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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Romantic Relationship Seminar

Gabriel Arruda

01 Why So Many Adventist Singles?

02 How God Prepares You for Your Spouse

03 Five Behaviors Keeping You Single

Father in heaven, Lord, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to be here, to share this material.

And Lord, we just want to open our hearts to you this morning.

And I pray that if there's someone here in particular who needs the moving of the Holy Spirit in a particular direction that you would have power to do that.

Lord have power to use me as your mouthpiece.

And I just ask that what is shared here would be edifying, that it would be truth, and that it would build us up to be whole, happy, holy people that could form godly relationships, that could glorify you and extend your kingdom.

All right, so if you missed last night's presentation, This is going to build on this somewhat, but they are being recorded so you can hear it on Audioverse or on the YouTube stream.

But what we're going to be talking about today is how God prepares you for your spouse.

What does God need to do to get you ready to not just be in a marriage, be in what kind of a marriage?

The first premise that I mentioned is that God is a nice person.

God desires you to have a happy, fulfilling life.

Premise number 2 that we discussed is God is pro-marriage.

Marriage was God's idea, God wants to bring godly couples together, and I shared all the objections that people have against that that I think are not true.

And then I would like to recover our third premise.

And that is, and that's what we spent the majority of our time on last night.

The reason why there are so many singles is because most singles are unconsciously contributing to their singleness by having extreme views of how God introduces people to their future person.

And we discussed what are those 2 extreme views.

I just sit here, do my thing, and boom, he's gonna plop him, he's gonna plop her on my lap.

And then the second extreme view, it's all up to me.

It's all about what I can do, what I can provide, my looks, my body, and all I do is go online, look, look, look.

But friends, I could tell you, you could have the stack.

You could have the good looks, you could have the success, you could have a great personality, you could even be out there dating and meeting people, but still be kept in singleness for years if this last thing is not in place.

That's what I'm going to talk about in this meeting.

And I want to talk about the second 1 now.

That's what we're going to discuss in this 1.

Now, instead of being underactive, which is the problem we talked about last night, these individuals are very proactive.

Now you might be saying, wait a minute, Gabe, last night you're like, date, date, date, activity, activity, and now you're saying don't be so active?

It's not that the activity itself is bad, but the problem is what the activity leaves out.

And all this activity is to the neglect of something else, something very vital, something very important.

And this idea is that they are looking in a non-surrendered, non-healed state.

Lots and lots of looking, constantly online, constantly just whatever's asking folks out, but they're doing it in a non-surrendered, non-healed state.

And this often results in their entire focus on finding the right person instead of what?

And it's a combination of the 2 that brings to success.

And so, when we're talking about finding a spouse, we have to really deal with 2 different dimensions.

I wanna share with you this fun little thing I put together.

I did that myself, you like that little picture?

You have to, and This combination right here is what results in success.

As God leads, you're asking folks on dates.

So you take what happens in those interactions, You take what God's doing in your life and you're reflecting on it.

And this is noticing and addressing heart issues, the reflective.

And any modification to this package right here usually results in trouble or in singleness.

And we're gonna see there are distortions to this.

And because there are distortions to this, people end up either single for a really long time who don't want to be or aren't supposed to be, or they get into a lot of bad relationships.

So what are the distortions of this formula?

You're externally active, but you're inwardly deflective.

You're externally active, but inwardly, you're deflective.

And this results with people with lots of dates and relationships for years with no success.

It's because though outwardly they're active, but inwardly they are not addressing their issues that are sabotaging their relationships.

So it's just lots and lots of the really repeating the same issues, the same problems.

Here's the second distortion of that formula I shared.

Externally you're passive, but internally you're reflective.

And so what this results in is partial self-knowledge and no dates.

That's the end result of this state right here.

And this is people who are doing some of the heart work, they're in prayer a lot, they journal, they read, they're going to conferences, all good stuff.

They're doing the reflective work, they're doing the heart work, but they have no dates or relationships due to being externally passive.

That's all they're doing is being reflective, but they're not actually out there getting to meet people, taking risks, asking people on dates.

And so they only have a partial self-knowledge.

Now why do they only have a partial self-knowledge?

It's because much of the self-knowledge you need can only happen in the context of relationships.

You could only go so far understanding yourself through journaling, through prayer, through listening to sermons, conferences.

Those are wonderful things, but it will only take you so far.

God intends that a certain amount of our self-knowledge comes in the context of relationships.

It comes in the context of actually being with people and even being with people in the context of romantic relationships.

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Series

Romantic Relationship Seminar

02 How God Prepares You for Your Spouse

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Two Shall Become One

The Two Shall Become One- Part 2

1h 17m

The Great Decision: Who Should I Marry?

1h 19m

Phil Mills: Preparation for a Happy Marriage

God’s Purpose in Marriage

45m

Relationships Week 2006

Key Questions Before Marriage

1h

How to Study the Bible and Empower Your Devotional Life- Part 1

43m

Biblical Love, Marriage, and Relationships - Part 1

51m

Singleness, Dating, and Relationships in the Church

How to Pray for A Godly Spouse

45m

Marriage Heart to Heart

1. An Enduring Commitment

1h 5m

Romantic Relationship Seminar

03 Five Behaviors Keeping You Single

52m

Breakout Session A

The Foundation for a Happy Marriage

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine