Relationships are MESSY

and we almost have this Disney style of romance that all of a sudden I'm going to find my soulmate that we're going to connect and the stars are going to line and I'm going to become this great person And we don't understand there's a process of sanctification a process of growing who we need to be in Christ where God chips away the idiot out of us and turns us into something greater And I'm like if you want to go there you got to start getting a path that align to become that person It won't just magically happen But today we are continuing our series that we kicked off last week looking at the family and talking about as we see the family of how do we have less of the mess in our families And I don't know about you but family gets pretty messy and between kids and relationships and finances and everything else there's mess that always comes in there Uh today we are taking on another topic that's not so fun always to speak about and we're going to be looking at dating and marriage and relationships And maybe you've had some messy dating some messy relationships in the past And today as we see this we're going to be in the book of Ruth actually and you can flip there if you have a Bible And we're going to be skipping through this book and kind of looking at the whole story of this book But as we dive into Ruth we're going to see what God has for us But we're going to be reading this through this lens that we have for our series And that as we look at our family dynamics is this lens we're constantly coming back to is when our family is a mess it's time to come to God and confess That when our family is a mess it's time to come to God and confess where we have missed it If we're honest there are stages and places of the relationships we have that aren't where we want them to be And sometimes we want to complain about them But if we're honest sometimes we need to look in the mirror of scripture and see where we have missed the mark and have followed culture's way instead of God's Last week we kicked off a series on Mother's Day and talked about messy women Um I was waiting for the connection cards to come in and the angry emails and I didn't actually get them So we'll see if this week changes that instead All right we're talking about dating But as we go through this here here's what we're going to see through the lens of scripture is that in Ruth this is almost kind of like a fairy tale dating thing When we think of the Bible and we think of dating relationships Ruth and Boaz's story is one that almost people aspire to But the funny part of this is it wasn't perfect Instead it was actually filled with death and poverty And as you go through this it's incredibly messy But as we get into this and see how God redeems this story and gives us something great I think first we need to set this stage of what dating looks like in 2025 So I got some fun stats for you and this will either encourage you that you're already married or it'll depress you if you are not and it'll get you to pray for the people who are still seeking relationships All right Um my kids are eight so I still have a little ways from that That's my oldest but I am afraid for the future Let me just say that All right Let me start here is now dating One of the biggest things that's come and there's good sides of this and bad is dating apps are a huge vessel Currently 30% of us adults have used a dating app The younger you get from 18 to 30 that number is 50% The average person has seven dating apps on their phone simultaneously You'll love this one The average user swipes through 3,000 profiles before going on one date I think I'd give up before then All right I'd be like I think I'm just going to be single for the rest of my life All right Um and then you go to and okay there's that but then you kind of look into some of the even harder and and more uh rough parts of dating culture Hookup culture has become increasingly big and popular 60 to 80% of college students have had a hookup experience Shockingly and when I say shockingly not shockingly at all is only 13% of those have led to a relationship of any substance And get this this is not inside the church So this is not Holy Spirit conviction but this is just world as as a whole is 65% of people who have had an experience like that report feeling regret You think of ghosting in digital behavior A ghosting is when someone just falls off the map and all of a sudden they don't return your text They don't return anything And it's like is that person still alive like they just moved to another country so they can disconnect to their phone right but 78% of singles report being ghosted at least once 64% admit to ghosting someone else So apparently 14% are lying to themselves that they have done it Right 73% have sent explicit photos to someone they have never met in person If we talk about commitments the average time dating before marriage is now 4.9 years In 1980 that was 2 and 1/2 years of people are afraid to say I do and pushing that further and further down the road 50% of singles say they aren't actively looking for a relationship and the average person has 8 to 10 sexual partners before marriage That's up from 2 to three in the 1970s And this last statistic I'll give you is from a financial mess is the average cost of a date today is $146 It's about $96 more than I spend on my wife two times a year for our date All right but here's the deal Dating is messy And you're like "Well those are statistics." Like there's no real people attached to them They're probably made up and they're probably lies I Googled all these so I didn't actually fact check them that much cuz I don't really know But let me give you some things that real people have said Lisa 28-year-old said "I've been talking to a guy for 4 months We text every day We occasionally hang out but he won't define what we are I'm afraid to ask because I don't want to seem too needy There's Mike the 31-year-old that says "I'm currently juggling conversations with six different women on three different apps I can't remember what I've told each one." This is my favorite part Last week I called someone by the wrong name on a date Sorry Mike That relationship is over That's five on three different