singles, or what kind of relationships singles should have. The first part of this, there's two parts, the one is just relationships in the Christian life, and let me say this, that even if you're not single here, you're going to find a lot of biblical truth that's going to be helpful in our relationships, but there'll be an angle toward the singles particularly, that I think will be of help to us. So relationships in the Christian life, and let's first look at the foundation for Christian relationships, which is unity in Christ by faith. And in Galatians chapter 3, verse 28, it says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And then in John chapter 17, verse 20, it says, I do not pray for these alone, but also those who will believe in me through their word. And then it actually talks about oneness as well. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, just as you are in me and I in you. And that's verse 21, I believe. And so unity is something that is really embedded in the gospel and embedded in what Christ has for his people, people in his church. And so establishing a foundation that Christians together, that work together, that meet together, they should be unified together. And so how is that supposed to happen? Well, let's look then also at the goal of Christian relationships, and the goal should be spurring one another to greater faith, love, and self-sacrifice and maturity. So when we're thinking about singles or really any relationship that is between brothers and sisters in Christ, we ought to have goals in mind in these relationships. And the goal should be to help each other grow spiritually, to help each other be built up in the faith, and to mature. In Hebrews 10, verse 24, it says, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. That part of the responsibility that we have as believers toward one another is that we are to stir up one another. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another. And so much the more, as you see the day approaching, that there is a need for each other as we anticipate the coming of Christ. There is this need for each other to stir up one another in love and good works. In John chapter 15, verse 12, it says, this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than the man laid down his life for his friends. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 gives us some wisdom here as well. It says, and he himself gave some to the apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Why? For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and the way that this is structured and worded is the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. That is, the saints are to do the work of the ministry. Well, what is the work of the ministry? Well, it's the edifying of the body of Christ. The word edify means to build each other up. till we all come to the unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Now let me pause here and just say this. So when we're talking about singles, teenagers, or young adults, and really it goes to really any brothers and sisters in Christ kinds of relationships. What barriers, what things stand in the way? Let's start with sort of teenager, young adults. What could get in the way of these things happening? What could stand in the way? Josh? Okay, pride, certainly. Yeah? Insecurity, okay. Actually, there's a strong relationship between pride and insecurity sometimes, but yeah. Yes? Okay? Other responsibilities? Good. Let's take pride and insecurity for a minute here. Why would pride, not that yours is invalid, it's not, it's valid, but why would pride and insecurity, how would that affect our relationships with each other so that we are able to stir up to love and good works. To help each other, to build each other up, to edify each other. How does pride and insecurity, just practically, how does that get in the way? Any ideas, Josh? Okay. Alright. Good. Okay, so on one hand, if someone is If there is a desire to stir up to love and good works, we might be too prideful to receive that. What else? Yeah. Okay. We might not, on the insecurity side, we might not think that we can stir up anybody to love and good works. We don't really have anything to offer in building somebody up, so why try? Somebody else could do that so much better than I can. Good. Yeah, those are two ways. Other responsibilities is really a very valid barrier where we're just so preoccupied with tasks and things that we're doing, and that is a serious issue in our central Maryland culture, between Baltimore, D.C. to Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, where we're all busy and we have traffic everywhere, it's just busy. Well, we have to be aware of that, and we have to learn to set our schedules in a way that we're not overly busy, that we're able to have time to show love to one another and to build each other up in the faith. Josh. Yeah, it doesn't mean that. In fact, we shouldn't. So, good. And not just unity of the faith, but of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man. It's talking about a maturity is what we're looking at, and to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Rose? you mentioned, I'll go back to that idea of being more focused on myself. It's really hard to reach out and love people when my focus is on myself. It's always going to turn out I think that's why scripture says, let love be without dissimulation, without hypocrisy. Because it's very easy for us to say, okay, well, I'll do the love thing for, you know, five minutes and 15 minutes, okay, all right, and