,”

what? Help me out, everybody, “Do not be yoked together with,” whom? With ... a

Christ follower will not unite with a non

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Christ follower. What does a believer have in

common wit

h a non

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believer? Now, what in the world does that word “yoked” mean?

Well, a yoke was a, and is, a piece of wood kind of like with two humps, and you could

join two animals together so they could plow a field. In the Old Testament, there is a

verse tha

t says, “Do not yoke together an ox and a donkey.” Why? It would be cruel to

both of them. One was known as a clean animal; one was unclean. One is bigger; one

is smaller. They are going to try to go in different directions. They will not work well

t

ogether. I prefer the King James Version. It says, “Do not yoke together an ox and an

ass.” Apply that as you will. Okay? The point is, in marriage, it would be cruel to join a

Christ follower with a non

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Christ follower. Why? You may ask, when thing

s are so

good on the front side of marriage. On the other side of marriage, let me promise you,

you will have more conflict than you could ever imagine because you have two entirely

different world views. The Christ follower will have one perspective on

money, on

disciplining children, on philosophies of raising children, on how we spend our time.

What you will find is, it is cruel to have two people joined together with entirely different

world views. Now, you may say, “Oh, but she’s so good looking an

d kisses so good.”

“Oh, he’s got like a six pack and a tight toochy toochy,” you know, and all this kind of

stuff. Listen, when your kid gets sick and you are one the way to the emergency room,

it doesn’t matter what kind of six pack he has. If he can’t

petition God with faith by

prayer, you don’t have anything effective at that moment. You want someone who is

pursuing the One, seeking God with all of their heart. Outside of God, relationships

don’t work as they are supposed to.

Now, that raises the

question, okay, you meet someone. How do you know if this

person is passionate about Christ? How do we know? How do we know? I mean, like,

“I’ve got that tingly, wingly feeling, like, I like what I see. Is this person on fire for God?”

If you are ta

king notes, the answer to the question is my foolish answer. How do you

know if they are passionate about Christ? You will know within the first thirty minutes of

any conversation. Oh, yeah, baby. You are saying, “Craig, how could you make such a

broad

sweeping statement?” I would make it because, if you meet someone that is

important to you, watch how every single time, you will massage or manipulate the

conversation in the direction of that which is important to you. Watch it! You meet

someone. Yo

u want to impress them. You want them to like you. What do you value?

Well, you might say, “I value sports.” So, like, “Hey, what’s your name? What do you

do for a living? Uh, huh, that’s cool. Hey, did you play high school sports? Oh, me,

well, yo

u know, back in 1982, I could have taken State.” “Right? Whaaaa, what did you

major? What’s your major in college? Oh, you majored in that. Oh, me, what did I

major in? Pre

-

med. I’m going to be a doctor. Going to be a doctor ... yeah, I’m going

to be

a doctor, okay?” You will manipulate and massage the conversation within the 4

first thirty minutes toward whatever you value the most. “I was curious, did you grow up

in church? Did you go to church anywhere?” Because, what you need to understand,

is my

life has been dramatically changed by Jesus Christ. You will manipulate the

conversation if you don’t hear about a passion for Christ within the first thirty minutes, it

is not on the top end of their list. Now, you say, “Okay, there’s that foolish stuf

f again,

Craig, you are a fanatic. Preacher man doing preacher talk.” No, no, this isn’t preacher

talk. This is Christ follower talk. You cannot blend into this world and look like everyone

else and be a fully devoted follower of Christ. If you are fo

llowing Christ, you will not

follow the customs and standards of this world. You will be radically different, and that’s

the kind of person you want. You do not want normal, blend

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in, cultural Christianity.

You want surrender

-

your

-

life, full

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blown passi

on for God. You say, “Craig, do you live

that?”

Let me tell you how I met Amy, a one

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hundred percent true story. I was a new believer

in college, and there was this girl who now goes to our church and is like a fanatic

person, but at the time, she was

like, “Craig, you are out there. You are weird.” And

she said to me one time, I never will forget it. She said, “Craig, you’re like, man, you’re

like this fanatic guy. There’s this girl that you ought to meet. She’s weird just like you

are.” And tha

t’s what she said, and these are the exact words. She said, “Craig, her

name is Amy and she is overboard for God.” And that is the person that I married. The

description fit her perfectly. She was not like everyone else. She was overboard for

God. Ho

t, passionate, seeking the One with everything in her. Jesus talked about it

this way in Revelation. He said, “Hey, you are neither cold nor hot.” He said, “I wish

you were one or the other, so because you are,” what? Say it out loud, “so because

you a

re lukewarm, playing the game, blending in, kind of church

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goer but not really

passionate, playing the game, playing the part, acting like a Christ follower but not really

living it, so because you are like that,” Jesus said, “I am about to,” what? “I am

about to

puke you out. Can’t tolerate that. It’s not the real deal.” Higher standard on who we

will see. In every single way, God wants you with someone who’s hot ... hot and

passionate for the things of the Kingdom of God.

