Introduction & Framing the Question

This is the question that you guys stuffed the boxes with. I don’t know if you all worked together, but there were a lot of questions in this regard. So, we’re going to spend some time on it. Can Pete and some leaders hand out note sheets?

The question was: what does the Bible say—or what do you think—about age and dating, crushes, marriage? I think this is word-for-word from one of the questions, but all of them tended to ask something along these lines. How should I think about dating? There were lots of “are crushes okay?” I think there were two questions specifically on that. I’m not sure if you guys strategized together and both dropped that one in.

Obviously, some of you are thinking about this, and for some of you, it might not even be on your radar. The other gender is still “cooties,” or you’ve made up your mind, or whatever it is. But I do want you to know this question is actually critical. It’s a little bit uncomfortable—I know. It might be something that’s hard to think about. You might not care. Or maybe it’s the most pressing question in your life. But getting this question wrong is one of the quickest ways to ruin your life, to make a shipwreck of your faith, to steer you away from the faith. And getting this question right is one of the best ways to help propel you toward the Lord and toward glorifying Him with your life.

So, I know it’s silly. I know that it’s weird. I know for some of you it seems so far in the future, and for others, you might not love the answer I give. I think of Romans 12:2—if you remember when Mr. Jarka was here, he taught on, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” I want you to know that dating is one of the places—dating, marriage, what’s normal in relationships—is one of the ways in which we are most threatened to be conformed to the image of this world, and it’s one of the areas where we need to stand out most from this world.

Let your thoughts, your views of what’s normal, natural, what you’re aiming at—let them be informed by God’s Word. Judge what you hear me say, because the question is what do you think? What I think doesn’t really matter much, right? What does God’s Word say? Or at least, what does a worldview informed by God’s Word say? That’s truly the most important question. So even judge what I say by God’s Word.

Crushes: What Are They and Are They Okay?

First, let’s just jump in. What does the Bible say, or what do you think, about crushes? We answered this question last year, but we’ll do it again. I asked you guys, “What is a crush?” and I got some answers, but the best I could discern—because, actually, I have a crush on my wife, but that’s a funny way to use the word. Most people don’t say, “I have a crush on my wife,” or “I have a crush on my husband.” That word is generally reserved for people who are not your spouse. And that’s probably the way you’re thinking about it when you say, “What do I think about crushes? Are they okay?”

So, as I tried to define this, my definition was: desire, romantically or physically, for somebody who’s not your spouse. Is there any pushback on that? I want it. If you’re like, “Nope, that’s not what I mean,” I want you to tell me, because at the heart of it, when you think about that—“I have a crush on this boy,” or, “I have a crush on this girl,” or this actor or actress—at the heart of it, when I define it like that, it sort of answers itself. It’s a desire for somebody not my spouse.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” What you do with your life comes from your heart. So you might think, “A crush is fine, right? I’m not going to do anything with that person. It just makes me feel good, or it’s entertaining, or something to talk about with my friends.” But think about what’s going on in the crush. You’re desiring somebody who it is sinful for you to desire in that way. If I have it wrong, I’m open to hearing another meaning, but I couldn’t come up with one.

Proverbs 31:30, speaking of the girls that guys should desire—or you could take the same concept—says, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” So, when you have a crush—guys, I know “crush” might not be the word you normally think, but if you find yourself thinking a lot about a girl, what is the thing that makes her most attractive to you? Is it her beauty? Her outward beauty? There’s nothing wrong—God made us desire, made girls attractive to us, made guys attractive to girls. That’s a gift, but not a gift to be used towards everybody, but a gift to be enjoyed and even cultivated toward your spouse.

None of you kids are married yet, which means you actually shouldn’t be desiring or finding yourself attracted in that way that pulls your heart down a path where it ought not go—toward the other sex or, even worse, toward someone of the same sex in a way that God forbids. Rather, guys, when you’re looking for a woman, a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. That’s what you should be looking for. That’s what you should be praying for. Guard your heart so that you’re the kind of guy that a woman who fears the Lord says, “Yep, that’s who I want.” So when you’re ready, you’re attracted to the right person. You’ve guarded your heart, and now you’re ready to actually glorify God in what this world just longs for.

This world seems infatuated, overwhelmed with romance—guys, girls together, romance stories in movies. That’s the storyline: love at first sight, and then happy forever after. But the world rarely gets—sometimes they get a glimpse—of what God created marriage to be. But Christians who guard their heart get it. They actually get to enjoy what God made marriage to be. So guard your heart. Reserve your heart for that.