apps now Okay Emma a 25year-old She said "I spent 3 hours stalking my ex's new girlfriend on Instagram then accidentally liked a photo from 2019 at 2:00 a.m I'm now blocked." And he thinks I'm crazy Right James the 27-year-old says "I went on three first dates last week Between dinners drinks and Ubers I spent $500 None led to second dates I'm literally going broke trying to find love." And Ashley a 30-year-old said "I'm matched with someone great but I keep wondering if someone better is just a swipe away I've delayed meeting him for three weeks because I just can't stop browsing." You see dating today is a mess But if we're honest it's been messy for a long time And today as we come to the book of Ruth and we dive into this ancient story it has some surprising re relevance for how to date modern today and how to conduct our marriages within this messy culture And as we look at this we're going to see this love story And Ruth's love story creates a mess in a lot of different ways And the first way we're going to see it is it creates a mess of loss and loyalty You see the book of Ruth opens up with a cascade of tragedy Uh of Ruth actually is introduced into the story because Naomi and her husband they have to there's a famine So they go to this territory of Moab And as they're in Moab all of a sudden Ruth or Naomi's husband dies And her two sons they each take foreign wives from Moab But then her two sons die So all of a sudden Ruth and her two daughter-in-laws are left abandoned and a culture where women really don't have a voice on their own and can provide for themselves in this and they're in this foreign land where everything seems wrong And then in verse 15 this happens Naomi said "Look your sister-in-law has gone to her people and to her gods follow your sister-in-law." But Ruth replied this this is Ruth right naomi saying "Hey your husband's died My husband's died Your your sister-in-law's husband has died Go home Go back to your old lifestyle Go back to your old gods Go back to your old home in your parents But Ruth says "Don't plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you For wherever you go I will go Wherever you live I will live Your people will be my people and your God will be my God Where you die I will die In there I will be buried May the Lord punish me and do so severely if anything but death separates you and me This is one of the most beautiful commitment speeches in scripture And the irony this is not even between a romantic partner a man and a woman It's not even between God and his people This is between a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law A relationship that most sitcoms say are two people that should hate each other But here it shows us a glimpse of what true loyalty looks like Something I don't think we fully understand in our culture today modern day um we see this I think in how expressed in our marriages and and there are times that divorces need to happen when there is abuse and and when there is adultery and there are times when something has become toxic that needs separate but if we're honest most divorces happen in our culture because people just give up and are not loyal in a first marriage 50% end in divorce in a second marriage 62% end in divorce in a third marriage 73% end in divor divorce When you say no and there's a lack of loyalty and saying I'm not going to be faithful it becomes easier and easier and easier to run the other way But in the opening of the story we see something completely different from Ruth And here as we've been going through this and we started this last week when we look at the lens of scripture when we start to say "How does this talk into my life how does this talk into the areas of my life?" And we use this as a mirror I think there's these confessions that come out of how our culture said pursue this way but our God says pursue this instead And here's kind of our first cultural confession as we kind of unpack this story in Ruth is we have prioritized happiness over faithfulness We have prioritized happiness over faithfulness Uh recently I was on Instagram and there's this weird thing that I watched one reel of these AI babies who were like having a podcast Okay It's like Joe Rogan's podcast like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn They're voices but like with AI babies and their mouths are moving to it and it's hilarious I watched one My algorithm is full of talking babies That's all I can see now I have no idea what just happened Um but I did see a post uh between all the podcast babies um in there that it said this It says "If you're not happy leave Life is too short to be anything but happy And that stupid post had like a 100,000 likes and all these comments saying it was so profound and so great And that is like the dumbness of our cultural relationship advice in a nutshell If it doesn't make you happy abandon ship But you see Ruth shows us something different She chooses loyalty when there's literally nothing in it for her You look at the situation and she's not even being loyal to her husband She's being loyal to her mother-in-law Our husband's dead Naomi is old Na Naomi is poor She's bitter She tells people to call her Mara which means bitter Really Naomi wants to crawl in a hole and die Yet Ruth clings to her And when relationships get messy both in a marriage or in just a friendship when the feelings fade when circumstances get hard when the other person becomes difficult our culture says "Move on." But Ruth shows us She says "I'm staying." But her love story continues in this mess There's this mess of loss and loyalty but there's also this mess of starting over In chapter 2 these two widows they have to leave Moab And then they say "We're going to go back to Naomi's home place and they go back to Bethlehem." And as they arrive in Bethlehem they literally have nothing Ruth has to go to what they call gleaning the fields that after the harvest uh part of God's law for those who are faithful and practicing is they don't pick up the scraps They leave the trash on the ground And those who are poor who were unable to work they would go and they would pick up those scraps and they would live off them And as Ruth is doing that in verse three we jump back into the