Higher standard number one,

at all of our campuses, say it out loud, “I will have a higher

standard for who I will see.” Thought number two, “I will have a higher standard on

what I will do,” or for some of you, “what I won’t do.” Have you ever noticed in church

how preachers are

always hardest on the guys? Anybody ever noticed that? Girls get

off easy. Girls get off easy. “Not today, ladies.” Girls, here is some of you, okay.

You’ve got this little tight stuff. Everything is hanging out. Walking around, “Praise

Jesus,” whi

ning, “I only attract the wrong kind of guys. All the bad boys come after me,

and they’re only interested in one thing.” Ladies, if you are always attracting the wrong

kind of guys, maybe you are fishing with the wrong kind of bait. Oohhh,

ooooohhhhhhhh

h. Sorry about that. Maybe God wants you to have a higher standard

of what you are going to do and what you are not going to do.

Scripture, I Peter 1:14

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15, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you

had when you,” what? When you ...

say it out loud, “When you lived in ignorance.”

That’s where so many people are today. They just don’t know any better. It like I

was just raised this way, just like everybody else. I’ve never given it a thought. I’ve

never looked at it that way.

” Here’s the good news. Maybe today, God will change the

way we think. The scripture goes on to say this, verse 15, “but just as he who called

you is holy, so be,” what? “Be holy,” in how much of your life? “In all you do.” Do you

think that would in

clude your relationships? Absolutely. Absolutely. What does holy

mean? It comes from the Greek word “hagios.” It means pure. Be pure. Be morally

blameless. Be set apart. Be different in all that you do. If you want something that you

have never h

ad, you have to do something you’ve never done. You’ve got to take a

different road to get to a different destination. You will decide ahead of time there are

certain things that I will not do to get a spouse. Now, what will your standard be? The

world

’s standards, your standards. Where will you set them? That’s between you and

God, but let me give you some guidance that may sound wonderfully foolish.

Let’s play a little game. At all of our campuses, please participate. I made it up and it is

call

ed the appropriate game. If you think this is appropriate, you vote by saying, “Yes,

appropriate.” If you think no, no, no, no, no, vote, “Inappropriate.” Here’s how the game

goes ... Imagine, if you will, that my wife, Amy, is out of town. After church,

I’m talking

to people out in the kind of gathering area. We are hanging out, and a cute girl comes

up to me and says, “Oh, Craig, oh, I loved your sermon. Ooooh, you look good in that

shirt. Oh, I love the title and the creativity, and you’re so funny.

” I’m like, “Oh, thank

you. You’re kind of cute. How would you like to stay the night at my house tonight.”

And she goes, “Oh, this must be a God thing. I would love to. I don’t have anything

going.” And so she comes over to my house and I say, “Hey

, you know the title of the

sermon, ‘Going All The Way?’ Hey, let’s do that.” She says, “Okayyyy.” Now, how

many of you would say that’s completely appropriate? You have sex with a woman

that’s not your wife, completely appropriate. Inappropriate. In

appropriate. You go,

“Dang, okay.”

Huh. Well, okay, let’s say this. No sex, but let’s just say we’ll do everything but. You

know, everything but ... Just kind of fool around, a little naked twister, okay? Right

hand green, you know. Okay. Everything

but, just fooling around. You say, “Okay,

now, Craig, you’re not having sex. That makes it appropriate.” Vote appropriate.

Inappropriate. Inappropriate. You guys are a tough audience. Okay, how about this.

No hanky panky. Let’s just cuddle. You

know, we’ll sleep together like two spoons, just

kind of cuddle, you know, this is not just, it’s kind of hard for me to say with a straight

face. You know, let’s cuddle, because the reality is, this is an issue at our house ... all

the stinking time. Ah,

Amy comes in. Wants me again. I say, “Please, let’s just cuddle

tonight. Just, let’s cuddle.” (laughter) Which is probably what we will be doing tonight.

All right, we’ve got six kids. We’ve done more than cuddle a few times. Okay. “We’re

just goi

ng to cuddle.” How many of you say, “Oh, okay. That‘s appropriate, Craig. It’s

appropriate. Appropriate. Appropriate.” Inappropriate. Inappropriate. Okay, let’s just

say we’re going to kiss, a little tonsil hockey, a little swappin’ spit. We’ll ala

aaaaaala.

How many of you say, “Okay, you’re just kissing. Now, that’s cool looking. Appropriate.

