Well, in your bulletin I have a note sheet I encourage you to track along with me, and as you reach for that, also reach for your copy of God's Word, or we have an extra one or two under the seat in front of you if you need to borrow one, and open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis chapter 2. Have you made any New Year's resolutions yet? How many of you have failed? in your New Year's resolutions already, right? January 6th. I like to make resolutions that I can keep. Like I think this year I want to drink more coffee than I normally do. And so far I'm keeping it. It's great. It's a matter of conscience. I love it. Some would say I drink too much coffee and I just don't listen to them. No, I'm just kidding. Maybe you're like me, though. Maybe you wonder sometimes if you drink too much caffeine. So someone loved us enough to put together a little quiz for us to let us know if we drink too much coffee. I'll read a couple of items. I won't read the whole thing to you, but you know you drink too much coffee when you answer the door before people knock. That's a telltale sign. You might drink too much coffee if you can take pictures of yourself from 10 feet away without using the timer on your phone. You might drink too much coffee if you can drink instant coffee through a straw without water. You might drink too much coffee if you soak your dentures in coffee overnight. You might drink too much coffee if you can type 60 words per minute with your feet. You might drink too much coffee if you can walk 20 miles on your treadmill in the morning before you realize it's not even plugged in. Maybe you drink too much coffee if you keep your eyes open when you sneeze. I like this one. You might drink too much coffee if you introduce your spouse as your coffee mate. I like that one. In all honesty, we've been married 30 years this summer. In all honesty, I had to wait 18 years of our marriage before I could refer to Lori as my coffee mate. She didn't drink coffee. She loved the smell of it. And during those 18 years, there were a few times where I took a break from coffee and she was the one telling me to drink it again because she missed the smell in the morning. But something happened around the 18th year of our marriage where she's like, OK, I'm just going to drink some more coffee. You drink it all the time, and friends drink it, and socially it would be handy. So she started drinking some real weak coffee and putting lots of cream and sugar in it or ordering melted desserts at Starbucks. She entered that way into a sweet whipped cream expression of coffee type thing. But to her credit, it wasn't long before she was skipping the dessert drinks at Starbucks and she was just putting cream and sugar. Then she was backing off of the cream and sugar and it was in short order that my wife went from zero to 60 in the coffee drinking world. She was drinking black coffee. And I was thrilled because now we're making a pot for two in the morning, right? But that wasn't good enough for my wife. My wife likes extremes. And suddenly my Dunkin Donuts black coffee was not strong enough for her. And so she went over to Starbucks, a light blend, and then she went into the dark blends of Starbucks, and she drinks that black now. I think it smells like burnt tree bark. But she just is like, this is great stuff. So we just found a new to us coffee company. You order their stuff through the mail, or you can find it in some retailers. It's called Black Rifle Coffee Company. The coffee is so strong, they name the different blends after guns. Like the silencer is the real light roast, and I can drink that. But she said she didn't like that. She went to one that's called Beyond Black. And you could literally grow things in her coffee mug. So whatever on that, right? It's really cool, though, that my wife, for the past 12 years now, has been my coffee mate. And we have found that a cup of coffee Whether we're sitting in our living room, or sitting out at a pool, or at the beach, or on the back porch of a cabin looking at the woods, or going on a walk, or even in a drive in the car, a cup of coffee in our hand kind of pulls us into dating mode. You know, you kind of huddle around, your shoulders around a nice cup of coffee, and for us, we just start talking. As a matter of fact, tomorrow, Mondays, I take as a family day every week, and I'll get up in the morning, and she will eventually, or she'll beat me up in the morning, not beat me up like this, but beat me up out of bed in the morning. And there will be a time tomorrow morning where we both are sitting with a cup of coffee in our hands and just talking, talking through the weekend, talking through the day. And that's just a snapshot of our lives because as we've been married, we've discovered together the importance of having regular times of facing each other and talking. You might call that a date. We're not perfect on this. Don't misunderstand me. But we firmly believe in the importance of the priority of protecting time to be focused on each other. Now, that's a long way of saying we believe in the priority of dating inside of marriage. Those dating moments, those dating events, and the longer we're married, the firmer this conviction is. One of our favorite books on marriage is called Love That Last, written by a husband and wife team I've told you about before, Gary and