Single: Genesis 24

God is how we can live fully in you, God, whether we're single, whether we're married. God, I pray that we will be able to cure things that we can apply to our lives and just breathe a fresh of breath air into us as we enter into our weeks. You're going to be praying. Amen.

Alright, this is why we need will. Alright, so anyways, we are in a series called Relationship Goals. We're talking about dating and we're talking about singleness today. One of the things that, the reason why I asked you, what is your favorite Disney couple, was just one for an icebreaker.

I think a lot of us said what Finn and Rapunzel was like at the top of the list. I personally just like the oldies, like Cinderella Prince Charming, that kind of stuff. But that would be my favorite Disney movie. But here's the reality.

When it comes to singleness and when it comes to dating, we have no clue as a culture how to deal with it. Just think about dating for a moment. Dating is more like used car sales today. You accentuate the good stuff.

You make sure you put, if there's any scratches on the car, you put some paint on it to make it look good. If it doesn't smell good, you put an air freshener, you're trying to. So when people come to you, they want to look attractive, they'll want to spend some time with you. The reality is that when you are trying to sell a used car and you start hearing the blowback of the muffler, you kind of like, no, don't pay attention to it.

You're trying to avoid people from seeing your flaws when it comes to dating. We have no clue as a culture how to deal with singleness and how to date. I was thinking the other day too that, just thinking about this whole issue of dating, that people told me that dating, and it's true, dating is a highway to marriage. However, our practices today in our culture are actually preparing us more for divorce and more for heartache than actually a fulfilling marriage or fulfilling dating experience.

I think it's needed. I did one more thing in my research for this and I started looking up bachelor and bachelor ret statistics. Are you all ready for this? The famous television show, they've had like 20, 21 seasons or something like that.

And I looked up the most common phrases on that are said throughout all the seasons that you that repeat over and over again. And here they are. Here's six phrases that repeat on every season. The first one is this.

Someone says, I definitely see my husband or my wife in this room. That appears every season. Second most common is I love this one. This helicopter ride helped us overcome our fears and fall in love.

I love this. I never expected to come here and fall in love. Why did you get on the show? If you didn't expect this, this is really funny.

I'm 25 and this is my last chance at love. Oh, poor you. You're 25 years old. That's really young, by the way.

This one's good. He or she is the right one for me. I feel it. They just make me happy.

There's another common phrase throughout all the seasons. This is my favorite one out of all of them. It appears every season I'm in love with two people. It's just crazy.

We have no clue. We have no clue about dating or about singleness. If you love the Bachelor of Bachelorette, I do not mean to rain on your parade. But out of the 21 couples, 15 relationships ended right after the show with no love in sight, out of the remaining six that are there, three of the relationships ended because the Bachelor decided after the show to start dating another of the contestants.

They decided to ditch that person and go with somebody else that was on the show. Then you've got three remains. I guess they're the exceptions. What I'm trying to say is as a culture, we have no idea how to date and then putting 19 or whatever single people in a room with one person to choose from is not a good way to figure out who you should end up with.

I think it's needed that we have this discussion on singleness and on dating. I want to talk about singleness first for a second and then I'm going to jump to dating. Here's the deal with singleness. A lot of us believe that singleness is a disease.

We don't want to be around some other people. Sometimes being around other single people makes us feel better. We're afraid that if we hang around them, they're going to keep us single because everything travels like that. We think singleness is a disease.

I thought that before. I got married and I hated single moments. I understand that singleness is difficult and singleness can be hard. I want to show you what the Bible says about singleness for a moment.

Look at this PowerPoint for a second. Singleness, first of all, is a gift from God. The Bible tells us that singleness is actually for your benefit. Now, it's hard to believe sometimes that it can be, but I want to tell you that if you start changing your perspective and if you start understanding that your singleness is a gift and not a curse, you'll be able to experience a new level of singleness, one that is fulfilling and one that you can enjoy.