Appropriate.” Inappropriate. Inappropriate. Okay, nothing physical whatsoever. Just

emotional. Open up to her. Share my heart. Tell her things that

I don’t tell Amy. Think

about her all day long. Nothing physical ever happens. I just have a very strong 6

emotional attachment. From Amy’s perspective, how many of you think she’d say,

“Sure, Craig, go get two girls like that. Appropriate. Appropriat

e.” Inappropriate.

Inappropriate. Inappropriate.

Question: “Why did you say inappropriate on all those things?” Could it be that

perhaps you would say, “Well, Craig, you are married to Amy, and those are things that

are really appropriate for you t

wo to share in a marriage.” Good answer.

Question Two: “If doing those things are inappropriate for me outside of marriage

today, why would they be appropriate for single people to do outside of marriage in their

own lives?” Have you ever thought of

it that way? Do not pursue the customs and

standards of this world. Let God change the way you think. If it would be inappropriate

for me to have sex with, stay the night with, kiss, give my heart away, “I love you. I love

you. I’m sorry, I was just k

idding about that.” Here’s another one. “Oh, I love you.

Now, I love you. I lllllllolll ... I love you, and I mean it. I didn’t mean it with them. Ahhh

ahh.” If that would be inappropriate because those are marriage intimacies, why would

it be appropr

iate to give your body, your heart, and your soul away again and again and

again and again before marriage? Now, some of you are going to say, “Craig said I

can’t kiss if I’m dating.” I didn’t say that, but I did challenge you to think about it. And,

th

at might be something that you just have a radical standard and say, “You know what,

there are certain things I’m not going to do until I’m married,” and it would translate into

your life as this way, if you are taking notes. “I will wait until marriage t

o share the

intimate blessings of marriage.” I will wait until I am married to share the intimate

blessings of marriage. Hebrews 13:4 tells us, “Marriage should be honored by,” how

many? Would you share it out loud? All of the campuses, “Marriage shoul

d be honored

by,” say it again. By how many? “By all,” and the marriage bed should be kept what? It

should be kept (holy). If marriage should be honored by all, does that mean that people

who are married should honor marriage? Yes or no. The answer i

s ... If marriage

should be honored by all, does that mean people who are not married should honor

marriage? The answer is ... “I will wait until marriage to share the intimate blessings of

marriage. That’s a different way to think about it.

Marriage. Pe

ople who are married, let’s talk. Let’s just talk honestly. A lot of marriages

today aren’t doing very good. So, let’s think this through. So, maybe you didn’t do

everything right on the front end. Most of us didn’t. Maybe you made some mistakes

on t

he front end. Most of us did. But, bottom line is, hopefully, in almost every

marriage, if you got married, there was something special there at some time. There

was some reason, some level of intimacy, some passion, some union, some consistent

–

there

was something that brought you together. What happened between “this is the

person for me” and “I don’t love this person anymore”? Well, the answer is all sorts of

things. Basically, life happens. Sin happens. We get distracted. We start getting

self

ish. “She doesn’t do this,” and “We do that,” and poof, one day you wake up and

things aren’t what they once were. Review our key thought. If you want something that

you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something that you’ve never done.

Marriages. If y

ou want something that you once had, you must do something that you

once did. Let the power of that statement sink in. Jesus said it this way. In

Revelations, He said, “Repent and do the things you did at first.” If you want something

that you once had

, you’ve got to do something that you once did. Amy and I were

fifteen years into marriage, six kids, a lot of kids, and honestly, a pretty time consuming

job. We are today fifteen years into marriage more in love, more intimacy. It’s like we

are on our

honeymoon, only a thousand times better, because we’ve got fifteen years of

trust and intimacy and unity and oneness. It’s amazing! It’s, it’s, I never thought

marriage could be so good. I love her like I cannot tell you that I love this woman. But,

i

t hasn’t been at that level in our whole marriage. Honestly, fifteen months ago, we had

another baby. Imagine that! We started some campuses, which took a lot of work.

Imagine that! And what happened is, I slipped beneath the standards of God.

What

is God’s standard for me, the man of God and husband in the house? The

standard is for me to lay down my life and serve Amy as Christ served the church. I

slipped, became more about me. Amy is to be my partner, fulfilling the vision, mutually

submittin

g to one another, showing respect and honor, and quite honestly, we had a lot

of babies in diapers and she diverted her attention more to the kids and away from our

marriage. Things didn’t work as well. One day after fighting for a while, we looked at

ea

ch other and said, “What’s wrong with us?” and God just revealed to me this principle

that I taught before. If you want something you once had, you’ve got to do something

you once did. And, I said, “We haven’t been doing the things we used to do. We

hav

en’t been reading the Bible together. We haven’t been praying together. We

haven’t been farming the kids out and going out on dates where we can actually talk

together. I haven’t brought you $2.99 flowers from the grocery store, which are cheap,

but eff

ective, in a long time. We haven’t spoken together in really respectful words.