I'm going to go back and do what I want to do. But God says to give of, I mean, love is to give of myself And by the way, not only, Rose is absolutely right, not only is selfishness something that is going to keep us from loving, but did you know that loving will keep you from selfishness? I mean, if you love others, if you give of yourself to others, then it keeps you from being overly focused on self. Or focused on self at all, actually. And so those two things are exclusive of each other. at one point is it that certain members of the body of Christ you keep trying to minister to them or try to encourage them in the Lord and they just don't want it anymore they just don't want it. Is there a time in which you find that it's kind of like the dust your feet because you might not think they're willing or what would it what would it look like do you think working itself out? Yeah, there's a passage that, it's a good question, there's a passage that actually, I can't remember the reference, but it talks about how to treat, you know, you've got different categories of people. You have categories where you have people that are, they're struggling. They're not wayward, like wayward, it says warn the wayward. So if someone is straying from the faith, there's actually an admonition to warn them. If someone is weak, I think it says, comfort the weak. I can't remember, there's a middle one. It's comfort the weak something and then, does anybody know the verse I'm talking about? What's that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, be patient with all men. That's the last thing, actually, to be patient with everyone. So that verse, I wish I could recall it off the top of my head, but that verse is a very helpful one. I often go to that one. Okay, can you read it for us? So it gives, depending on what the situation is, really that verse helps me a lot. Is this person wayward? Okay, well then I need to warn. Is this person idle? I need to admonish. Is this person weak? Is he just discouraged? Well, I need to comfort and encourage. So it all depends on that. Now, if you warn, if someone is wayward and you warn them, and they don't listen, if there's nothing that, if there is, then sometimes there is, you still have to be patient. So you're still gonna love, you're still gonna pray. Sometimes the answer is you just pray for them. The reality is that a genuine Christian cannot stay static forever. They're going to have to, if they've been warned, then at some point, they're going to begin to violate scripture clearly. And that's where church discipline kicks in, when it's a clear, verifiable kind of a thing. But that verse really helps me in, okay, well, what's the situation here? And meeting the need based upon the situation. I always would prefer to assume that someone's not wayward, they're discouraged, and I give comfort first. And I assume that the issue is that first, before I just assume that they're just off into waywardness. But that is entirely possible as well. Does that help? The nature of our Christian relationships. So, take your Bibles if you would. Well, you don't have to, it's right here, or you take your Bibles in 1 Timothy chapter 5. But I want to talk a little bit about the nature of Christian relationships, and I want us to see clearly from this passage. This is going to become kind of a key passage for us in understanding how our relationships are supposed to be in the body of Christ. because it draws a connection between a human family or a physical family and a spiritual family. 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 1 says, do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as a father. Younger men as brothers Older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity. Now that verse, he's telling Timothy, as a young pastor, this is how you relate to brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. This is something that he is saying, essentially, that they become, when you're a Christian with other people in the body of Christ, they're your family. Now that almost might seem a little foreign to us, but in the first century, often when someone came to Christ, What happened? Does anybody know? This happens in other cultures to this day as well. The church is their family now, and their own family may very well disown them. That happened in the first century, happens over in Asia. You talk to missionaries, I mean, they may very well be disowned by their own family. It may be, and so that, or the entire family will actually come to Christ, and they'll be part of the church family as well, you're all one family. And so Paul tells Timothy, this is how you treat, you're going to treat an older man in the faith, you're going to treat him like a father. Younger men, treat him like a brother. Older women, treat him like a mother. Younger women, treat him like a sister. Yeah? I think his point is that there is a certain kind of respect that you should give to someone who is older, that you shouldn't be quick to rebuke someone who is older in the faith. I would say yeah. I guess you could, I could see how you think it would apply. It's probably primarily, maybe entirely applying to the first. I would actually have to see in the Greek how it's to be sure, but probably. So, now that does not mean that if someone is sinful who is older, that you don't deal with that. I mean, you know, as a pastor you would have to. But there is a, he's really talking about the manner in which you do it. There is a manner that is right to do as far as these different relationships. So for most of