Finding the North Star

How many of you have seen the pirates of the carribean movies? Captain Jack Sparrow, black pearl right? so i want you to imagine you’re the captain of one of those big boats okay. Okay, so if I told you to just take that boat and go sail around in the ocean, what do you think would happen? you might get lost, you might hit a storm, you might come to a dangerous part of the ocean.

But ya see, a skilled sea captain wouldnt just go out and sail around the sea for fun. A skilled captain would have two things in mind. A place and a plan. First the captain would have a place, a destination, a goal right? you’re carrying something, or maybe you’re a military boat going to partrol a place, you dont just go out aimlessly. And second they would have a plan. They would use their knowledge of the sea, and history to come up with a navigation plan, they would chart a course os they arrive at their destiantion safely and efficeintly.

And as I was thinking about this series on relationships , I started to think about this imagery. That sometimes, navigating relationships can be like navigating the ocean. Some of us just take our boats out willy nilly and just kinda cruise around and everythings fine - until we hit a sandbar and the ship starts sinking. Or we steer ourselves into a storm because we didnt navigate properly. Just like the ocean, relationships can have a lot of dangers and if we arent careful about how we navigate them, we wind up getting hurt. Some of you have maybe already been there. Maybe you’ve been in a relationship and you’ve gone farther physcially than you should have. Or maybe some of you have been hurt by a breakup because you dated someone you should have never been dating in the first place.

We have to figure out how to navitage these waters. We have to use wisdom, use the bible to chart our course. Because here’s the thing. If we dont let the bible define how we date, we’ll let the world define how we date. You are always being discipled, so if we dont learn in church the right way to date, the world will naturally teach you the wrong way to date.

as I was studying for this series I saw some statistics that I thought were interseting

surverys show that highschoolers now are dating less then teens in the 90s

1 in 3 teens experience some kind of abuse in their romantic relationships.

35% of teens have been broken up with over text

21% of teen daters report that a current or former boyfriend, girlfriend or partner has read their text messages without permission.

22% of teens with relationship experience have had a partner use the internet or a cellphone to call them names, put them down or say really mean things to them.

15% of teen daters report that a current or former partner spread rumors about them using digital platforms like mobile phones or the internet.

15% of teen daters (or 5% of all teens) say a current or former partner used the internet or text messaging to pressure them to engage in sexual activity they did not want to have.

Study of North Georgia Highschool students:

Non-dating students had similar or better interpersonal skills than their more frequently dating peers. While the scores of self-reported positive relationships with friends, at home, and at school did not differ between dating and non-dating peers, teachers rated the non-dating students significantly higher for social skills and leadership skills than their dating peers.

Students who didn't date were also less likely to be depressed. Teachers' scores on the depression scale were significantly lower for the group that reported no dating. Additionally, the proportion of students who self-reported being sad or hopeless was significantly lower within this group as well.

Why do I tell you all of this? Am I saying that dating is of the devil and no one should do it? No - but what I am saying is that the way the world does dating isnt working well. Its filled with Anxiety and stress, selfishness and pain. We need a better way. And guys the bible has the answers. and so over the course of this series we’re going to learn from the bible on how to handle relationships and dating.

1 John 4:7-12

1 John 4:7–12 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

So here’s my premise tonight. normally i build up to it - but here’s what I want you to know tonight.

Before you can have a healthy relationship with any person, you need to have a healthy relationship with God

Well Ben why do you say that? Because the Bible makes that abundently clear. The bible is far more concerned with your relationship status with God than your relationship status with another person. If we take all the bible passages on dating, marrage and relationships it’d be about this much [hold up time portion of the bible]. So whats the rest of this about? its about the charcter of the God of the universe and about how we can have a relationship with him. So before we talk about dating relationships, we have to find our North Star - the thing that always points North, the thing by which everything else makes sense. We first have to intinatley know God before we can know intimatley know someone else

Why?

If you have a source of life, you’ll be a source of life. Without a source of life, you’ll suck life from others.

Scuba diving story - is anyone in here

If you have a source of life, you’ll be a source of life. Without a source of life, you’ll suck life from others. We have a source of life in our connection with God, but without that connection, all you’ll do is take from others.

Go to creation - God desinged humanity to find their source of life in God. God breathes his very life in to us when he creates us. And gives us access to the tree of life, and He walks with humanity in the garden. And out of that life source, we’re supposed to go and cultivate the world. God designed us to partner with him to bring life to the world.

At the core of what it means to be a human is to be loved by God, to be in relationship with him, and to work with him to fill the world with life. So before we get too worried about getting the call from a boy or girl, lets focus on the call of God on our lives. To know him, and to make him known.

for some of you, finding a relationship is the most important thing in your life. But a relationship with the God of the universe is far more important than any relationship with a teenage boy or girl

because the tragedy is, when we stray from God, when we try to do relationships outside of his love - it always end badly. We see Adam and Eve stray outside of the source of life God gave them, and sin enters in to the world. And the next relationship we see, Cain and Able, ends with one killing the other.

When sin enters the picture we become takers of life, not givers of it. and unless we are reconnected with the love of God, we’ll never enter into a relationship giving life. All we’ll do is try to take. How can this person benefit me, how can I use this person to my advantage - and when they stop benefitting me, or I take all the life there is there - i move on. If we dont know God, we wont give life, we’ll just take life.

And we see this in our passage.

1 John 4:7-8

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

You wont do a relationship well if you havent first recieved the love of God.

So here’s my warning to you:

Dont run to relationships to fill a void only God can fill

“How does this help with dating? it takes the desperation out of dating. Because now you dont have to look to someone to fill all the vacencies in your soul - you have a river, you have a source of life. And that frees you up to be someone who genuinley cares about other people. ”

Some of you are so desperate to be in dating relationship because deep down you think it will fill a void in here ( maybe i’ll actually be somebody if I just get that girl to like me, if he likes me than that proves that I’m worth something, maybe if I get a boyfriend I wont feel so alone anymore) - so often we run to dating and relationships to fill a whole in our heart that only the God of the universe is able to fill. If you dont first recieve the love of God, you’ll run to dating relationships to take love from other people.

But thats the exact opposite of the love of God.

1 John 4:9-12

1 John 4:9–12 ESV

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That Christ didnt love us coming to take, but freely gave is own life that we might know God and come back into relationship with him. He gave everything because he loved us. Do you know that love? Are you conncected to the source of life? have you understood the love of God for you in Jesus? because when you do it changes everything. it changes your priorities, it changes how you love people - have you been changed by the love of God.

Before you even think about entering a dating relationship - make sure that the foundation of your life is built on a relationship with God.

At the end its the only thing that will matter. And if you get that right, everything else will move around that North Star.