Seven Reasons to Say "I Do", Part 1

No one would have ever matched them, ever. They were, as far as the world goes, incompatible. Different family backgrounds with different family traditions. They were geographically worlds apart. One had grown up in idolatry and paganism. The other had grown up a follower of God. One was a mature believer, the other one a new believer. One was rich, the other was poor. But they had this in common.

They had both surrendered their lives to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If you're married, or if you're thinking about getting married, how did you make that decision? Often there are two extremes when it comes to deciding who to marry.

Some people rush into it quickly, and others over-analyze it and put it off. Here on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey is looking at the love story of Ruth and Boaz. As he does, he finds seven principles or seven reasons for saying yes to a marriage proposal. This lesson is filled with practical advice from God's Word today. It's called, Seven Reasons to Say I Do.

Stay with us as Stephen opens God's Word. In an email somebody sent me this past week, a number of interesting facts were highlighted. You've seen these about a rapidly changing world.

It's amazing. Many, many facts. Let me give you some of them.

Facts like these. The average person will have had 12 jobs by their 38th birthday. That's a lot of change, isn't it?

A lot of change. The top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 did not even exist in 2004. Which means we are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist.

Where they will use technologies and tools that haven't been invented in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet. Isn't that interesting? 70% of United States four-year-olds have used a computer. I can believe that. They know how to use it better than I do. Trust me, I'm convinced of that. There are over more than 100 million registered people on MySpace.com.

Which means if MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest country in the world. Interesting. The first text message was sent in 1992. My youngest daughter probably sent it.

No, no. She wasn't even born yet. 1992, the first text message was sent. Now, the number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the world.

And you get half of them, you probably think, right? There are nearly three billion searches on Google in one month's time. One of the points made in this list of rapidly changing dynamics in our culture that just stuck out to me was that by the year 2005, one out of every eight couples who married met online.

One out of eight. And that number has increased dramatically in the last three years. I did a little digging and found out that the fastest growing trend in dating is e-dating. More and more relationships are developing online. In fact, I read one author who did a lot of extensive research on the subject and recorded that conservative estimates indicate there are currently 50 million people who are using online dating services.

50 million people. Now, if you've been around here for a while, you've probably heard me take a crack or two at eHarmony or whatever. And I want you to know that a dating service is not the big bad wolf, all right? I want you to track with me through the course of this study. And I want to say a few things.

And you need to hear everything in order to believe that I'm balanced, which I hope I am. I've prayed as I've prepared this. But we have wonderful couples in our church who've met through an online dating service. I've met several of them.

It's one of those gray areas. There isn't a verse in the Bible about, you know, online dating. I looked for one. I couldn't find it. There isn't one.

How you communicate with the one that you fall in love with, the Bible just doesn't address it. You know, fortunately, by the time I started dating, the telephone. There you go. That had been around for a while.

You know, that's that black glossy plastic thing you used to hang up on your kitchen wall. Well, I use that. However, I think there needs to be a warning for every single individual, not just for online dating services, but dating, period. The word that has sort of risen to the top of the dating scene, it's promised by online dating services. It's pursued by millions of singles worldwide is this word, compatibility. It is the leading word. One web dating service promises to match you with numerous dimensions of compatibility, which are, and I quote, scientifically based predictors of long-term relationship success.

Those are interesting words. Scientifically based predictors of long-term relationship success. Part of the emerging problem is the fact that reports are now coming in because this phenomenon has been around now for a few years, estimating that as high or as many as 90% of online daters are lying about something. One researcher wrote for men, the major areas of deception in an online relationship.

Of course, you can't see them and so you won't know until you get to know them better. But the key areas of deception are for men, their income, their height, and their marital status. For women, the major areas of deception are their weight and their age. I'm not even going to go there, okay? Just so you know.