us, most of the time, what is the very, okay, let's take singles, we'll do it that way. For singles, what is really applicable here a lot of times? Well, it's the fact that we need to treat our family members like brothers and sisters in Christ. And we're going to learn some things about the importance of doing that. Let's look at the passage a little bit here, or not the passage, but just some applications of what he's saying here. First of all, what do brother and sister relations look like if they are biblically healthy? Biblical and healthy. Number one, there's care and concern, there's service and there's self-sacrifice. Number two, there is interest and knowledge. You know, if you have a good relationship with a sibling, there's interest, there's knowledge, there's encouragement to grow spiritually, there's love, and he says there's purity here. So these are very important to go by. Now, let me insert something in here, as far as singles. There is something that could very well get in the way of this. And that is an improper dating relationship with somebody else in the body of Christ. We talked a lot about this last week as far as the whole idea of when to date and the danger of it and all that kind of thing. But what does Scripture say we're supposed to do with people that are not our spouses and how we relate to them? Well, if they're of our same gender, they're like brothers. And if they're opposite, they're like sisters. That's how we're supposed to relate to them. Why might that be a problem in a dating relationship? When could that become a problem? Is it a problem? Okay, you don't date your sister, right? Like, wow, okay. Alright, can we say this? When we're teaching our children from the ground up to relate to other boys and girls in the church at first, and then when they get older, they're still boys and girls, but they're in adulting bodies. So then what happens? How should Caitlin relate to guys her age? In the church or other people that know Christ? As brothers. That should be the default. The default should be as a brother. Not in other terms. Now, it doesn't mean that that doesn't come along. We'll learn about that a little bit. But understand that when we are the natural, normal culture, the biblical, healthy culture in a local church, is that we're family members and we're going to treat each other as brothers and sisters. In fact, this is something that is really, can be almost foreign in a local church, where everybody's sort of strangers and you just have a few close friends or those kind of things. I know of a church that, well if you go down south you hear this quite often. What do you hear? They'll say brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so. Have you heard that before in southern churches? You know that's actually happening deliberately in some churches. Capital Baptist Church down in DC, the church of all mainly, I mean it's a lot of Millennials It's a lot of younger people. They're urban professionals primarily. They're not southern. And they deliberately call each other brother and sister on purpose. And I actually think that is a great idea. So we should all do that immediately. I don't know that it'll work in our culture up here. It could. It certainly wouldn't be wrong. It would be a good reminder that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. But it's something to understand that that's what God intends for us as a church. to have that kind of a relationship. And we need to teach our children that that is the case. The priority of our Christian relationships also is membership in the local church. Now what I've done here is I've taken an excerpt from our church covenant. We very rarely talk about our church covenant. We really should talk about it more than we do. And we probably should recite it more than we do. But every one of us who are members of this church have agreed that we are going to do this with each other. And this is what it says. We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love. Did you catch that? That takes personal responsibility. Yes, Jeff. The verse mentions over his father and mother. Is there a reason we skew away from that that we are getting in this analysis? Yeah, actually I was thinking the same thing. What's that? I was thinking the same thing because the father aspect, there's a lot of it with regards to honoring Well, we're going to get there. Yeah, we're going to get there. I think our status, our position, is brother and sister because God is our Father. So if you think in terms of what are we horizontally, well, I might have an older... In other words, the first Timothy passage has to do with treatment. this passage has more to do with what our status is. So Harry is old enough to be my dad, but he is my brother in Christ. Does that make sense? So I think that's why, but my treatment of Harry might be that I would be a little more careful about rebuking Haring. Sorry, I'm picking on you. Anyway, I have a brother. So, yes? When, like, where do you draw those distinctions? If the passage is talking about treating the olders as fathers and mothers, and treating those that are, like, same age, yeah, like as brothers and sisters, if they're the same age, do you grow out of that? like elders being the fathers and mothers, and the other one is the brother and sister? Okay, so there's a difference between status and treatment. So what we're talking, in that passage in 1 Timothy is talking about treatment. So treatment is different than what our position is to each other. Our position to each other is not, he's not