Song of Solomon 8:4—Song of Solomon is a book actually all about sex and marriage. Do you know what it says to the young girls? It’s a book of the Bible; God invented this. He says, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.” Timing matters, right? If you’re sitting here and the world all around you is not guarding their heart, and you’re someone who wants to honor the Lord, don’t follow them by saying, “Oh, I’m just going to let my heart play with sin. I’m going to see how close I can get to sin and not cross the line.” Rather, discourage relationship practices that heat the heart with no aim at marriage.

That doesn’t mean the other sex is bad; it actually is something—don’t awaken it until it’s time. Guard your heart, and then when you’re ready, pursue it for the right reasons. Don’t awaken or practice in your mind or in your relationships things that heat the heart and make you desire things that would only be sin for you. Certainly, don’t simulate marriage when you’re not pursuing marriage, and especially when you’re not married.

In some senses, dating is a path toward simulating marriage. It’s not something to be taken lightly. It’s not something to be done just for fun. There’s a danger because if you’re acting in a way—becoming emotionally bound toward somebody who’s not your spouse—and then one day you’re married and you look back, you realize you spent time aiming toward simulating marriage in some ways. Some ways are just sin, and some ways match dating, but don’t do that thoughtlessly, frivolously. Don’t awaken in you what you cannot righteously sustain.

Does that make sense? That’s what a crush is—a crush is trying to awaken in you something you can’t pursue righteously. And dating somebody who you ought not to date—and we’re going to get to what that is—or even dating somebody who maybe is fine to date but well before you have any intention or ability to righteously sustain that is probably something, in the aim to guard your heart, you want to be careful about.

It’s very helpful for you and your friends not to be the sole determiner of, “Am I ready?” Involve your parents in that question. Involve me in that question. Involve your leaders in that question—people who’ve walked that path ahead of you. I shared some of that this morning, right? We don’t run this race of faith alone. There are people who’ve gone ahead, who know what needs to be thrown off, what weights, what sins, and can help us. If you want to honor the Lord, if you want to pursue the Lord, involve your parents, involve your leaders, involve your pastors. You can involve your friends, but certainly trust the advice of those who’ve done it well, who have a marriage like what you’re aiming at.

Marriage and Yoking: Who Should We Pursue?

Who knows 2 Corinthians 6:14? Can you guys turn there? That’s the classic marriage passage. The question is, what do I think about age and dating, crushes, and marriage? I think I destroyed crushes; I hope I defined dating—that it’s a path toward marriage and something that should be pursued when ready, not awoken before that. Guard your heart. But now, what about marriage? What are we aiming at in relationships?

This passage doesn’t actually have marriage in mind as Paul wrote it, but it’s a principle for all of life: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This is a command for Christians. Now, if you’re not a Christian here, if you do not love the Lord and you’re not seeking Him, you have bigger problems, and we’re going to address that. But I’m going to speak to people who say, “I want to follow the Lord. I am following the Lord, or I’m trying to figure it out. I think I want to follow the Lord, but I want to see, I need to test myself.” Well, this is a good test: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has light with darkness?”

Who knows what a yoke is? Can you come up here? We have an illustration. This verse is not about marriage, but it’s a really helpful word picture. This is a yoke. We don’t use yokes much, but what you would do with a yoke—you would put it around the necks of two oxen. Two oxen—you would not want to mismatch heights like this—but the main point is: do you see how they would drag tools behind them, and where one went, the other would go? Let’s walk backward. You see how we’re yoked together? Where one goes, the other goes. In marriage, two become one. Where one goes, the other goes, and you will affect each other’s actions, affect each other’s hearts.

Now, what direction? We learned about this this morning, right? The race course that a believer is on is aiming at Christ and what pleases Christ. Remember when Ephesians describes the course of the world—the unbelievers? Ephesians 2 describes the direction: following the prince of the power of the air—that’s Satan—and heading toward destruction, “sons of wrath like the rest of mankind.” One is going toward eternal life, pleasing the Lord; the other is following Satan, going to destruction. Do you see how light and darkness—those two things can’t be further apart? It doesn’t matter if both of you love the same baseball team, have the same hobbies. “They’re so cute, I like him more than any other Christians. It’s fine. He doesn’t hate God. Maybe he’s open to religion. Whatever your excuse is—light and dark.”

Watch what happens: one’s going one way, one’s going the other way. One of us is going to win. You’re going to go together. And Christian, darkness—if you’re a Christian, he says, “Throw away sin. Set aside anything—a weight, a hurdle, something that will slow you down or make you not finish the race.” Can you think of anything more destined to mess you up and not let you finish than yoking yourself together, binding yourself together like two oxen, and saying, “Oh yeah, I’m still going to finish this race.” It’s not going to go well. You still can—if somebody comes to Christ after being married, there’s still hope for that person. There are actually commands, and that person can trust the Lord as they honor Him in a very difficult relationship, but there will be difficulty.