When you're single, the gift that is part of it is, even though marriage is good, there often comes struggles with marriages and with dating. So as a single person, you don't have to deal with those things, but there's a lot more that God can do. Look at the second one. Singleness has its advantages.

What are the advantages here? Well, scripture tells us that you being single allows you to be used by God in a greater way. That you being single means that God can take you anywhere he wants you to and he can use you for the glory of God. That's why the majority of missionaries on the field are single.

In the toughest, most difficult places in the world to be a father of Jesus, God is using single people for his glory. Singleness is not a disease, but it's actually a gift from God. Then look at this. I don't know if you knew this, but look at this last one.

Singleness is our final state. Did you know when there's a new heaven and when there's a new earth? When God has made everything perfect again, there is no marriage. Think about that.

The Bible tells us now there's going to be friendship, right? There's going to be good friendship and you're still probably going to, if you're married, like I'll still know Amber, but it's going to be a different relationship than what we experience here on earth. So here's a question. How could God say that singleness is bad when that is our final state?

That's why he doesn't. So if we can start looking, if you're single, at singleness, as a gift from God that has its advantages, that God can use you and grow you in this time, that can grow you in friendships and that you're not a second class Christian because you're single, you're going to have a greater outlook on life and the Lord is going to be able to use you and grow you in that. But I guarantee you, if you focus on your singleness and say, well, I'm just single all the time, you are putting up a barrier between God's growth in your life. However, I understand that for some people, singleness is a gift and some people want to be single for the rest of your life.

But from when I meet with students and I've been doing college ministry for a really long time too, most people don't want to end up single. That's why we're going to move to dating. And what I believe God is going to share with us about how to have a fulfilling biblical dating experience and what you can look out for as you kind of journey through this dating experience. Now, some of this stuff is from my own experience of dating.

Some of it is just from godly wisdom from scripture. But I hope this will help us in kind of our study. So if you have your Bibles, open up to Genesis chapter 4, or 24, excuse me, Genesis chapter 24. And here's the main point of the lesson, okay?

I want to put the main point of while you're looking at it. And it's this. It's the form of a question. Are you the type of person the person you're looking for is looking for?

All right. What I want to get across is when you come to dating, when you come to singleness, God is asking you to prepare yourself first. He wants you to see if you're ready to enter a relationship. And so this message is more about God working on us, God working on us to beat someone that we're actually the person that the person we're looking for is looking for.

All right. So it's more about you and less about them. But that's the kind of the main question. Are you the type of person the person you're looking for is looking for?

Genesis chapter 24. We're going to start in verse 1. We're going to take this story kind of piece by piece here and we will, the script will be on the screen. All right.

So let's start. Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, basically just said, you know, he's just an old dude. And the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household who had the charge of all that he had, put your hand under my thigh.

It's weird. We'll get to that. But it's super weird that I may, that I may make you swear by the Lord that God of heaven and the God of earth that you will not take away from my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred and take away from my son. Isaac.

All right. So let's just stop right there and look at the first thing. The first dating singleness. Go, and by the way, if you are married here, I hope that some of this will translate into your life as well.

But the first goal is to be intentional about the right time to pursue a dating relationship. We see in this very first section that Abraham is very intent that this is the right time. Abraham could have earlier has said, hey, listen, Isaac's ready for a wife, but he doesn't. He notices something about Isaac that says he's ready to have a wife.

He's ready to marry. We need to date at the right time. Now a lot of people are like, I don't know about that. I feel like I want to date.

I feel like this is the time. Well, here's some questions I want to ask you. First of all, can you support yourself? Can you particularly men?

Can you support a family? Right. If you're too focused on getting prestige mode and call duty, right, or you can't hold a job, it's probably not time for you to get married. And this is how it comes in.

Proverbs tells us that he who finds a wife finds a good thing. It's not going to mend here. He that find it implies he be looking. All right.

It does, right? You should be looking. If you have an desire to date, you should be looking, but you should be asking yourself while you're looking, is this the right time? What's my life circumstances?