story It says this "So Ruth left and she entered the field to gather grain before behind the harvesters." And listen to this verbiage She happened to be she happened to be in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz who was from Alimc's family This little phrase is she happened to be some scriptures say by chance she was in but this thing this she happened to be in Boaz's field This was not just luck but this was God's providence that placed her in the place she needed to be And in this God's providence is working through Ruth's humble obedience Do you guys know how dating apps work today i'm actually asking I have never used one No I'm just kidding All right Uh but I did some research Okay I don't have any dating apps I have no profiles that you'll find out there Me I promise Um but I did a little research on on kind of how does this thing work and here's what happens is you carefully curate your profile You filter potential matches You swipe through dozens if not thousands of options And and all of this is everything is controlled Everything is calculated Everything is strategic Now don't hear me wrong There are many faithful couples that meet through such means and it is became but here's here's where I think we drifted It used to be a way to meet someone It is quickly becoming the way that you meet with someone But here's all of this It's controlled It's calculated It's strategic But when we go here to Ruth it's none of that She just goes to work She's not hunting for a husband She's just trying to survive She's trying to be faithful to what God has for her And God brings her to exactly where she needs to be Check out verse 11 of chapter 2 It says "Boaz answered her as they're talking in the field He said "Everything you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband's death has been fully reported to me how you left your father and mother and your native land and how you came to a people you didn't previously know May the Lord reward you for what you have done And may you receive a full reward from the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge You see Boaz notices Ruth not because of her appearance not because of her dating profile not because she was making sure she was gleaning the harvest at the right time but he noticed her because of her character and her faithfulness Here's our next cultural confession is I think that that we see here and that applies to today is we have pursued instant gratification over patient purpose You see the average user who for a dating app spends 60 minutes a day on dating apps And here's the deal I I think so much that is put into our brain The immediacy of technology where we want to load something and if something loads too too slow we start cursing Wi-Fi and throwing our phone Right but the immediiacy has gone into all areas of our life where when it comes to dating is we want love now We want chemistry immediately We want perfect capabil compatibility from day one But here we see Ruth spends weeks probably even months just gleaning in the fields She's not pursuing Boaz but she's pursuing provision She's not looking for instant romance She's faithfully doing the next right thing that God put in front of her And sometimes I firmly believe that God brings relationships into our lives not through our desperate searching but through our faithful obedience in our everyday life I've had so many conversations and I've been pastoring for about 10 years and so many conversations with young guys and I'm always like,"Wh am I not married why am I not this why can't I start a family i just want this I want this I want this I want this." And then we start going through their lives and I'm like "Do you think right now you are the guy that could be married and have kids?" Like "No I'm not even close." I'm like "Do you think you'll magically turn into that guy?" Like "Well I was kind of hoping so." And we almost have this Disney style of romance that all of a sudden I'm going to find my soulmate that we're going to connect and the stars are going to line and I'm going to become this great person And we don't understand there's a process of sanctification a process of growing who we need to be in Christ where God chips away the idiot out of us and turns us into something greater And I'm like if you want to go there you got to start getting a path and a line to become that person it won't just magically happen And here we see Ruth isn't like I'm just going to make sure that all of a sudden I'm going to make Boaz fall in love with me right now Instead she was focusing on what God was doing in her life just being faithful And here's what's awesome is as this mess of just kind of making sure there's this loss and this loyalty there's this mess of having to start over but slowly as she's patient there becomes this mess of making a move As you go into chapter 3 this chapter contains one of the most awkward scenes in scripture Naomi as they've been patient and as they've been waiting Naomi sees something and she's like "Hey you're going to end up I think with Boaz and I'm going to give you the tools to make it happen." All right She's like "God has been cleaning the soil right god has been preparing your harp and preparing Boaz You've been faithful." She's like "Now Ruth is the time to make a move." So here's what her former mother-in-law tells her She's like "Go take a bath." All right I don't know if she smelled but she's like "Go take a bath Put on perfume." And then it gets weirder She says "Find where Boaz is sleeping and where he's sleeping lay at the foot of the bed and when he comes in after drinking too much," you're like "Where's this going?" All right Uncover his feet And you're like "Is this really happen?" Check out chapter verse 7 of chapter 3 After Boaz ate and drank and was in good spirits literally in scripture okay and as this scene starts to unfold and this has all kind of problematic ways uh if we did this today right uh but there was cultural things behind this and and they act in the right way Here's where it leads to in verse 10 is all of a sudden this interaction happens and and he asks he's like who is that and it's I am Ruth And in verse 10 this is what Boaz says He says "May the Lord bless you my