my father, my father is up there, just God is my father. He's my brother. Okay, so status-wise is different. Treatment, he's my older brother, and it says to treat him, okay, so how do I know how to treat him? Well, or, sorry, I'm not, anyhow, so how do I know how to treat them? Well, how do I treat my father? Okay, well, this is how I should treat an older brother in Christ. Does that make sense? So there's a distinction based upon what is being talked about, what the context is. Does that make sense? Do you think you could still honor the father, treating him in a way that's appropriate, but yet still giving rebuke at the same time? I think you can. Probably. No, I wouldn't use the word rebuke, because it says don't rebuke a father. But I think correction could happen, sure. Sure, Timothy's a pastor. He may have to do correction. That might have to happen. But I think that's a little bit different with the treatment it's going to be. I'm not going to be quick to rebuke. Yeah. And give him more of a benefit of the doubt. I think it's a deference thing. I think that passage really has a lot to do with treatment, which we're going to get into more later on in application. But I think it's pretty simple. You've got status and you've got treatment. So we wouldn't call each other spiritual fathers unless, I mean, Paul does say son of the faith when he's, when it's done. when he's led into Christ. But your brothers and sisters in Christ, because we all have one Heavenly Father. Yes? I almost feel like it's a kind of a cultural thing, where it's less of a father and more like a senior brother, in a way. I feel like in America, we all, as siblings with each other, we're all kind of on an even plane, regardless of age. but it almost seems like, okay, treat your, the older Christians in the faith as fathers, when it's more of like a, oh, you were my elder or like senior or better, and then it's kind of like an elders and juniors sort of thing. Yeah, I think that's fine. I think that the point that Paul is making is he's saying to Timothy, look, this is how you treat how you treat people. Like, okay, just think of it, first century, nobody's, everybody's first time doing church, okay, because everybody's saved and Christ is risen from the grave and now the church has been inaugurated and this is in the beginning stages of how to figure this out. Well, how am I supposed to relate? I mean, they're not, how am I supposed to treat each other? And that's what the passage is dealing with. Yeah. You could also take, just as Rob called it, baseball team. They're all baseball players. They're all on that team. However, you got some as rookies, you got some that are veterans. And so they're said the rookies are learning from the other ones, but they're all Yeah, and we are going to look at that. Actually, there's another passage that talks about that as well. So let's go ahead and just get through that. Let's work through this a little bit. It says, to cultivate Christian sympathy and feeling and courtesy and speech, to be slow to take offense but always ready for reconciliation, and mindful of the rules of our Savior to secure it without delay. So I just wanted to highlight the fact that we have some very clear things that we've all agreed to when it comes to our family relationships with each other as members of the body of Christ. Now let's look then at the single life particularly in the context of the local church. Building on some of the things that we've already mentioned, and we're working our way to this. Relating to single adults of the same gender. So let's first look at that. Now, I think there's going to be application here for whether you're single or not, actually. But let's just look at this. So it's a blessing to have others going through similar life issues and struggles, life identity questions, work development and struggles, sexual temptation, etc. It's great to have others to just have fun with, to enjoy fellowship, shared common interests, to get support and encourage from, etc. And it's also great to have others to relate to who have more freedom and time with families typically do. So these are all good things about singles relating to each other. But there's a negative side. I'll ask the question. What is the negative side, what could happen potentially if single adults, young adults or teenagers, are only relating within their own peer group? Yes. They don't get a wider Some of the issues, they're only hanging out with their peers. More juvenile wisdom and advice can be given compared to spending time with those older in the faith, or even younger in the faith who have a different view. That's good, very good. Yes, Tracy. They don't learn to bear the burdens of those that are in different stages of life. And I think as Christians we're doing that. Yeah. Good. Yes. I think it was both ways here. I agree with you. It's good. The ones mentioned here are, unless you're talking to a single adult with... Here's some things that are sort of the downfall of this, and you all have mentioned good ones. Unless you're talking to a single adult who is a decade or two ahead of you, you generally have less wisdom available to you because you just haven't experienced certain struggles, accomplishments, and life stages. That's basically what Jared was saying. There's a particular temptation that can be attached to certain seasons of life. and to only relate to those who are struggling with the same things may make things worse, not better. Let me address this. This is something to really, teenagers, really pay attention here and not, I mean, really anybody, it's just really important. So there are particular temptations that occur within certain seasons of life. It's more comfortable to talk to somebody who is going through the same thing you're going through. Okay, why? Okay, you don't have to explain it as much. Yeah, you don't. Yeah. A lot, it's less embarrassing. It is something where you don't feel as guilty. This is an area of temptation for you. This is an area where, for example, and when you, it ends up being where you're just commiserating. Yeah. You almost find that if you tell that person, and you know they're going through it, their reply might be simply, well that's okay, pick your head up and keep going. Now you feel excused, or not justified, or forgiven. So that it doesn't really actually put you in a better place, because the accountability is falling into the same traps. Let me tell you, I'm going to be real blunt with you, because I just think I need to be. Let me tell you where this really, when men have problems with pornography, when teenage men or young men have problems, they will often go to other young men who have the same problem. That's a terrible accountability. It won't work. And the reason it won't work is because it's too easy to commiserate and to sort of excuse each other, rather than actually helping each other. It's much better for a young man to go to an older man in the faith who's not, maybe he struggled with a problem at one point, or maybe he hasn't struggled with it, but go to a man who isn't struggling with it. who can help him and hold him accountable, than to, oh yeah, I struggle with it, yeah, I struggle, we both struggle. It can actually be more harmful than not. And frankly, that could go for, that's one very acute, substantive kind of thing, but in a lot of areas, teenagers struggling with attractions and with just liking guys and girls. The reason I always want to steer teenagers to talking to the parents about these things rather than to each other about these things is because you aren't going to get a lot of wisdom from each other because you haven't been through it yet. and actually you'll end up sort of validating each other rather than actually causing a counterpoint to happen. Does that make sense? In other words... Yes, Jeff? Yeah, same kind of thing, exactly. So we want to be careful about that. Relating to those of the opposite gender in the local church, we've already gone over this with brothers and sisters in Christ is how we should do that. This is a very helpful thing as far as... I did not come up with this. This is something that I found. It's called a friendship continuum. This is really geared towards single adults and teenagers. I think it really... If you look at this, what this is talking about is there is this idea, I remember when I was a teenager, there was this idea that you should not, you need to protect people of the opposite sex, you need to protect their heart. So you don't want to leave them on, and you need to protect their heart. Is that true? Sure it is. Yeah, sure it is. Can that be taken too far? It can be taken too far. How can it be taken too far? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, how are you supposed to treat them like a brother or sister in Christ if you are trying to protect their heart to the point where you just isolate yourself from them? Yeah? Yeah, good. Yeah? Okay, yeah. Okay, good question. So, we were talking more about the paranoid side, let's switch over to the promiscuous side. I think the key here is, you do not, okay, it presupposes some things that we talked about last week. So, it presupposes that you're actually trying to guard your heart until the right time, or whatever wise time that is between you and your parents, but the right time where you should be entering into a dating relationship. But let me back up a little bit. That's part of it. The other part of it is this. Here's where you run into trouble. And this is where probably most young men that aren't saved, they tend to think this way. toward the opposite sex. I'm interested or I'm not interested. You have two categories. I'm interested in them as a possibility or I'm not interested in them as a possibility. They're not a possibility. What's the problem with that in the body of Christ? You can't treat them as a brother or sister in Christ if everybody you're viewing is, I'm interested or I'm not interested. That is not a biblical way of looking at it at all. A biblical way of looking at it is, if they're a brother or sister in Christ, my default is that I treat them like a brother or sister in Christ. That's everybody I'm gonna treat that way. The problem, this idea of flirting to see if I'm interested, all this nonsense that happens among singles a lot of times, where, okay, well, maybe she's interested, I'll flirt with her a little bit, she'll flirt with me, maybe there's something there, maybe there's not. All that nonsense, you are abdicating 1 Timothy 5.1. You're basically saying you can't possibly be doing that. Is it possible, as a young person, to have the mindset that I'm going to treat the girls that are Christians, I'm going to treat them like sisters, and the guys I'm going to treat like brothers. I'm going to treat them that way as a young person. And there might be an interest that develops. Is that possible? Sure it is. But that is entirely different than approaching every guy and girl with sort of a in or out or maybe or interested, not interested kind of approach. I'm attracted, I'm not attracted kind of approach. That should not be the focus. At a very early age, we need to be teaching our children this kind of thing. That's where we end up getting into the promiscuous thing, when we start thinking in those kinds of terms, interested, not interested, not considering brother or sister in Christ. thinking in terms of how could I go after the people that I'm interested in, and people are not, can I narrow it down? That's when you get into a promiscuous kind of approach. That's entirely different than the baseline is, they're my brothers and sisters in Christ, and there is a interest that develops from a healthy relationship. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's what I mean. Actually, I probably should put everything in quotes. All right, so, and then Jeff, anyway. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, good. Any other questions about this? Does this make sense? Teens, does this make sense? What do you guys think? Is this how you all think? Yeah. So what if, for example, we're not supposed to be paranoid and run from people. We want to not cut them out of time. But what if every interaction with that person is just, oh, I'm interested in, like, it just, it bombarded with this, like, almost like temptation, where it's just like, oh, I just can't, like, I just can't get in charge with it. That's a really good question. Do I just flee from temptation entirely? How do I deal with that sort of thing? That's a really good question. How do I, what's the answer, guys? I'm stalling is what I'm doing here, because it's a really good question. Yes. the first three or four months of when I was interested in Miranda and I couldn't do anything about it because there was another friend of mine who was interested in her. Okay. And number one... You beat him up? No. No, okay. Number one was a lot of prayer. Yeah. It was a lot of prayer and trust in God. Okay. I think that he knew what was going on. He knew my heart. And I didn't know his timing or his will in the matter. So it was a matter of trusting God and praying to him on a fairly regular basis and to try and keep me from going too far in my mind in that realm. And the cool thing was is it forced us to have a friendship ahead of time and sort of see each other in a real life rather than in modified dating, which may not really be reality kind of thing. That's good. I think also, I guess I'll say it this way, if you are in a pattern of treating, if you're single and you're in a pattern of treating guys your age as brothers in Christ and girls as sisters in Christ, well it doesn't matter anyway. You're used to that. You know what that looks like. You're in a pattern of doing that. Then when someone comes along that you're really interested in, then you know what the pattern is and you can continue to treat them the same way. And then you can pray about what action to take, if you're a man, what forward movement to take, versus not knowing how to deal with it, not knowing how to handle it. The problem becomes is when you're in this sort of interested, not interested, and you become really interested, and then you don't even know how to relate to them anymore. Does that make sense? So I think that's part of the answer to that. I don't know if that's all the answer, but I think it's part of it. I think what Enrique had to say was good too. Yeah? Is this more as you're kind of moving from the too young to date to the dating age perspective? Once you're kind of in the fully mature, you've treated them like you said, you've seen them as brothers and sisters in Christ in general, when you meet someone, I don't think it's inherently wrong to move to dating fairly quickly if there's the interest and you're at that stage in life and everyone's interaction. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think that's, I would agree with that. Both parties in that stage of life. Yeah, both parties in that stage of life, yeah. Yes? as the moving forward concept. How would you advise, for instance, like Kate Moon, if she starts dating, and say she starts dating someone and there's an interest there. She's not, but go ahead. There's an interest that develops, but maybe then you see something that's your red flag. How do you advise a teenager to turn it backwards, back to the brotherly, sisterly relationship in a Christian way? Because maybe it's someone in their church or someone they come in contact with all the time, but they've seen this is not the person God has for me because of this, but maybe that person's still interested in them, but they know it's not right for them. I've got this big shotgun in my head, but anyway, that's not the right answer. So, how do you... Okay, well, let me say this. So much of this, again, does presuppose on what we talked about last week. But what I would say is that a lot of it is going to depend upon There's a reason why I don't think it's wise for teenagers to date at all. Because I don't think they've learned how to, since you pointed out Caitlyn, she's not dating as a teenager at all. Because why? Because when you can have brothers and sisters, lots of relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ, you can develop a discernment. And you can grow in your understanding of what what is a good brother in Christ and what is not, and what is mature spiritually and what is not. So that by the time you get to the place where you can, where it would be wise to consider dating, then you have a baseline for that, you sort of understand that. And then you can have, you can make more discerning choices. I honestly can tell you that my opinion on this, you