Betsy Ricucci. And they say this on page 69 of that book, talking about communication. A husband and wife can only thrive in relational intimacy when they open up themselves to one another by the means of fellowship and biblical communication. I agree with that statement, wholeheartedly. But I also want to say this, when we're talking about communication like that in marriage, when we're talking about the importance of dating in marriage, I must say this, it doesn't happen on accident. What we're talking about this morning in our marriage series and this topic of dating and marriage is this, this kind of attention for each other takes a plan. It takes a plan. And so once again, after this message, there's only two messages left in our series on marriage. But what I want to do one more time with you today is I want to sit down with you. If my wife and I could sit down with you, and if you're married with you and your spouse at Starbucks, or at Dunkin' Donuts, drinking coffee ironically, we would say to you, there are nine important reasons why you, in your marriage, or if you're not married yet, in your future marriage, if that's God's plan, why you must make dating a priority. You say, well give us another way of saying that. Okay. I want to try to convince you this morning, in your marriage, of the importance of moving one inch closer with each other on a regular basis. We can call that dating. And if it helps, think of coffee. Get that smell in your mind. And when you smell coffee, you think dating. Be committed to regularly dating your life. Now, I'm talking to your wife. I'm talking to everyone in this room. I'm talking not just to the married folks. I'm talking to those of you who are single and not just those who've never been married. Those who have been married and for one reason or another are no longer married or it could be that your spouse has passed away. I'm talking to the young people in our midst. I'm talking to the high schoolers. I'm talking to our young adults. I'm talking to people in every decade of life, married or not. I want to encourage you to take notes and I'll tell you why at the end. This is an important topic. for our entire church family as we guard and nourish the marriages that God has in our church. Listen to me, every date, every coffee, every intentional moment together to move one inch closer, every date in marriage is sacred. It's sacred. I only give you nine reasons why, and then we're done. Number one, why is every date in marriage sacred? Why is every coffee sacred, if you will? Number one, because it celebrates the Creator. It celebrates the Creator. Every time you make an effort to face your spouse without interruptions, without distractions, and with the intention of moving at least one inch closer to each other, so to speak, That's a sacred moment. Why? Because it celebrates the Creator. Now, I want you to write down for this one Genesis 2 verses 18 through 24. Now, Genesis 2 is an amazingly important chapter of the Bible when it comes to marriage, as we've seen as we've been going through this series on marriage. We've been in this text a lot. Now, we remember what happened in Genesis chapter 1 in real time, so to speak. We're watching God create everything from nothing. And as the creation week unfolds, we see it building towards a crescendo. And all we know is this, at the end of God's creative activity in those first six days, His glory is going to be on display in an amazing way. Everything is building towards something. And so we watch this unfold in Genesis chapter one. But then we get to Genesis chapter 2 and it's like we have to tap the brakes. What's going on in Genesis chapter 2? Here's what's going on in Genesis chapter 2. If you're a careful student of the word, you've read through six days and then the day of rest in Genesis 1, and then you have that day of resting showing up in chapter 2, the opening verses, but then it's like he goes backwards. It's as if Moses, who's writing this on the plains of Moab, he's writing this and he's saying, did you see what really happened on day six? Did that sink in? Because if creation is building towards an apex, towards something beautiful, we need to slow down and look at that sixth day again. It wasn't just animals and man created that day. there was something else created that day. Did you catch it? And so now we have chapter 2 to make sure we watch it in slow motion. And I want to direct your attention starting at verse 18. We just have Adam so far. Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him. of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called a living creature that was its name and the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found and here's that phrase again a helper suitable for him I mean, you can see it. He's like, here come the two elephants. And as I study these two elephants, they're both elephants, no doubt about that. They're not chipmunks. One of them's not a chipmunk. They're both elephants. But as I study it closer, I see that they're the same, but they're definitely different. We would call them today male and female. And their difference definitely shows up in the physical makeup But even in their differences, there's a beautiful unity. I saw that with every kind of animal that he was naming. It didn't take Adam long enough, long at all to look around and