daughter You have shown more kindness now than before because you have not pursued younger men whether rich or poor Ruth is saying I'm interested in you I want this relationship to happen She was sending a message in the appropriate means of I want to pursue this Verse 11 he says now don't be afraid my daughter I will do for you whatever you say since all the people in my town know that you are a woman of noble character Despite the awkward circumstances both Ruth and Boaz act with incredible honor in this situation Ruth makes herself vulnerable but not inappropriate And Boaz protects her repu reputation and commits to following the proper procedures She essentially is saying like I'm interested almost proposing I want to be married to you And his answer is he gives her a bunch of food and sends her back to her mother-in-law And I'm like how do you take that okay but we'll we'll see where it leads in a second But I think this does show us our next cultural confession as we look at this and say what does this mean for us today is when we see this lens here's the problem I think we have got it in our culture today is we have replaced appropriate pursuit with aggressive demand you see I think our culture is kind of drift to two extremes there's a one extreme where it's almost like this old-fashioned idea of women should just be like this perfect little princess and completely passive and they should just wait until their night and shining armor sweeps them off their feet and they go live happily ever after And that's one extreme And then on the other extreme there's this modern aggressiveness where boundaries don't matter and kind of like consent is just assumed and if you want to just go get it And Ruth shows us that there's a third way in between this where she shows this bold vulnerability combined with respect for boundaries in Ruth here as she makes her intentions known to Boaz is like "I I care for you I love you I I want to see this relationship take hold which was a culturally bold move to make but she does it in a way that honors him that respects the law and that maintains her dignity." And Boaz responds by protecting her honor even while we see kind of in the next chapter here he accepts her proposal And here's what's so crazy is he as he says you know he loads her up he sends her food but then eventually then he makes his pursuit And all this story is just when you step back you're like this is so crazy Like these two people should not be together Like he's old he's rich and he's a Jewish guy in Bethlehem She's a young widow from Moab who's poor who has nothing who is gleaning his fields And when the profiles that they would set up in the dating app would say they are not a match but somehow God moves them together And we see how all this story comes to a conclusion in chapter 4 where this mess of their love story all of a sudden that mess it's a mess that becomes a masterpiece You see in this final chapter it shows how God transforms all this into something beautiful And check out in verse 13 it says this Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife After all this crazy journey after Ruth not knowing what was going to happen not knowing how God would provide not knowing where to take she just faithfully follows him she makes her intentions known to Boazes I'm interested in this And he all of a sudden responds And then Boaz here took Ruth and she became his wife He slept with her And the Lord granted conception to her and she gave birth to a son And I love this in verse 14 Naomi now Grandma Naomi comes back into the scene and says "The women said to Naomi blessed be the Lord who has not left you without a family redeemer today May his name become well known in Israel." You see Boaz navigates all the craziness of the story the legal complexities and he does all this the cultural barriers but then he marries Ruth and they have a son But here's what's awesome is the story actually doesn't stop there Because at the end of chapter 4 it tells us who that son would actually lead to And the son that they have would become the grandfather of King David And if you go to Matthew 1 and you see the genealogy that begins the New Testament in verse 5 it says "Sammon fathered Boaz by Rahab Boaz fathered Oed by Ruth Oed fathered Jesse And Jesse fathered King David." You continue down that g genealogy that family tree And and in verse 16 all this leads to in Jacob father Joseph the husband of Mary who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah This crazy messy love story led to the savior of the world And here I think it may sound a little weird but here's I think the cultural confession that kind of comes out of this a little bit is we have chosen temporary connection over covenantal commitment You see what they decided to do is like hey we're not just going to tell the world what instantly attracts us We're not just going to say "This is exactly what I want in a relationship and I'm going to pursue this." Instead we're going to let God sanctify us We're going to let God work in our lives We're going to let God guide our love story And it put us together And that marriage led to Jesus himself coming to earth Sounds like a pretty big deal But all the world would say "This is crazy These people shouldn't be together They didn't follow the way that makes sense Is I don't even know if they're compatible According to recent studies the average American has seven to eight romantic and probably a more crude way of saying of sexual relationships before marriage In our culture here's the problem It treats relationships like test drives You need to try it out to see if it's going to work for marriage You need to live together before to see if you you might want to kill each other when you live together Spoiler alert if you're married for a long time you are going to want to kill each other at some point Okay and mainly it's because the dude's fault Actually 100% of the time it's because the dude's fault All right um I say that my wife's not even in the room and I'm saying that right now okay but tell her after if you see her that I said that but here's the deal is our world is like are we compatible well we need to try everything We need to experience everything in dating we'll