may disagree, and that's fine, we're sort of waiting in the area that's not straight scripture, so we're going to have some disagreements, is that the child is under the authority of the parent, and really, at the end of the day, she needs to listen to my, and her mother as well, she needs to follow our advice. I mean, bottom line is, she needs to break up if they need to break up. I mean, that's, you know. I think then you can go back and start treating them as a brother or sister in Christ. But they're so different, I mean they're pretty different in what they look like, in the sense of you're not singling them out, you're not doing anything alone with them, you're not you know, you're in group settings, I mean, it's just, I think it has something to do with your level of intimacy. So, you know, there's different levels of friendships. You've got acquaintance level, it's the weather. You've got opinion level, you've got feelings level. So there's at least three, I think there's four total, I'm missing one. But basically, you don't want to talk about feelings. You can talk about opinions some, but you want to stay away from expressing your feelings. So there's certain things that you wouldn't do in a brother-sister kind of a relationship, especially after there's been any kind of dating going on. And I think that you're keeping the conversation a certain way, and you're also doing it, you're in a group setting. But I won't tell you that it's not a difficult situation, because it is a difficult, it's not easy, yeah. I wanted to add this too, like thinking on that, if that relationship happened to become, if they're dating, which again, I don't encourage either, but if they're dating and they became, it is sinful in their relationship in a way that was not, shouldn't be entertained, right? Sure. So dad says, hey, cut it off. Daughter, son obey, they do cut it off. But then you, as an adult or parent, want to use wisdom in how much interaction has that friendship, so-called, you allow. Because there's wisdom in not allowing that friendship to even have a degree of rekindling. Because the immaturity aspect of the child, is what they are, can't differentiate the understanding of how far is a real friendship or not, because they've already established they can't understand what friendship looks like. I do think that that's when parental guidance comes in. I think it's easier for a parent to see what makes sense for their kid in a situation like that than it's ever going to be for a single in the situation. And let's say a single adult whose parents aren't around. I think other, this is actually going into our next, but Harry did you have something to say? Well, one thing that we picked up a lot is don't allow one-on-one gathering. You have group gatherings, and that helps very much from things going too far. It's still a problem, though, if the relationship had already gone to a certain level, and they're still associated with the same type of group of people. You have to have, I think, a cutoff, because those emotions still can Sure. There's got to be some distance, which is fine. The next part of relating to this has to do with singles relating to families, relating to seniors, and relating to children. And so let me just mention that one of the major one of the major passages to go to would be in Titus 2, where it says that the younger women, or the older women are to teach the younger women. So there is this, and this is why some of you were sort of addressing this before, there is this idea that, biblically, that, at least a principle, that you have different stages of life and there should be, there is a real need for there to be interaction among different age groups. We don't have a lot of single adults in our church. I wish we did, and I'm actually starting to pray that we do somehow. We have a few, but we don't have as many as I would like. How does a single adult relate? Should they only relate to other single adults? No, they should be relating to other families. They should be relating to older people. And what we do have is some teenagers, and I'll just express the sort of concern that it goes both ways. I think teenagers need to be encouraged to relate to older folks, like me, that's older for teenagers, and older, older like others, okay? But also, I think that we need to take the initiative to relate to teenagers as well. It's gotta go both ways. They need to be open to it, they need to be ready for it, but very candidly, if I could just say it this way, we should not be content to stay in our own peer group. For some reason, we do tend to stay comfortable in that. Why? Because we have so much to relate to. If I have a family I'm talking to and they've got kids the same age as my kids, we've got all kinds of things to talk about, right? If they don't have kids at all, then I might have a little bit less to talk about. But honestly, what do we have to talk about? We've got a whole Bible to talk about. We have Christ to talk about. We have our relationships in the Lord to talk about. There really shouldn't be this segmented group where you just have, where you just have, everybody's peer group is together, and everybody, that really is not, there's a lot of, I mean, it's okay to have that sum. For educational purposes, it makes sense. So like in our Sunday School classes, we have age-appropriate Sunday School classes. Why? Because of different people, different levels, that makes sense. But we don't want that in all cases. This is why we don't have something called life groups. In some churches you have