say, well, there's not someone like me, another one of me that's different physically, but in that difference, there's a beautiful unity. I don't have one. That's right where God wants. Look at verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from man and brought her to the man. Oh boy, here comes the prototype. She would have been stunningly glorious. What's he gonna say? Verse 23, the man said, well, this, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. There's the rest of me. She'll be called woman because she was taken out of man. And for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Stop reading there. That's day six. That's God showing us through Moses' pen, in slow motion, what happened before God ceased His creative activity, not only of day six, but of the creation week. And watching it in slow motion, we get more data, just like ESPN, right? What we're seeing is the last thing that was created the creation week towards which everything was building an apex for God's glory the last thing was not just we can't just say animals because man was created after the land animals and we can't just say mankind because well Adam was created and also Eve was created You say, okay, now we can tie off day six, right? No, there was still one more thing created that never existed before. And it's verse 24. You know what was created? The last thing before God rested from his creative activity, the last thing he created was marriage. And now the picture that was building towards this apex is complete. God created marriage, and then he looks at his creation. He says, I'm finished. You might be wondering, well, how can marriage and not man and woman be the apex of the creation week? It's because what Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 5 later. When he's talking about the marriage of a man and a woman, he says, this is a great mystery. It's been a great mystery all along. But all along, marriage has been giving a picture, not just in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament. All along, it's been a message to us, a picture of God and His redeemed, and the relationship between the husband and the wife. So watch this. Watch this. If marriage is the apex of creation, through which God's glory just shines, every time you and your spouse isolate moments to be together, to grow closer to each other, watch this, you are shining the spotlight on the pinnacle of the Creator's work that glorifies Him, your marriage, your marriage. I mean, I look at Lori and I smile. My eyes might even water a little bit. And coffee breath is just the best perfume I can think of. I love spending time with my wife. As much as I stare at her, though, when we're moving one inch closer to each other with every coffee or with every date, I see past her. And I say, thank you, God. Thank you, God. for how you glorify yourself in what you've created, marriage. You know, it's interesting. Jesus was a huge fan of marriage, if I can put it to you in human terms. When someone asked Him about the permanence of marriage, He said this in Matthew 19, verse 6, What God has joined together, let no man separate. And though the context of those comments was a debate on divorce, I want to suggest to you that sadly, many who claim to be disciples of Jesus, put a wedge in their marriage relationship through neglect, through lack of maintenance, lack of dating. No, my brothers and sisters, every date is sacred. When you isolate in your moments and in your days time as a couple together, you're shining a spotlight on the Creator who gets all the glory. celebrates the Creator. What's another reason that every date is sacred? Number two, well, every date toughens the bond. Every date toughens the bond. You say, what do you mean by that? Well for this one, stay in this text, but I want you to especially look at Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 again. Remember this? The most important verse on marriage in the Bible. Jesus quotes it, Paul quotes it. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." As Dr. Steve Vires, a pastor in Indiana, puts it, there's a leaving, there's a cleaving, and there's a weaving. I love that. It's a great outline. But I want to especially call your attention to that phrase, that word, being joined to his wife. There is a bond that the Bible is describing right here from the beginning that exists between a man and a woman who say, I do. There's a force that unites them into an indissoluble unity and security. As one Old Testament scholar says, this right here, this phrase, be joined to one wife, this is the language of covenant commitment. Literally it means you're adhered, you are permanently overtaken in a bond that's not easily broken. You say, well, yeah, I said I do at the altar. Wasn't that enough? Listen. Don't just depend on the first application of glue at the wedding altar. Every coffee is glue, so to speak. As you date in your marriage, whether a few moments over a cup of coffee or actually going on a walk or doing a trip, as you come together, you are reapplying more and more and more glue to firm up the original application. It's sacred. Every date toughens this bond. You want to know a book I got for Christmas? My brother-in-law, the guy who preached last week, gave me a book on whittling with my little pocket knives. They're tired of me putting knives in display