What's their life circumstances? So if I'm a girl, I would ask a question, can this guy hold a job? Is this guy responsible? Right?

Is this a good time for them to be in a relationship? That alone needs to be in a relationship. These are just common questions that I would ask about dating, moving forward. And Abraham thinks that this is extremely important.

So if you're too young, if you can't provide, if your life's too much of a mess, if you're not spiritually where you need to be to harbor a good relationship, then my advice to you is don't flirt and don't meet other people on because it's not going to end well. Dating is meant to be a highway to marriage. And so it's not that you have to know if you're going to marry the person like right off the bat, but you should know them well enough that you can ask these questions about them that you can say, you know what? I may be in the future.

That might be there. You shouldn't just date to date to get experience. Dating puts a lot of investment on your part. You're investing your time, your money, right?

You're investing your emotions into it. And if you don't think it's going to end in something permanent, you should end it now. Now with that said, I think this is going to be the only sermon you ever hear past or telling you how to break up with somebody biblically. You're ready for this?

All right, you're going to get the full thing here. First thing, if you have to break up with somebody, here's how you do it. First is be committed to the decision. People, this is just my experience.

Okay, this is not in the text, but I thought it was important to share. There's nothing worse than saying to somebody, maybe in the future, right? Have you ever had that experience where somebody says, I got it a lot? Okay, I'm just going to be vulnerable here.

I've been broken up with a lot. Okay. All right. And I've gotten that before maybe in the future, right?

It is not good to say that. Something ever good comes from offering a distant hope. What that does is it leads them on. It gives them some sort of hope, even though you may not have the intention of sometimes if you're not, it could happen.

Maybe in the future, you could get back together, but for the least, the near future, make a commitment to the decision. Make a commitment. This means give yourself some time. All right.

And don't try to be friends right afterwards. All right, it's difficult. Second thing is this, be honest, but do it with compassion. One time, guys, I was in college.

There was this really sweet girl I was dating, and I decided to be honest with her about breaking up with her. And I'm glad I was honest, but I did not do it in the most compassionate way. So we sat down. She was looking really forward to our next date, completely unaware of this.

And I just said, you know, I think you like me more than I like you, right? Talk about like blunt honesty. And like I know, because I knew her friends that it crushed her. Listen, you need to be honest, but you need to do it with compassion.

You need to do it with their best care in mind. And the last thing is here, and I think it's obvious, be there if you can, like if you live in like, if they live in Alaska and you live in Florida, like you can do it over FaceTime or something, right? Be there. Don't send a text or night.

Don't send an email, right? Try to be there in person, right? And do it with dignity. All right.

And so that's just my advice to you guys on breaking up biblically. All right, let's get back to it. All right, let's get back to it. Second point that we see from this verse, we're going to see from the verse, keep it in the family.

Let's see our verse non here. Says this. So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this master. Then the servant took 10 of his master's camels into part, taking all sorts of choice gifts from his master and he arose and went to Mesopotamia to the city of Nahore.

Then, excuse me, and he made the camels kneel down inside the city by the well of the water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, Oh Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham, verse 13. Behold, I am standing by the spring of water and the daughters and men of the city are coming out to draw water. Let the young women to whom I say, please let down your jar that I may drink, who shall say, and who shall say, drink, I will water your camels.

Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have done a show instead fast love to my master. Before he had finished speaking, behold, Rebecca, who was born to Betheliel, the son of Milka, the wife of Nahore, Abraham's brother came out with her jar on her shoulder. The young woman was very attractive in appearance.

A maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled up her jar, he came up. So let's look at this for a second. The next goal that represented with this is keeping it in the family.

Abraham tells Eliezer, his servant, and he tells him, I want you to find somebody who was of the family. Now, here's the interesting thing, he's not talking about race here. A lot of people have used this to say, look, Abraham says, don't marry a Canaanite woman, marry one of the Jewish tribe. And people say, look, no interracial dating.