experience in marriage to know if we're compatible Here's the truth And here's what biology teaches us And here's what God's word teaches us If you're a man and she's a woman you're compatible That's pretty awkward isn't it all right It's about the reaction I got from first service too Nobody even said amen Come on You're all too scared You want to try again if you're a man and she's a woman you're compatible I appreciate that Thank you But here's what Ruth and Boaz story shows us that God's best often comes when we are being loyal to him When we are being faithful to him and we're committing in a covenantal way committing in a way that lasts not something temporary and fleeting that our world has to offer And this story that started as a story of death and desperation all of a sudden becomes part of the lineage of the savior of the world Jesus Christ himself Why because two people chose faithfulness over feelings Two people chose purpose over pleasure Two people chose covenant over convenience So as we let this kind of lay upon us hey and we read God's word and we say "Where do we take this how do we attempt to apply this what are some practical ways that we can take away from R's story for our messy dating and marriage relationships that are permeated through our culture?" The first thing I think we need to realize is when relationships face loss or difficulty we need to choose loyalty over leaving It is so easy to leave It's a lot harder to stick around The second thing is we need to focus on faithful living rather than frantic searching for love Too often we don't trust God in the process and work on ourselves knowing that God is faithful and will provide Third we need to pursue relationships with boldness and boundaries The world says you don't need boundaries but we see in scripture boundaries protect us from hurt later on And lastly we need to remember that God is writing a bigger story than just your personal happiness Here's how I want to leave you with today As you try to kind of put all that in your head what applies to you what applies to maybe you and dating now but in your marriage as you're praying for those who are coming next how does this apply and what does this mean for us how do we live this out here's our key truth that I think we see from this scripture that can be taken out as we leave this place is God uses messy relationships to write redemptive stories Relationships are messy They always will be There will always be fighting There will always be annoyances My wife and I have been married for 11 years And if I would be lying to you if I said it was 11 years of skipping through daisies We've had four kids We've had fights We've had annoyances Mainly me to her We've had frustrations But here is what God has done to keep us together is we have never let leaving or divorce ever be on the table Those words just aren't in our vocabulary that when things get hard we come closer together into our God knowing he is using something that is bigger than just us Yesterday we had a very full Saturday My wife had put on the calendar before that she had a special tea with her mom and her sister and they took the older girls and got all dressed up something that sounds terrible as a dude but they loved as women But then she told me she's like "Uh I had the other three kids and I was taking care of them." And then a friend from church was like "Hey you come to the birthday party tomorrow morning." I was like "Which party is that?" He's like "My kids's birthday party." I'm like "Oh man I forgot about that." So I had a choice in that moment take three kids one three and six to a swim party outside by myself or sit at home and take the easy path I took him to the birthday party Yeah it was hot It was not fun The one-year-old only only drowned like almost drowned like three times No big deal Like I'm like "Stand up." Like "No just pull it up." Yeah it was good Uh but it at the end of that like my kids were exhausted I was exhausted I'm sleep like taking a little nap on the couch as they're napping Then my wife's like "You know we have another birthday party tonight." I'm like "Oh kids parties are the worst right?" So we got up went to the other party and and in the back of my mind all I was thinking is like I just want to watch the Diamondbacks game They lost 14 to 11 so I'm glad I didn't get to watch the Diamondbacks game if I'm being honest But I was like I just want to sit on my couch I just want to relax It's been a long week It's Saturday Can we just chill can we do nothing can we just sit back but in those moments of my laziness and my selfishness and my looking towards me internally and not verbalizing too much out loud so I don't get stabbed but God works in my heart in those moments It says your family is not about you The story that God is writing is not about me It is not about my comfort It is not about my convenience is not about just selfishly pursuing the things that I want that I feel make my life go better My marriage isn't just about me It's about my wife It's about our kids It's about the legacy that is being written that we cannot write on our own But God is guiding through our family And you come to the story of Ruth It is so messy It is so weird It is not how anyone would write the movie to happen with all the nice bows It's not how you would want your life to go But God worked through it to bring us the savior of the world who would die for our sins and give us new life And as you're going through the messiness of your relationships you might be struggling in your marriage You might be frustrated with who your kids are dating You might be going through all these emotions Are we looking and are we asking how can I be doing God's will how can I be faithfully following him and trusting that he is writing a redemptive story that is so much bigger than my own so much greater than my selfish pursuits because just one sliver and his great story and his kingdom of how Jesus is being made known in our lives and how we can help be a part of making it known in the life around us My prayer is you leave these doors not discouraged that things are messy not annoyed that things aren't perfect but dependent and faithful to the God who turns it into something great [Music]