cabinets. They're like, why don't you get one out and use one? So I got a whittling book. And it actually looks kind of fun. And I'm going to try my, no pun intended, try my hand at it tomorrow. But I'm a novice. I'm not a woodworker. I marvel at those who are. My father-in-law is a woodworker. And his thing, I think I've shared this with you before, there was a time when he was hand-carving ducks that he would, that could sell and fetch a good thing at a flea market or something like that. I mean, these are quality ducks where he would literally carve out every feather on that duck. They're life-size. You're looking at it, waiting for it to move. It looks so real. And I remember marveling at the finished product time and again. But then I remember one time I was visiting him years ago, and he says, I just started a new duck out in the woodshed. Or out in the woodshop. Do you want to go out and see it? I'm like, yeah. I went out there, and I wasn't expecting to see what I saw. He had the body of a duck starting to be carved out of a block of wood over here. But over here was a smaller block of wood, and the shape of the duck's head was beginning to show. his work there I'm like you are kidding me dad I never as I've been looking at your other ducks you've created I never knew that they were two blocks of wood brought together I just assumed you carved the whole thing out of one big block of wood but Laurie's dad my father-in-law is so good and skilled at woodworking that when he's done carving a duck you can't tell where the head ends and the body begins you know what When God is at the heart of a marriage, you can't really tell where the husband ends and the wife begins. There's a beautiful bond, and every time you go on a date, you only toughen that bond even more with time spent with each other. So guys, you better learn the difference between a tall and a grande and a venti. It's harder than it looks. Why? Well, there's a third reason why every date is sacred. Every date is sacred because it projects the gospel. every date in your marriage, projects the Gospel. For this, I would like you to write down Ephesians 5, verses 22 to 25, and then join me in that chapter of the New Testament. Ephesians 5, verses 22 to 25. Now, as you know, this is Paul's thesis. This is his research paper on marriage. Paul's going to reach back for Genesis 2.24 in this part of his epistle to the believers at Ephesus. But by the time he gets to chapter 5 here, he's speaking specifically to the husbands and the wives in that local church. And listen to what he says. Verse 22, Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Stop reading there. With these pen strokes, Paul is teaching us right off the bat that your marriage, whether it's a few days old or many decades old, your marriage is about more than just you. There's a picture that's bigger than the one that hangs on your wall or on your Facebook account of the two of you. There's a picture of something much bigger here. What is it? It's this, Paul says. As the world and as your fellow Christians look into your marriage, As they watch the wife respond to the husband, they're like, oh wow. So that's how the redeemed of Jesus respond to the one who redeemed them. And as they study the loving, selfless, self-sacrificing love of the husband towards the wife, The world, and even those around them in the church, are saying, wow, as I watch him as a husband, I understand how loving and self-sacrificial Jesus is towards those whom he redeems. That's the picture of marriage. They look at the wife, and they see the church. They look at Jesus, and they see the Redeemer, and they see the growing affection and the beauty of Jesus and His love for you and your response to Him. Now, my brothers and sisters, that's not just a picture that goes out to the other marriages in the church. But when you're in the community, especially in our culture here in the West in 2019, and we can't even define marriage the right way, But against all the noise of our culture, all the confusion of a fallen world, a marriage like this still rings out the truth. And you can't argue with the beauty of it. Whenever you go on a date, you're projecting the gospel. Look at it this way. The projection is the shine of your marriage where Jesus is glorified in the lost sea. the Savior. But here's a warning. Time tarnishes, but dating polishes. Time tarnishes, but dating polishes. as others look on your marriage and watch you live out your roles towards each other, as they watch your initiative towards intimacy with each other, not just touching, but also time and talking, as they watch you get reconciled with each other when there's been a falling out in your marriage, they're like, wow, so that's what it looks like. I remember one time, my wife and I, this was years ago, probably is over a decade ago, I'm sure, We had the joy of helping a couple, a Navy guy, and his wife regain some traction in their marriage. They're about our age. And there was an offense. The husband just wasn't careful. It wasn't a moral failure, but he just wasn't careful to maintain the pursuit of his wife and his marriage for years. And there was a wedge come through and a breaking of trust in a way. I'll never forget, I mean, this couple came in and they were like, just help us. We gave them some homework to do, we talked with them, we prayed with