So listen to this. A scientifically based predictor matching you with someone you've never met could actually be created by someone who is lying. In fact, online dating services are now estimating, and I'm telling you this further to terrify you even more, that at least 12% of online male suitors are already married. Even more commonly, singles are developing online relationships with more than one person at a time, which in a church setting or a social setting you would never be allowed to do. One of our pastors on staff emailed me this week and said that he's aware of individuals in our church who have been hurt by this very thing. One woman discovered the man she was falling in love with, he wrote, was involved with another woman online at the same time.

She found out later. Another couple canceled their wedding plans after dating in real life because they realized what matched them online didn't gel with primary goals in real life. Pastor Harball wrote me this saying, we believe online dating sites can only give a person an introduction.

We advise them to spend no less than six months seeing that individual live their life in person where they can be observed day in and day out making decisions, choosing friends, watching how they treat other people, relating in the body of Christ, and so on. It's good advice. A key word that sums up the advantages of dating over time in real life is the word accountability. Accountability with friends who observe your relationship. Accountability with pastors and spiritual leaders who get to know you both.

Accountability with peers you rub shoulders with and even parents who might offer insight and feedback. All of that is invaluable. The truth is, whether online or on a live date, we all know what it means to put our best foot forward.

That's what you do, right? We all did that. On my first date with Marsha, to a church service no less, I have been taking her to church ever since, I showed up at her dormitory wearing my best suit.

I mean, it was something. It was dark blue, heavy wool with large mafia stripes, pinstripes. I had on a dark blue shirt and a white polyester necktie that just shone. She told me that when she opened the door to meet me, she nearly fainted. She didn't know if I was there to pick her up or shoot her. She told me much, much later. She said, Stephen, I wanted to be with you, but I didn't want to be seen with you. And I thought I was ready.

I even had on a pair of baby blue saddle oxfords to just sort of top it all off. Oh yeah, you got the same good taste she does. You don't go out on a date and tell the person all your idiosyncrasies, all the strange things. You wait till later after you're married. No, I mean later after you dated a while. But dating in real life provides time for that later. It allows for later things to develop.

Online dating speeds up the process because a person has been given the reassurance that they have been matched. They have found someone just like them, as if marrying someone just like you would be a good thing, right? So let's be honest, we're all fallen, we're all clay pots, and romance happens to take place between two sinners. And don't misunderstand as well, similar tastes, similar desires, similar interests are wonderful things. But those differences and those distinctives and those different perspectives and tastes can be used by God who gave them to your God-planned, God-created spouse. And they are intended to complement and to broaden and develop and deepen who you are and how you think and how you live. The biblical view of marriage is not so much compatibility as it is complementing. Complementing means there are differences to work out. There are perspectives to sharpen.

There are thought processes to balance. And God puts two people that have differences together to make a whole, two sinners seeking God's grace and his will for their lives. They covenant to love each other for better or for worse. And they happen to provide the best illustration on the planet of the love of Christ for his church.

Think about it. We happen to be the bride of Christ. How compatible are we to him? Which reminds me, don't forget that two people can share a lot of similar tastes and interests, but if they do not share a relationship with Jesus Christ, they will never be truly compatible where it really matters. That search for Mr. Right, that search for Ms.

Right is not a search for someone like you. It is a search for someone who wants to be like Christ. That is foundational. So conversion to Christ is the starting point. It's extremely dangerous to consider dating someone as an opportunity to evangelize him or her. We don't believe in evangelistic dating. Some of you may have married an unbeliever and you knew it when you started dating.

Your heart was swept along and then you married him or her and they came to faith after you married and we praise God. But you are not the rule. You are the exception.

You're the exception. Our churches are filled with spiritual widows married but do not have spouses who love Christ. So you begin with conversion. If that internet dating service you've chosen doesn't include your relationship and commitment to Jesus Christ, how can they find you a match? In fact, here's the way Paul wrote it when he talked about not making unequal yokes between believer and unbeliever. Great context for the marriage relationship in 2 Corinthians 6. He says, because what fellowship has light with darkness?

What fellowship? You can translate that compatibility. What compatibility has light with darkness?