That is not the point of this text. Actually, we know that's not the case because many of our fathers in the Old Testament married people who are not Jewish and they were godly women. So we know that that's not the case. What Abraham is talking about is a spiritual family.

Make sure you find somebody who is spiritually in the same category, the Canaanites, where idolatrous people. And yet, we have examples in Scripture of Canaanite women who were godly people who married Jewish men. So it's not the interracial part, it's the spiritual part. Abraham is saying, I want you to find somebody who's of the spiritual family the same as you.

And so we have to ask a question, okay, why? Why does he do this? And it's really simple. One, together as a unit, if you're going to eventually marry, your marriage is going to be a reflection of god to the world.

And so, and your job in marriage, and some degree to dating is not as much as a marriage, but in dating, is going to be trying to help one another grow in the relationship with god. So if I'm somebody and I'm dating somebody who's not a believer, they're likely going to try and not help me in my relationship with Jesus. They might want me to do things that the Lord tells me is probably not the best thing for you to do. They might dissuade me or tempt me in some ways, not that it's their fault.

Like they're not bad people here. But what God and Scripture is telling us through this story is that when you have somebody who's the same spiritual family, you have the most important thing nailed down. Whether they have a good job, whether they have a good family means nothing if they don't have a relationship with Jesus. Another reason why he tells us this and he's so concerned.

Do you guys remember the story about Abraham? Abraham and his wife were not able to have children until they were like a hundred, okay? Like super old. And it was the promised one.

God told Abraham through your seed, through your son, through your lineage. I'm going to bless the world and you are going to be my people. And so what Abraham knows instinctively is this, that whoever my son marries is going to have an effect on the generations to come. The question I would ask myself is, if you were to marry that person who may not be of the same spiritual family as you, what are you going to do if you have kids and you have to raise them up?

Are they going to go to church? Are they not going to go to church? What is their opinion about that type of thing? See, it comes a lot more convoluted and a lot more complicated and complex.

And I've used this joke a few times, but I know what people think because I thought I too. It's, you know, well, I see a really attractive girl, but she's not saved, right? She's not a believer in Jesus. She's not the same spiritual family.

And I think to myself this, it's easier for her to get saved than to get cute, right? Like it is easier for her to come to Jesus, right? I can have a hand in that. I can missionary date, right?

I can be the good influence in their life. The reality is, scripture tells us not to do that. Scripture tells us not to missionary date. In the most of this, and there's a couple of key choices that you have to make in your life.

One, do you follow Jesus or not? And two, if you want to get married, who am I going to end up with? Jesus tells us that marriage is permanent. And so this should be the most important decision that you make.

And if they don't have the same desires to worship God and to serve God as you do, then I recommend that you don't date them. And I think scripture is very clear that that is not a good decision. It's not going to be beneficial and it is not going to help you flourish in this life. Remember, the Bible is about flourishing.

The Bible is about how can you flourish as a follower of Jesus? How can you flourish in this life? And scripture tells us you cannot flourish. Or I would say it's very difficult to flourish if you're married to somebody who's not at the same faith family.

All right, it brings a lot of complication is not wise. And so I think this is why Abraham is so, so forceful. And if you didn't think this was forceful enough, I want you to look real quick at the beginning, what do you make some do? He says, put your hand on my under my thigh.

Okay, he has Elie Azar put his hand on Abraham's thigh. He's trying to make sure that Elie Azar would never forget the promise to find somebody of the same faith family. Listen, all Jewish scholars believe that this is just so they say, thy not to be crass, right? But it was a little bit north of the thigh to get my drift, right?

He is literally telling Elie Azar, this is about my seed. This is about making sure my generations love God. That's how forceful this text is here. And so keep it in the family.

Now we see in verse nine, we see that. She's got a bunch of, he's got a bunch of camels, Rebecca, she says she's beautiful. And then it says that she's of the same family heritage, right? She's Abraham's brother's daughter.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking when you read this, she's beautiful, but she's your cousin. Well, back in this time, things were a little bit different. And so they probably read this as she's beautiful and she's your cousin, all right?