them. But we weren't ready, it was a Wednesday night, I remember, we weren't ready for what happened in only our second session. After we'd been praying together, after we got them praying together, after we got them both in the Word working on some common projects, we come in, this is a Navy guy, they come into the office and the first thing I always like to do is, hey, did you get your stuff done, let's talk about that. And she, ladies first, so she did her homework and reported on it. And we're like, great, good work. You know, boom. We're just kind of going through the motions and counseling a little bit from a busy day. And, and then when I turned to him, my wife and I turned to him and said, what did you, what's God been doing in your heart this week towards your wife? I wasn't ready for this. It's never happened before. It's never happened since. Tears, Navy guy, tears, boom. And then he got out of his chair and fell on his knees and walked on his knees over to his wife's lap and embraced her. Says, will you forgive me? I have nothing else to say. Well, of course, her, her emotions were sweetly released as well. And there was reconciliation a little bit faster than the homework prescribed. And it was beautiful. You know, and Lori and I are sitting here saying, wow. So that's what the sweetness of the relationship between Jesus and the church is supposed to look like. And the gospel was projected. Number four, why is every date sacred? Quickly, because it protects the exclusivity. Every date helps to protect the exclusivity of that relationship. I mean, it's just supposed to be one man and one woman for your entire life together. Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 3 says, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. Period. There's no third party involved, either actual or virtual. There's an exclusivity. Song of Solomon 7 verse 10 says, I am my beloved's and his desire is for me, and the understanding is alone. Or the Apostle Paul puts it this way in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 4, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. And let me just remind you, Even when we talk about the physical intimacy within marriage between a husband and a wife, those moments of being physically intimate are really telling the story of a holistic intimacy, a holistic oneness that exists when they're not together physically. There's an exclusivity to this marriage. As Riccucci says in their book again, quote, the goal in marriage is to train your attentions or your attractions, your affections and desires to fit only one person. It is imperative that your spouse know that no other person or image enters your mind when romantic feelings flood your heart, end quote. See, why are you yelling a little bit more on this point? Because protecting the exclusivity of our marriages, even at a church like Calvary Baptist Church, needs to be high priority. Why? Because there are competitors out there. And you're going to brush up against them this week. It might be other people. It might be drama in your home. It might be your job or career. It might be ministry. It might be your kids. It's likely going to be social media. It could be strangers that enter your week. But they want illegitimate access to the exclusivity that's reserved for you and your spouse. Proverbs 5, 16 through 17 says, to deliver you from the strange woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words, that leaves the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. And he adds in Proverbs 23, 28, she lurks as a robber and increases the faithless among men. The enemy to dating is to have pockets of privacy in your marriage. you come together, you date, you open up, and you share. So husbands, are you man enough to drink a frappuccino? You better be, because dating is sacred. What's the fifth reason? Well, first of all, it evangelizes the lost. Number five, it evangelizes the lost. A few points ago, that was predominantly, as I mentioned, other marriages around you in the church see Christ. But I'm telling you here in number five that other people may actually come to Jesus in a saving relationship because of watching your marriage, watching your effort. As a matter of fact, some of you, and this is the home I grew up in, one spouse is married to an unsaved spouse, most likely. Say, what about the dating thing there? Yes, go! Undate! Why? Well, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7.14, the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. What's he saying? If you have in a marriage an unsaved spouse and a saved spouse, when they're together, guess what? The light is there through the saved spouse. And dating brings the unsaved spouse in close proximity yet again to the gracious words and affections of a believing spouse. It evangelizes the loss that might be your spouse or could be those lost that are around you. They observe and they may repent. Number six, why is every date sacred? Because it disciples the children. Every date disciples the children. For this one, put down Proverbs 5, just the whole chapter. It's a warning chapter. But in warning against immorality, it also sings the praises of marriage. And the writer here says in verse 19, be exhilarated with her love, my son. Why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress? In other words, this father, who's