So you can put all of your compatibilities over on one side. You both love the same kind of music, food, career, number of children, sense of humor, personality, background, geography, accent, whatever. Put it all over here in one pile. But if there is not spiritual life by virtue of faith in Christ, all of those will eventually become incidentals. The bottom line is conversion then character. How do you detect character?

Over time with prayer, asking the Lord for discernment and guidance and building that into your own life as well as looking for that in someone else's life, you'll detect over time and discern true character. If Boaz and Ruth had had a checklist, I wonder what it would have looked like. It occurred to me as I was studying this text and so I kind of wanted to slow the train down and talk about this issue because it occurred to me that no one would have ever matched them ever. They were, as far as the world goes, incompatible. Different family backgrounds with different family traditions. They were geographically worlds apart. One had grown up in idolatry and paganism. The other had grown up a follower of God. One was a mature believer, the other one a new believer. One was rich, the other was poor. One was a business owner, the other a migrant worker. One was single, the other had been married already. One had experienced the death of a spouse and the other hadn't. One was financially independent, the other lived hand to mouth and the list could go on and on and on. But they had this in common. They had both surrendered their lives to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and, as we will see, to his word.

And from their brief love story, I think it's easy to see in this encounter at the threshing floor where Ruth proposed marriage to her kinsman, Redeemer. We can make some observations about genuine character. In fact, what I want to call this is seven good reasons to say I do.

Here they are. Number one, and I've already talked about some of these already in this introduction, but we'll pull them out of the text. Spirituality. Spiritual mindedness. Go back to Ruth chapter 3. We've already learned, by the way, if you've been with us in this study, that the relationship of Boaz with God was living.

It was active. In the days of Judges when everybody did that which is right in their own eyes, Boaz lived with this sense of spiritual awareness. You find him in chapter 2 where he is asking for the blessing of God on his employees. And we talked about how it would be so interesting to have a boss that comes to work, walks by your desk, and says, how are you doing with God today?

Wouldn't that be wonderful? To have someone who cared spiritually about you in the workplace would be certainly unique, and his employees were no different in understanding the uniqueness of him. When he first met Ruth, the guy starts praying. He asks that she would find shelter under the wings of God.

I imagine right then and there she is saying, wow, that would be a guy I would be interested in. And now at the threshing floor, after the love of his life, he's already fallen in love with her, asks him to become her kinsman redeemer, which means, as you know, the goel, to be the one to marry her, buy up her late husband's estate, pay off all of her family debts. The first thing Boaz said in verse 10 of chapter 3 is in response, may you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. And I said last time that Hebrew word is simply one word, yee-haw, basically is what he meant. God bless you, Ruth, is what he said. This wasn't an act.

It really wasn't the best foot forward. This was life for him. He loved God, and God was always on his lips. He had an active living, walking, breathing relationship with God. This is foundational, men and women. This is where you begin.

Why? Because unless the Lord builds the house, you labor in vain to build it on your own, Psalm 127 one. In fact, I am so convinced of that being foundational. Every couple will have challenges and difficulties, and whenever I'm involved in a wedding, it's always very moving to me to come to that dedication prayer. And I'm always close to tears because I realize as I'm holding their hands, they have their hands clasped, and we're having that dedication prayer.

I have no idea what they're going to face in their lives, no idea how high the mountain peaks are going to be and how deep the valleys are going to be. But here they stand at the threshold of life, and they must stand there united in their faith to Christ. It will be tested.

It will be challenged. And so at some point in the wedding ceremony, it's my tradition to ask the young man or the older man, the young woman, older woman, at some point, would you say in the presence of these witnesses, understanding the significance of having a relationship with Jesus Christ, that you have invited Christ into your life? And I have that man say out loud, I have. Do you believe that this marriage is the will of God in your life? Yes, I do. Do you promise to make him not only the Lord of your heart but the Lord of your home as well?

Yes. And then I say the same thing to his bride. Understanding that we're sinners, we're progressing, we make great statements of faith, and we have times of doubt. But there is that underlying relationship with the grace of God, and it is foundational.