Like, listen, I was in West Virginia, this would be no explanation, all right? Oh, I'm just kidding. But seriously, that's the type of mindset that this was, right? This was a good thing.

She was in the family. Now, next is the next goal here is prioritize character. I want you to look at how, how, he mentions that she's beautiful, but that is not the main focus of this, of this text. Look at verse 17.

Then the servant, Elieza, Rantim, meet her and said, please give me a little water to drink from your jar. Remember, he said, he said, Lord, let the woman that I ask who goes above and beyond to serve me, let that be the woman, right? That you have for Isaac, the woman of character. And I love this verse 18.

She said, drink my Lord. And look at this. She quickly let down her jar and handed him, gave him a drink. And she had finished giving him a drink.

She said, I will draw water for your camels also until they have finished drinking. So she quickly envied her jar and ran against the well to draw water. And she drew for all this camels. Then the man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not.

Just look at this for a minute. What did Elieza ask? Will you give me a drink of water? And what does she do?

She not only gives him a drink of water, but gives water to the camels. Guys, this is not like just going to a hose, right? This is buckets, pulling out buckets, walking them over. Camels drink a lot of water, right?

And she does this. Why? Because she has impeccable character. See, her character is supposed to be the highlight of this story.

Yeah, she is beautiful to the eyes. But it is her character that Elieza is after. He doesn't say, Lord, let the bring a beautiful woman. I may know that that's a person for Isaac.

No, he says, Lord, bring a woman of character. So we need to prioritize character when we're thinking about dating. Now that goes with us. What is our character?

But if you wanted to know how to determine someone's character, here is what I would suggest versus this versus time. Do you spend enough time with them to know how they interact with other people? Now I had a professor one time who met, dated, and married their spouse in a total of seven days. Okay.

There are exceptions. Okay. So I'm telling you, there are exceptions to the rule and they're happily married today. Okay.

There are exceptions, but there are exceptions because they don't often happen. Right? And so if I'm going to give advice, it is time is a beautiful thing when you're getting to know somebody. What is their reputation?

How do they interact under pressure? How do they handle responsibility? When they don't get their way, how do they act? How do they treat their parents?

How do they treat when someone gives them godly counsel and you need time to answer all of those questions? Time is a beautiful, beautiful thing. Trust me, it will save you a lot of heartache. If you wait just a little bit to see their character.

Second thing is that you need godly counsel. You need a person that is godly enough. Right? They're searching after God's word.

Right? You trust their opinion. You see them as a spiritual leader. You need their opinion.

And here's why. Oftentimes we allow the song. Just listen to your heart. You know that song?

Be the rule for our life. We feel like we like it. We feel like we like them. We are willing normally to compromise and overlook a lot of red flags.

Why? Because we want to feel loved or we want to feel cherished or we do really like them. But here's the deal. You need a godly person in your life who knows them to show you red flags.

It doesn't mean listen, it doesn't mean you don't date the person. If they're a godly person and they had red flags, it doesn't mean you just don't date them because nobody is perfect. Right? Everyone's going to have a red flag.

It just means that you're aware. It means that you're not looking over it. And then if they come and counsel you and say, look, this is all that we see and they present to you a bunch of red flags. You might say, well, maybe I don't want to date them because I didn't see all this or allowed love to blind me.

Having godly character or godly people looking into your life and revealing red flags is a really, really good thing. Listen, I pray that Jonathan and whatever babies, believe in number two is, will come to me and ask me what I think about the people they want to date. Now I'm not going to be mean, but I hope to be able to give good advice and good insight. Listen, my parents, even though I hated it, did that for me.

Right? They were nice about it. And at the end of the day, they would have loved anybody that I brought home, you know, my parents, but they were honest. And you know what?