So, what do I think about marriage? Pursue it. Because if you’re yoked to somebody—you can imagine what that would look like—you help each other along on this race of faith. You are yoked together with wives, the one who is trying to emulate Jesus’s love—who loved us and gave Himself for us. And guys, you’re trying to say, “Hey, I’m going to be married to a woman. I’m going to give myself in selfless love, aiming at sanctifying her with the Word.” And women, you’re going to look for the guy who says, “I want to submit to that because he’s leading me to Christ.”

Until you are ready to be yoked together, and until you’re the kind of person who ought to be yoked—you’re not perfect, you don’t have it all together, but you are running this race toward Christ with all of your heart, and you say, “Hey, can you run this with me?” I think we can glorify God more together than apart. If you can say that—and that’s the norm for Christians—if you can say that, pursue marriage.

But the Bible also says to those who are single—this is not an encouragement to stay single, but an encouragement in your singleness—that you can still honor the Lord. There’s encouragement in 1 Corinthians 7 that the single person can more wholeheartedly serve the Lord because they aren’t worried about how to please a spouse, but their only concern, if they’re a Christian, is how to please the Lord. So if you’re going to have a split devotion—one for the Lord, and one for somebody else—it better be that you two together are able to please the Lord better together than apart. It was worth me bringing in a really heavy yoke to say: this is super serious. As we talk about this race of faith and endurance and running well, realize this question actually feeds into that so well.

You might be saying, “Jake, you’re taking this way too seriously. I don’t want to be married. I just want a really good friend to do fun stuff with.” 2 Timothy 2:22 says, “Now flee youthful lusts, flee youthful passions, the kinds of things that draw you away from single-hearted devotion to the Lord, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.”

So the question to ask is, would pursuing this person actually be a pursuit of righteousness? When it’s time, the answer is absolutely yes. Many of you guys are not that far off age-wise. There are some who got married young—like the Kellsos, I think at 17 or 18. Kiki and I got married at 20 and 21. Then there are others who, in God’s providence, may never get married or may get married much later. You don’t know. But the aim is: be the kind of person that, when the Lord provides somebody, you can say, “Yeah, run with me. We’re going to glorify God better together than apart.” If you’re doing that, you’re actually just being faithful in the race course God put in front of you, and you’re going to be able to see rightly to run well in the race of faith together when you’re married.

That was a longer answer than most, but it ties into tonight. I wanted to take time; I know with as many questions in the box, I wanted to hit that pretty thoroughly.

Q&A: Clarifying Crushes, Dating, and Parental Authority

Any questions following up on that? Was something I said not clear, or do you have, “Yeah, but what about this?” Anybody have any follow-ups or clarification questions?

Gabby, I just remember the right… Yeah, absolutely. If you guys heard that—that’s absolutely right. The desire isn’t wrong. The desire of, “I wish I was married,” or, “I really like boys,” or, “I really like girls,” or, “I want to be married someday. I would love to date right now.” The desire isn’t wrong. The desire points you to a great gift that God invented. But not all desires—or not the thing that you’re desiring—a good thing at the wrong time is wrong, but desiring a good thing and being patient, waiting, and then expressing contentment until the right time and the right provision is absolutely right. So that wasn’t so much a question as, “Jake, you forgot to mention something important.” I appreciate that.

Cameron, what else did I miss? Yes, if I wasn’t clear enough: your parents need to be involved in that decision, first and most. Yeah, first. They are the authority, and if they say no, even if you think it’s the right time, it is absolutely not right. You can’t disobey your parents while you’re under their authority and pursue something righteously. Express your desires to your parents. Talk openly with them. They might feel like the last person you should talk to—or I might feel like the last person you should talk to, or your discussion leader. “That would be awkward. That would be weird.” No, they’re absolutely the right person you should be talking to. I promise we won’t shut you down. We want to be involved in those thoughts and those decisions, to help you make wise decisions and to guard your heart from things you don’t even know are dangerous.

Running the Race of Faith: Recap & Application

So this morning we talked about running the race of faith. I’m going to remind you of those first two verses, remind you what we said really quickly, and then we’re going to look at application. This isn’t going to be a full message; you’ll have to think back and fill in the gaps from what I said this morning. We’ll talk about some application and then go to discussion groups and talk about this.

Just to remind you what we read this morning: “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that’s set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” You can see there’s one main command: run with endurance. Two means for how you’re going to endure—as you run: the first is to lay aside every weight and sin that so easily entangles.