in his twenties, is saying to his son, who's in middle school, according to our time frames here in the West today, you have a mid-twenties father talking to a pre-teen kid, saying, be pure. Because I'm going to tell you something, God, in His timing, has someone for you, unless He does something different in your life. You're going to get married, and what God has designed in the institution of marriage will blow your mind. It's going to be work, but it's awesome. But it's one thing for the father to say that to his son, but this father in Proverbs 5 is probably living it out. Son, I've told you to be exhilarated with your future wife's love. Watch me hug your mother. Those of you who are married and have had children, you understand, and all of us can understand because we've been children. When you see mom and dad, kissing and hugging. That makes you kind of awkward, right? It's like, yuck. I remember in my 30s, when my mom started dating, you know, my dad passed away in 89, and here I am, I'm a pastor, I'm in my 30s, and I'm in Florida visiting my mom, meeting her boyfriend, okay? I think she was like 69 when she got remarried and he was 72. And they're like, you want to drive to church? I'm like, yeah, I'll drive to church, you guys. And I thought mom was going to sit in the front seat with me. She's sitting in the back seat with him, Chuck. And I remember, I'm just talking away, and I look in the rear view mirror, and they're doing the googly eye thing at each other. I'm like, oh, that's gross. That's awful. You can't do that at 70, right, Dave Dietz? No, I'm just kidding. It's like, I was uncomfortable and I'm married. Well, your little kids, when they see you guys cuddling and oogly-eyeing each other, that just gives them the willies and they want to run away and they're like, sick, don't ever do that around me or my friends. But I'm telling you what, your kids are noting it. and they are going to recall and live that out with their spouse. As you date, as you show the rest of the family, I can't give you a few moments now, these are reserved for mom or for dad, they note it and they're learning, they're being discipled. Every date is sacred. Just three more quickly. Every date is sacred, number seven, because it updates the heart. It updates the heart. Every date gives you new information, in other words. For this one, just write down 1 Peter 3, verse 7. Listen as I read it. Peter says, you husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. I mean, the husbands are under assignment here. They have a homework assignment from God through Peter to study their wives, to get more information. And Paul will tell the wives in the pastoral epistles, love your husbands. I mean, there's going to be a mutual studying of each other. Now, can you do that as you zip past each other in the hallway? Or does it work best for you in the busyness of your schedules to say stop for a few moments on a regular basis where you come together and you ask questions of each other. Psalm 64, 6 says, the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep. Or Proverbs 25 says, counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water. You have to draw it out. You have to draw out, not in a hurry. It's by asking questions, removing distractions. You say, what do I want to know about my spouse? What are they doing for their devotions? What are they doing in their walk with God? What books are they reading? What temptations are they struggling with? What joys are they experiencing? What fears do they have? What goals are they wrestling with? What hesitations do they have about life right now? Just ask questions. And guess what? The neat thing about coffee and dates is that every time you go out in every chapter of life, all the answers change. The same questions. You'll never not have something to study with your spouse. Don't be like the husband who was talking to his wife. His wife said to him, you never tell me you love me. The husband said, I told you I love you when we got married. If anything changes, I'll let you know. Don't be that guy. Study. As we said in another series, pull up a chair into their lives. Now, men, I do recommend you get decaf after 4 o'clock, especially at your age, as you date. But there's an eighth reason why every date is sacred, why every coffee is sacred. Number eight? It matures the church. Every day you go on with your spouse matures the church, whether it's a walk in your neighborhood, whether it's a boat ride, whether it's a coffee, it matures the church. You say, what do you mean? Well, Titus chapter two, Titus chapter two. Listen to what Paul says. He's writing to the church. He's writing to the responsibilities of the different generations. He says, verse 2, older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith and love and perseverance. Verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what's good so that they may encourage the young woman to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Stop there. What Paul's doing here is he's saying, you need to invest in the generations and marriages of your local church. And don't just show up and teach and lecture. Live it out. Live it out what you're admonishing these younger men and younger women to live in their homes. You have to get up close. And when you go on a date, especially us older generations, We're saying to the ones coming after us, watch this, I still need this, more so now than earlier in my marriage. And you are needing it too. You're maturing the church around you. There's one more reason. One more reason is you and I and our wives are sipping coffee together. I'm trying to convince you that every effort at dating in your marriage is sacred. Why? Because number nine, It embraces the temporary. Moments alone, planned and even unplanned, embrace the temporary. I got just one verse for you on this one to remember. Write it down on your coffee napkin. Ecclesiastes 9.9. Listen as I read it. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love, listen to this, all the days of your fleeting life, which he has given to you under the sun. For this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun. Did you get that? That could be married forever. Because one of your lives will end and eventually both of your lives will end. John Piper wrote a book called This Momentary Marriage. I want you to hear from his pen on this point. Quote, marriage is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it's short. It may have many bright days or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it. Listen to this. Very soon, the shadow will give way to the reality. The partial will pass into the perfect. The foretaste will lead to the banquet. The troubled path will end in paradise. and a hundred candlelit evenings will come to their consummation in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And this momentary marriage will be swallowed up by life. Christ will be all and in all, and the purpose of marriage will be complete." Why is every date sacred? Because it embraces the temporary. You don't know how many more dates you have left because none of us know how old we are. Your marriage, as one author says, is a one-time walk together. Your marriage, as another author says, is a one-time history being written. It's not laps. It's one time. We all have friends and peers that we grew up with whose marriage is over because of death. The death of their spouse. I think of a missionary I went to high school with, Steve Henning. I think of my best friend from fifth grade, Doug Sayer. These men are in heaven. I think of a fellow pastor, Lane Daniels, in North Carolina, taken by a brain tumor. His marriage is over. That last date happened. I think of Barry Jones. I think of men and women in this room with me right now. I think of my own father-in-law. The last date comes. I'm not a math whiz, but I did go to a Christian school in the area so I can act like it. I took geometry in 10th grade, I think. And I remember this from geometry. I don't remember any theorems, I don't remember any postulates, but I remember this. I know what a line is and I know what a point is. Your marriage, if I'm going to visualize it with geometry, is not a point on your wedding date and an endless line, because if you don't put anything on the end of that line, it goes into infinity. According to the Bible and geometry, Your marriage is pictured as a point, that's when you said, I do. There's a line, we have no idea how long this is, and there's a point on the end of it. All I know is you can get a coffee today. You can go, if the Lord is kind to you and the point isn't here, you can go out for a sandwich on Tuesday. Every time you go on a date, you embrace the temporary. So I don't know, our time's gone. I've tried to convince you in this coffee shop that there are nine reasons why you must date in your marriage. It celebrates the Creator. It toughens the bond. It projects the gospel. It protects the exclusivity. It evangelizes the lost. It disciples the children. It updates the heart. It matures the church. It embraces the temporary. I hope we can agree now that every date and effort thereof is sacred. And dating is not optional in marriage. You don't date to get married. You get married so you can date. This list is not exhaustive, by the way, although exhausting. But if this message this morning serves no other reason but to get the two of you talking, then good. When I talk about a date, I'm not talking about something that has to cost a lot of money. It's the time. They are moments where you stop, you put away distractions, you face each other, and you pursue each other's hearts. And you know what? You may get more out of 30 minutes than three hours. It's not the quantity, but the quality. I think spouses should take turns planning these dates. But the goal is just to be one inch closer after your time together. Not perfection, just progress. You're not getting done, you're just getting better. You're focused on the other one, you're conversation-oriented, you're gospel-treasuring, and you are solution-partnered. And whether you're married now or you're on either side of marriage in your decade of life, can you see this morning how important the marriages in our church family are? Maybe, just maybe, this helps all of us, married and single, pray a little differently for the marriages that we worship next to every Sunday. Rikuchi, and I close with these words from their marriage book, are you avoiding conversation because it will expose more of who you really are? That's exactly why you must talk. Never let pride keep you from the relational intimacy and grace that only comes through humility. Hey, I'll see you at Dunkin Donuts this week.