It wasn't until I brought Amber to my house that my parents were like, this is the woman that got asked for you. Every other person, there was red flags that I could not see, but my parents could do that. Now it doesn't have to be your parents, but you should have godly people who are able to speak into your life, share with you those red flags, but then again, we'll allow you to make the decision for yourself. All right.

And this is a question I would ask too, would you want to replicate their character in your future children? That's just a good question to ask. All right. And then I would ask this when you're looking at determining character is self-control.

And we're not just talking about sex, self-control in that area of the dating relationship, but we will talk about it. But I'm talking about money. How do they control their money? If you think they're a spender now and when you get married, they're going to stop spending and save and be responsible with your money, you're wrong.

You know, you need to see how they handle money and you need to work on it together. If you're dating somebody who's a major spender, you have to talk about them. Listen, I'm the spender in the family. Amber's the saver.

And oftentimes in our relationship, she has to come to me and say you need to stop spending money, right? So I would not date somebody who spends money, but you should look at how they spend their money. You should look at what they're to determine whether or not they're scared to them. If they're blowing all their money on stuff that's really stupid, like, I don't know, sorry if I need you guys to click on my cards.

Like Pokemon cards and they're like 30, right? You probably shouldn't date them. All right? I mean, I'm just saying, unless you have a good agreement, like you can spend this amount of money and that kind of stuff, but that's a good thing to ask for.

Where's their self-control? Are they responsible with their money? Second, you want to look at anger, their emotions. Do they have self-control with their emotions?

Do they fly off the handle when they're in traffic? Right? When somebody cuts them off, how do they respond? Look at their self-control that they have with their emotions.

But it's a really important thing, or you may be surprised when you get to marriage. And then I would ask, I mean, we talk about sexuality. Oftentimes, this is the sticking point for many people. This is the most difficult point to keep pure in a relationship.

Why? Because sex was something that was good, that God gave us, and it is a great thing to experience when you have a committed relationship through a covenant marriage as the Bible tells us. But it is difficult, extremely difficult to keep that part pure. And here's the deal.

A lot of people think that that purity is just about making sure that I don't do something I'm not supposed to. That's not the point of trying to abstain from sex before you're married in a dating relationship. Keeping purity in your relationship actually reveals more about your character than your sexuality. So people think, well, I'm just a sexual person, so I'm just drawn to it, or I can't contain it.

And scripture tells us that it's not about your sexuality, it's about your character. Do you have enough faith and trust in what God has to say about this area of your life that you're willing to hold off from it until the proper time? Are you willing to say, God, I trust you with this enough that I'm going to stop myself. I'm going to put boundaries in my life.

I'm dating somebody. I'm going to put boundaries in our lives to make sure that our character is being shaped through this. And here's why it's important. If you cannot keep your dating relationship here and come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your dating relationship, if men in specific, if you cannot keep your pornography addiction, if you are looking at pornography when you're dating another person, how do you expect when you're married not to cheat on another woman?

See, keeping pure, having self-control and our emotions, having self-control when we're on our spending is all about God shaping our character so that when we move to the next stage of marriage, we have the character to actually have a fulfilling marriage with our spouse. We need to view dating and we need to view singleness as a time where God shapes our character so that we are ready for that marriage. I know a lot of people who go into marriage and who are not ready. Not that they haven't found the person that they should be with, but they choose to be with, but they are just not ready when it comes to the character.

And so they have a husband who has an anger problem or they have a husband who has addicted to pornography or they have a wife who's maybe demeaning or has some other issue going on. And it wasn't revealed until when, until they got married. So we need to be asking these questions. We need to prioritizing their character so that we can have a healthy onset.

I love that L.E.A.S.R. does not ask the Lord, Lord bringing me a beautiful person. He doesn't even ask, Lord, bring Isaac someone who's going to make him happy. He asks God to bring Isaac somebody who has extreme character.