So for those of you who are single, it really doesn't take a long time to discover whether or not this very first quality is present, spiritual mindedness or spirituality. To find out whether or not they're sincerely walking with Christ is really your first search. So you ask yourself the question, okay, I've been on one date, two dates, I've had two conversations or maybe three, have they brought God into the conversation yet? Do they talk about him? Do they talk about pleasing him? Do they talk about being related to him? Have they said anything about wanting to live for him? Do they encourage you to follow him too? Have you ever seen their Bible? Yeah, I think it's under the front seat of the car. That's a sign. It's written in the sky.

Run. Another character quality in this list would be humility. These two attributes don't necessarily show up in the same body. It's possible to be spiritually minded and proud.

Look at verse 10 of chapter 3. Boaz says to her now as he's responding to her proposal, you have shown your last kindness to be better than the first by not going after young men, whether poor or rich. Now, that's a long way of saying I can't believe you chose me.

I can't believe you want me. When he refers here to her first kindness, he's referring to the way she's treated Naomi. That kindness is known by us all. That first kindness, wow, that was amazing to see the kind of commitment you made to this woman, your mother-in-law, and he's referencing her care for Naomi. But then he says, oh, but your last kindness is greater than your first. What's the last kindness?

You want me. You are so kind to want to marry me. You guys that are married, wasn't it so kind of your wife to marry you?

Amen. Oh, that's good. Did you hear that, ladies?

I was strong. Now, we're told nothing about Boaz's age, by the way. Now, he does reference her as his daughter indicates that he's probably older than her.

It can be, however, an expression of kindness and care. Furthermore, the Bible, by the way, doesn't tell us what Ruth looks like, not one word, and it doesn't tell us what Boaz looks like, doesn't tell us anything about his physique. We don't know if he's tall, dark, and handsome or tall, skinny, and bald, which is so much better. We do know that he was wealthy enough to hire employees. He was wealthy enough to own fields.

But that makes it all the more obvious how different they are. Here's a destitute woman, one step away from being a beggar, from another country with nothing tangible to offer but debt and potential derision, as we'll see later, and Boaz says, I am so thrilled you want me. I'm so happy. His humility is obvious. We've watched it, haven't we? We've watched him care for his employees. We've watched him communicate concern for those around him. Now he's got his sleeves rolled up and he's out here at the threshing floor.

He's even spending the night out there. He could have bought people to do that for him. The truth is, in his culture, he was near the top of the food chain. He had every reason to be proud instead of humble. And yet every time he opens his mouth, the quality of humility comes out. Another character quality you might want to add to your list is the word priority. In other words, know what matters most. And Ruth evidently does as well. That's clear, too.

Look at verse 11. Boaz goes on to say, listen, the reason I'm so pleased with your proposal, and I want to say yes, is because all of my people in the city know that you are a woman of beauty. No. All of my people in the city know that you are a woman of rare talent. No. All of the people in my city know that you are a woman of class. No. All of the people in my city know that you are a woman of personal charm. No. All of the people in my city know that you are a woman of excellence. Your text may read noble character that's what you're known for she evidently had priorities as well the same word is translated virtuous in Proverbs chapter 31 by the way lest you think I'll go to Proverbs 31 and start a sermon out of there it's also the same word used in chapter 2 of Boaz translated wealth I think unfortunately it's the same word hi yell this is a person of moral character and strength you hear a lot of sermons about the virtuous woman too bad you don't hear sermons on the virtuous man same word is used for both of them here is then the making of a good match they are both committed to the priority of godly living guys as you study this along with me I hope that with me you are challenged already by this man well there are more ways for us to be challenged and encouraged by the example of both Boaz and Ruth however we're gonna stop here and conclude this lesson on our next broadcast this is wisdom for the heart the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey today's message is called seven reasons to say I do Stephen is the pastor of the shepherds Church in Cary North Carolina Cary is located just adjacent to Raleigh and if your travel plans ever bring you through this area we'd enjoy having you join us for a worship service on the Lord's Day until then thanks for listening we'll bring you the conclusion to this message next time on wisdom for the heart