life groups where everybody in their own stage of life is with each other and you have a stage of life over here. There's a reason we don't have that here. We have discipleship home groups that are broken up by geography because then you have different ages working together. Fellowshipping with each other because the commonality that we have is in Christ and we could all learn from each other in various stages I think that is vitally important. It's essentially what I'm kind of going through with this. I'll give you one illustration of this and then we need to we need to close but When I was young we we had Wednesday night prayer meeting at church and And we, for most of my teenage years, we did not have a teen group at all. We didn't have a youth group. Instead what we had was, I remember there's a, actually, Harry knows him, Mr. Merson. He would come and he'd just gather a few of us guys, a few of us boys, and say, Come on, Jimmy, let's pray together. And we'd get over in the corner or whatever, and he would take me. I learned to pray from Bob Merson, praying through a prayer list with me, and I'm listening to him and praying. I developed a relationship with him, and he was my Sunday school teacher. Those kinds of things are very important in the body of Christ to happen. And so I would encourage that. We need to actually think purposefully about that. It is too easy for us to naturally gravitate to the people that are in our own stage of life that we just have on the tip of our tongue something that's common. And there's nothing wrong with that, but we need to purposefully develop relationships with people that are not in our natural stage of life that we can be a help to and that we can learn from. And there is, I think what Jeff said earlier is true, there is a benefit. If you're on the older end of things, there is a real benefit to, it's not just the benefit for the younger, it's the benefit for the older too. There is an energy and a care and those kinds of things that can be developed from that as well. All right, any final comments or questions? Yes, Tim. Well, it does say in the Bible for the older women to teach the younger women. Yeah, to love their husbands, particularly. Yeah, so you're dealing with multiple age groups where, hey, I've been through this, or I know what you're dealing with. Yeah, that kind of thing is something that should be happening as a church family in the body of Christ. And so all of this, yes, here. What kind of strategies would you suggest Oh, I'm glad you asked. That's good. This is worth, that's a good question. So let's take a young single adult that wants to get to know a family. Is that a good example? Yeah, just how to interact with other life groups. Okay, good. Well I think part of it is, let's take that one. If you have a young single adult who says, you know, I don't want to just hang around other single adults. I want to hang around I want to hang around families. Well then, if you're a young man, go to a father and say, hey, can we hang out? There should be a real desire to do that on the part of a Christian man. So one of the things that happens is a single adult will say, for example, to a family, or they'll say, well, they just seem so busy. The family just seems so busy. Is there some truth to that statement? There is some truth to that statement. You add on a few kids, and suddenly things get really busy. But could that be an excuse? Yeah, and it can be an excuse on the young adult side, and it can be an excuse on the other people's side. Now, there is a way, if a single person has more, he always has more flexibility, I guarantee you. So if they do, then don't ask a person to go to Starbucks. If you ask my wife, if you're a young lady and you ask my wife to go to Starbucks, she might be able to now that my kids are a little bit older, but five years ago, if you asked my wife to go to Starbucks, it's gonna be difficult. But if you said, can I come over and hang out with you? That's something entirely different. Why? For obvious reasons. It's in the home, they've got the kids, you don't have to deal with that. So you have to think somewhat creatively about that as far as, okay, what makes sense there. But that's not the only, but is that kind of answering your question? Yeah, just different tactics you can use to make it less awkward than just, hey, can we hang out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. When you were in Pennsylvania, we dealt with the young adults a lot. Yep. Yeah, good, good. It's not as convenient to just hang out and have a cup of coffee. You know what? Can I come help you clean your house? Can I come help you do something? And yes, on the young adult part, it was self-sacrificing. But those relationships you build as you serve, That's very good. And even in getting involved in ministries in the church, I mean, if you get involved in any, you know, if you get involved in the AV ministry, for example, you have to deal with Pat. But other than that, you have different age groups in there. Okay? So even, or whatever, he just was back there, so I just picked on that one. But there's different, so that's, those kind of things is good. Jeff? Those who say leverage church activities, like the men's practice, Any of those kind of things where they're gathering people, you can develop conversations that give you an idea of how you can relate to them more closely. Good. Yeah, very, very good. Okay, let's go ahead then and take some prayer requests very quickly. Teens, you're dismissed. And let me go ahead and take some prayer requests here.