So I called the students out—it’s for everybody, but we really need to think about it in the context of dating, but really in the context of life. We need to not just ask, “Is it sin?” If it’s not sin, it’s okay. If it’s sin, it’s not okay, right? The race of faith is the things we do—every word, every action, every thought. If you think back to camp, it’s the look, think, step, right? Look and think: what would please the Lord before you step. But the looking and the thinking—it’s not merely “Is it sin? If it’s not sin, I can go ahead,” but rather, “What is it aiming at? Is it aiming at pleasing the Lord, or is it distracting me from pleasing the Lord?”

So ask, “Is it in the way? Is this thing I want to do, this direction I’m heading—is it in the way of greater faith and love and purity and courage and humility and patience and self-control?” Don’t ask merely, “Is it a sin?” This was actually from John Piper—he preached it when I was 17. I heard it when I was 19, and it changed my life. That’s why I love this passage, hearing this exact question: Don’t ask, “Is it a sin?” but ask, “Does it help me run? Is it in the way?” Don’t ask about your music, your movies, your parties, your habits—don’t say, “What’s wrong with it?” as a challenge to me or your parents. Instead, ask, “Does it help me run the race, or does it distract me from running the race? Is it a hindrance?” If it’s a hindrance, lay it aside.

If you can glorify God in it—all things are sanctified; they can be made holy through thanksgiving and prayer. If you can play a game and say, “Thank you, God, this is fun, I love problem-solving, I love doing this, and I’m still meeting all my obligations, obeying my parents, serving in the home, reading the Bible, disciplined in school, I love this video game—thank you, God, for the video game.” Enjoy it! Sports, same way. The music you listen to, the friends you have. And know that what’s okay for one person might be a distraction for another. But the thought isn’t, “Prove to me it’s wrong or I don’t do it,” but rather, “Will it help me in my race of faith to get to the end? Will it please the Lord, or does it distract me?”

If there’s sin, you have to set it aside. You cannot compromise with sin. Sin will entangle you. It will destroy you. If you’re heading toward righteousness and you’re sinning, what did you do? You turned around and you’re going toward sin—you’re going the wrong way. It’s not just stopping you on your race; you’re running the wrong direction. So, what do Christians do when they realize they sin? Christians aren’t sinless, right? We’re running this race, and then, because we’re in this mixed condition, you’re realizing, “Oh shoot, I’m sinning.” What do Christians do? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We’re not slaves to sin in the way we used to be. You can repent. What does repent mean? Repent means turn around—perfect for this illustration of the race. “I’m in sin. God, I agree with you, this is wrong. I’m going to throw it aside as fast as I can.” And not just stop doing it—replace it with the right thing. If you’re hating your neighbor, you don’t just stop hating; you start loving them. You could do that for any sin you find—lay it aside.

Lay aside weights. Lay aside sins. The second means is: fix your eyes on Jesus. Look at Jesus, the author, the perfecter of your faith. You can endure because Jesus endured. He shows you how to endure. He had a greater joy set before Him, even than the difficulty of the cross, and He endured it. In His endurance, He secured the endurance of all who trust Him, so you can finish the race. Finishing the race, if you’re a Christian, isn’t dependent on how strong you are, because when you’re weak, He is strong. So if you’re like, “God, I’m so weak, I don’t think I can keep going,” maybe you’re depressed, overwhelmed, or weary—say, “God, I need help.” That’s a prayer God loves to answer.

Jesus knows what it’s like to feel weakness. We learned about that last week: Jesus was truly human and truly God. Jesus was hungry, tired, tempted—not with a sinful nature, but He was really, truly tempted. If you read about Him in the garden of Gethsemane, He is legitimately struggling. He has a really hard path in front of Him, sweating blood, crying out, and yet He endured. Look to Him as the one who sat down at the right hand of God—He completed the race. And He didn’t just complete it as an example: “If Jesus can do it, anyone can do it.” That’s not the point. Jesus completed it, and for the believer, His death on the cross secures your forgiveness of sin and your freedom from the power of sin. You’re no longer a slave to sin. If you’ve trusted in Christ, you can turn.

But I’ll tell you what: fighting sin, striving against sin—you might know this if you’ve ever been tempted. Think back to a temptation, a sin that you’re like, “I really want to do that thing. I know I shouldn’t do that thing, but I really want to do that thing.” And then you gave in. Did you struggle as hard as you could have? No. You gave in. Jesus kept struggling all the way to the point of not giving in. You can struggle harder. You can strive harder against sin, pleading with God for help, because Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, accomplishing salvation for all who believe.