Physically, I’ve been kind of more about the end result than about the process. And, we

haven’t done things the way we used to.” And all of a sudden, guess what? We

changed

, and guess what we have today? The greatest blessings you could ever

imagine.

Marriages. If you want what you once had, you’ve got to do what you once did. Higher

standard. A higher standard on who we will see, on what we will do, and thought

numbe

r three, if you are taking notes, on what we will expect. Ephesians 3:20, “Now, to

him who is able to do immeasurably,” what? Say it out loud. “Immeasurably more

than,” what? Say it out loud, “than we can ask or imagine.” Now, to the God who can

do mo

re than you can dream up on your pathetic list of twenty

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two things you want in a

spouse, God will look at little lists we put together and say, “Can’t you dream bigger

than that? You don’t know how much I know and how much I want to give you.”

Ladies,

I want to speak to the good girls for just a second. Good girls, sweet girls.

Sometimes, I just want to knock you silly. Good girls who date bad guys, and all seven

hundred of the people that love you say, “He’s no good,” and you say, “You don’t know

h

im like I do. I can fix him. I can fix him. I can change him.” Smoke something else,

sweetheart, you can’t change him. You can’t change him. You are a Christ follower.

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You are a special creation of God. God wants someone who will lay down his life

to

serve you. Why would you settle for a fixer

-

upper?

Those who are Christ followers, “Well, you know, you know, I’ve been waiting for a while

and God’s not brought anybody. I’m going to the clubs to meet someone.” Oh, that’s a

good place to look for

someone seeking number One. “Okay, well, you know, we’re

tingly wingly, and we’re not going all the way, so we’re just going to kind of get loose on

the edges and kind of do some stuff.” You compromise on the standards of God, you

lose the blessings in

results of God in your life.

Those who are married. “God can never save our marriage. I’m sick of this person,

dadadada ...” How big of an insult could you ever say to God that He’s not big enough

to save your marriage? You show me any two people. I

don’t care what they’ve done,

where they’ve been, how bad you are hurt, how abusive that it’s been. Show me two

people submitted to the power of God, and I will show you a marriage that God can and

will heal. So many people that I know, “Oh, I’ve messed

up. I’ve did too many bad

things. I just, I blew it too big. I’m unworthy of a good relationship.” What an insult that

is to the God who can make you new in a moment. He is a God who makes all things

new. Don’t settle for what everyone else is settli

ng for. Never settle for less than God’s

best. Do not conform to the customs or the standards of this world, but let God change

the way you think transform you. Then you will know what God wants you to do. With

everything in us, we seek the One. If He

blesses us with the Two, we will unite and

serve Him better together than we could apart, but we never compromise on the

standards of God. Foolishness to this world, wisdom to the One who created the world.

All of our campuses, let’s pray. “God, we as

k that in Your holy presence, You would

change the way we think by the power of Your word and Your Spirit.”

Be honest, at all of our campuses, right now, be honest. Have you slipped beneath the

standard of God in your marriage? Now, you could easily po

int your finger at your

spouse and say, “Well, you’re not doing this.” Now, we are not talking about your

spouse. It’s between you and God at this moment. Have you slipped? Those of you

that are not married, have you, just like the rest of the world, s

ettled for a standard that

is less than God’s best? Maybe in a mindset, maybe in who you hang out with, maybe

the places you go? Maybe, what you’re doing. Maybe what you are doing right now.

You are with somebody that you know is not God’s best. How c

an God bring you the

right person when you are with the wrong one? You are wasting time and wasting

someone else’s life, as well. If you would look at your life and say, “You know what? I

am not following God’s standards,” either in marriage or outside

of marriage, “God,

forgive me. Transform me. Change me. Make me new.” If that’s your prayer, “God,

help me to live according to Your standards.” In marriage, preparing for marriage, or in

relationships in general, would you lift up your hands right no

w? All of the campuses, I

mean, just lift them up high. Fantastic! Hands all over the place.

“God, I ask that in Your holy presence, You would change the way we think. Forgive

us, God, for shooting so low, for copying what others do instead of pursuin

g Your heart 9

and Your ways. God, we thank You that Your ways are higher than our ways, and we

commit to follow You. Change the way we think. God, for hurting marriages, we pray

for supernatural healing. God, we pray for miracles even now at this moment

. Break

cold hearts in half. God, may there be repentance and humility, mutual submission and

sacrifice. Bring the marriages back to the place of wholeness. God, for those who are

seeking the Two, may they seek the One with so much passion ...”