And that's, that's what we should do. If you're single, if you want to get married, if you want to enter the dating world or if you're dating somebody, I would ask the question, what is their character like? Have I spent the time to understand their character? What do God be people who know them, say about them?

What do they think about this relationship? And I guarantee you, you may have a lot less heart breaks. And I guarantee you that if the Lord has designed it for you to be with that person, the spirit will lead them to say, yeah, like they may have this issue, but they're okay to date, right? Or they may have this, you should look out for this, but it's okay.

Or they may say, no, don't do it. You're headed for a cliff. So these are some important things. But the last point, the last goal is the most important out of all this.

And it's trusting God's timing. He prays throughout this whole entire time to the Lord. You don't see him going to himself or counsel. He prays, Lord, bring somebody, right?

He says that the last verse that we read was, he was praying whether or not this wasn't one or was not the one. He just prayed and prayed and prayed and said, God, when you're ready in your timing, reveal this person to me. That is the prayer for us. If we are single or for wanting to date, it is Lord in your timing.

There's nothing worse than dating somebody that is not in God's timing. You're going to get your heart shaken, maybe your heart broken because you entered into a relationship too early. Wait for God's timing. That's for the Holy Spirit.

Ask God to reveal that person to you. Don't compromise. I had these headphones are called sure 425s. They're really expensive musical headphones.

So you play when you're in a band and that kind of stuff. And I remember one time, Amber and I, we were at coffee and I had them on. I was listening to music and I look up and Amber's talking to me. But I didn't know how long she was talking for because I literally couldn't hear.

I'm not that good at canceling out noise. And so I don't want to say, Amber, what were you saying? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Now, and then she got frustrated, right?

Because I wasn't listening, but I couldn't hear. But here's the deal. Sometimes in life, we can get frustrated because we feel like maybe God doesn't hear us. Or maybe we can get frustrated because we actually put our own blinders on.

Maybe our headphones are the noise of everybody else. You should be dating. You should be doing that. You should be doing that.

Or maybe you have a gripe against God because he hasn't brought the person into your life just yet. And what we have done is we have created noise barrier, sound barrier, so what God is actually trying to communicate. You guys actually trying to do into our lives. What we need to do is not settle, but we need to have great joy when we patiently wait.

We just talked about James and our Bible studies this weekend. What does it say? Consider it pure joy when trials come. Your singleness is a gift from God to shape your character.

Your dating life is a gift from God to shape your character. And even your marriage is a gift from God to shape your character. It's all the same, whatever stage of life you're in. It is a stage of life to shape your character.

And you need to have joy in it because that's when God can actually work into your life and it'll build you up and grow you as a follower of him. Now I want to look at this. Let's look at verse 22 real quick. Now I want to read it, but Rebecca in verse 56, verse 56 actually consent.

So it's not like the day and age where you just were told. Like you see in verse 56, she says, who is this guy? She's like, I like this guy, right? And he was like, whoa, Rebecca, you're beautiful in that whole kind of situation.

It was a consensual marriage here. But the whole point of that is that they rejoiced in the Lord. Listen, when you wait, when you allow God to shape your character through singleness and through dating, when you eventually marry that person, enjoy all the benefits of marriage, guess what you can do? You can rejoice because God has brought the one that your heart longed for, the one who's going to help you grow in your relationship with God, the one who's going to be committed to you, the one who's God is the same as your God, the one who says this covenant was forever.

And it says, I'm going to eternally love you no matter what you do, the one who says you want, I'm going to point out sin in your life so that you can grow in your relationship with God, the one who says, no, I'm going to love you even when you hurt me. That is the thing that God wants to bring to us. But we have to patiently wait for his timing to do it. Psalm 27 says, wait for the Lord to be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

See, the great blessing of Genesis 24, however, is not that LEA's are found a wife or Isaac, but that God continued the line of Abraham to our Savior. See, I really believe that scripture all points to Jesus. This text was as much as it was finding Isaac a wife. It was about preserving a line that would one day lead to Jesus, the Savior of the world.