Application: The Race of Faith in Daily Life

What’s our application? I think of three realms as we think of this: we’re running the race, laying aside sin and things that entangle—weights—and we are looking to Jesus.

Realm one is believing the gospel. You have to start the race; you actually have to believe. You can’t look at the Son of God dying and say, “Well, my school, my sports, my sin is more important,” or, “Maybe I’ll wait; God will understand if I wait until I’m 25 and then I follow Him.” You might be determining for yourself that you’ll never get that chance. That’s actually the warning later in this chapter: don’t harden yourself to sin, because you might not get the chance to repent later. So, put your faith in Jesus. Start the race. And guard yourself from legalism. What’s legalism? It’s the thinking that “I have merit, I have some righteousness in what I do that would be pleasing to God.” Maybe if I endure enough, do enough hard stuff, God will be impressed with me and give me heaven. That’s not the point. Jesus already did everything. When God looks at you and is pleased, what’s He seeing? Jesus’s righteousness on you because your sin was placed on Jesus. When you look at Jesus, you say, “Praise God that Jesus accomplished my salvation. He ran all the way to the end and sat down at the right hand of God.” It’s one sacrifice; by a single offering He’s perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. You don’t have to perfect yourself.

Second, Bible reading. How does looking to Jesus and setting aside sin and impediments affect your Bible reading? Well, you can’t look to Christ if you don’t know Him. We say all the time: “What does God’s Word reveal about God? What do you see in what you read today? How must it affect me?” It’s revealing who God is, who Jesus is, and you can’t look to Him if you don’t know Him. Second, you don’t know what to throw aside. If you say, “I need to do what pleases the Lord,” but you don’t know the Lord and you don’t know what pleases Him because you’re not reading His Word, not informing your mind—maybe your mind is being more informed and conformed by the world around you than by God’s Word. You won’t know what to throw off. You might think something’s fine and it’s sin; you might think something’s good and it’s actually pulling you away from Christ. Study God’s Word every day. Say, “I need to know God. I need to know what pleases Him. I need to know what God hates so I can run the right direction and pursue the right things.” So, when you look at the decision in front of you and you’re thinking about the step to take, you’re actually viewing it through the right grid—not the grid of what you think is right, but a grid informed by knowledge of God’s Word.

Memorize God’s Word. Study it. Meditate on it. We’ve been talking about this, right? What was that silly acronym we had? Not Lubot, but yeah. Who remembers what that was? We hear God’s Word. Read. Say it. Yep—read, hear, study, memorize, meditate. Something like that. Happy robots. Anyway, we did that here, yeah. Each one of those things—you need to actually spend time in God’s Word, not just reading it, but thinking about it deeply, because the next command (that we don’t get to now) is “consider Him”—think deeply upon Jesus so that you don’t grow weary. Studying isn’t something you do to escape the world. It’s not like, “Oh, you need to be a good Christian and not do anything but read and pray.” No—you need to read and pray so you can live life in the world. God doesn’t call you to separate yourself from the world. He calls you to live in the world—not like the world, but in the world. How can you do that if your mind isn’t informed by what’s true, what God says? You’re going to be conformed to the world rather than be salt and light in the world. So read, prayerfully, know God, have your life affected.

The third realm is what I was just talking about—life lived. God doesn’t call you to get out of this world. What I’m saying isn’t that you need to read the Bible all day long. If the truly holy thing would be to study in my office 14 hours a day and pray for the other 10—no, you actually have to go to school. You’re going to have to go to work. You’re going to have to spend time with family, with friends. That’s good. You know what? This is the only time—if you’re a Christian—you’re going to have eternity to live, and you’ve got this little narrow window where you get to be salt and light. You have this little narrow window where you get to live in a world that’s pursuing the prince of the power of the air, on a course to destruction, while you’re walking the other way, saying, “Come, follow me. Come, follow me.” You can glorify God as you’re an ambassador, a witness to Him, to the fallen world around you, even as the world persecutes you for it.

They might mock you for being godly, for being holy, set apart, living for righteousness. That’s a way to glorify God. Taking your faith seriously, running this race, means walking by faith as you live life—being a doer of the Word, not a hearer only. By actually knowing God’s Word, not just saying, “Oh good, I finished it in the morning. Now I’m going to go about my day and forget what I read.” What I read—especially what I read about God—needs to inform all of my day, all of my life, all of my decisions. You can see this affects dating, marriage, crushes. It affects the way you study, the sports you play, the friends you make. That’s going to be our camp topic: friendships. It’s going to affect everything in your life.

So, let’s go to discussion groups.