And I love this because I think we can see some parallels though between LEA's are the servant and Jesus. LEA's are went to a great distance to find Isaac a virtuous wife. I love this Christ like LEA's are went a great distance. But he didn't just travel a desert.

He traveled from heaven to earth. And he wasn't like a L.E.A.S.R. who was found a virtuous wife. What Jesus did was he traveled all that way to people who rebelled against them, to people who weren't virtuous, to people who needed a Savior.

And Jesus went that way. He sought out a bride like L.E.A.S.R. Jesus sought us out. And now those who have put faith in Jesus, guess what we are?

We're the bride of Christ. That's how the Bible describes the church. We're his bride, the one whom he loves, the one who he cherishes, the one that he died for, the one whom he leads. Christ sought us out.

But instead of putting gold rings on our fingers, Christ shed his blood for us. So that we can inherit the greatest thing. And that is a relationship with God. The reality is the only way to be the person you're looking for is looking for us to be the person that Christ first called you to be.

The most important influence and factor in your future dating and marriage relationship is whether or not your relationship with God is strong. If you want to enter a relationship with somebody, make sure your relationship with God is strong and growing. And make sure their relationship with God is strong and growing. Now it doesn't mean you can't date people who just became Christians.

But you should date people who have an invested interest in growing in their faith with Jesus. Lastly, I want to ask this question. If God offered you a fulfilling relationship with Jesus, but no romantic one in your life, would Jesus be enough for you? If Jesus had, if God determines that you'll never date somebody ever, but I'll give you the most enjoyable relationship with Jesus, would that be enough?

And I think that question really reveals a lot of our hearts. It's whether or not we value Jesus as much as we do another person. In marriage, the question is, do you value Jesus more than your spouse? Because oftentimes our spouse is, you can take an elevated position in our life than Jesus.

So it doesn't get easier getting married. Sometimes it gets a little bit harder in certain areas. The question is, is Jesus enough for you? Have you recognized that Jesus is like the LEA's or has come from heaven to earth?

He sought us out like LEA's or sought out of a wife. He sought out his bride. If you're a follower of Jesus, we're that bride. And guess what we get to do?

Because that we get to rejoice. It's praying. Lord, just thank you so much for your grace in our lives. Thank you that we are your bride.

Thank you that you came a long way. Thank you that you came a long way to not only cherish us, but you pursued us. And you don't just pursue us, you saved us. Father, I know that dating can be hard.

I know that singleness can be difficult. But Father, I pray you give those in this room that are dating or are single and one a date or single and I don't want to date. I hope that you would give them the fulfillment of a relationship with you first and foremost. I pray that they won't feel like second-class Christians because most churches only prioritize married people.

But Lord, I pray you to show them that they are valuable and oftentimes able to be better used for your kingdom. Lord, I pray that if they're pursuing dating relationships or as they grow and maybe pursue them in the future. Lord, I pray that they would seek out people who are going to help them grow in their relationship. I pray that they will prioritize character.

I pray that they would look at the other person if they have self-control. I pray that they would allow time to reveal certain things about that person. But more so beyond that, Lord, I pray that they would prioritize their character formation. They wouldn't be just worried about the other person, but they would be worried about themselves.

It's God working on my character so that I can be the one, the person that the person I'm looking for is looking for. Lord, I pray that if there's someone in this room who wants a relationship, I pray that in the right timing, you bring somebody and I know that you will. I pray you bring a godly man or a godly woman into their life to help them grow. And Lord, I pray you bring them someone that's going to maximize them for the kingdom of God and the work you have here in the world.

Lord, give us contentment. Give us strength in our weaknesses. Lord, give us wisdom and confusion and give us peace in our trials and life. Lord, none of those are going to stop us from rejoicing because of who you are.

None of those things are going to stop us from having joy through trial. Why? Because you were your bride. Were yours and we can rejoice.

In Jesus name I pray. Amen. This time is just a time of reflection.