What ever happened to love?

Relationships - where some of our highest hopes are . . . biggest hurts are . . . made some of our biggest scars. And some of our biggest messes. Jesus is _______ than our messed up relationships! God that created us for _______ and . Gen. 1:26 - “Let us make man in our image...” Gen. 2:18 - “Not good for us to be alone.” One thing that the pandemic did for all of us is it “ _______” on our relationships. The “ _____” and “ _____” ones. Perhaps this has given us the first opportunity to see how _____ view relationships and what’s been messing them up. If we’re not doing them _____ way then we’re setting ourselves up for _____. How did God design relationships? I Corinthians 13:4-7 Is this what your relationships look like? Patient? Kind? Keeps no record of being wronged? WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO LOVE? 1. ● ● 3 Ways We Mess Up God’s Good Thing Called Love WE LEAVE IT _____. We’ve got a broken relationship With a parent; friend; someone who’s hurt us; someone we’ve hurt; someone we disagree with. Jesus - Matthew 5:9; 5:23-24; 18:15 You can’t keep leaving it broken! A Jesus-follower is about tearing down _____. And building _______!

● WE LIVE _______ _____ _____ FOR SEX. Here’s what the _______ of sex says about His gift to us.

Two “fences” God put around sex . . . Mark 10:6-9 ● It’s only inside a lifetime _________

_______ . Hebrews 13:4 I John 4:7-21 “I was _____.” “I’m sorry.” “I miss you.” ● Little words that can start the healing . . . “Please forgive me.” “I _____ you.” I will treat people the way _____ has treated me - not the way _____ treated me! Colossians 3:12-15 Things will stay broken unless and until someone makes the first move. Be like Jesus – let it be you! The love of Jesus is stronger than whatever’s keeping us apart! 2. WE LOVE SOMEONE _____ _____ WE LOVE GOD. Exodus 20:3 Colossians 1:16 They’ve become the “ _ ” everything else revolves around – an ______ . You’ve _______ God in your heart. You’re breaking the greatest commandment of all – Matthew 22:37 God loves you. Period. Jeremiah 31:3 Put Him on the throne in your heart! No one else has a right to be there.

● It’s between a _______ and a ____. _____ Sex outside of those boundaries _____ our Creator. I Thessalonians 4:3-8 Sinning sexually may be trying to meet a legitimate need - missing love, loneliness. Something abuse messed up emotionally. But love outside God’s plan comes with a price tag. Love outside God’s plan becomes _____. It may feel good for a while. But it’s _____. Galatians 6:7 Sex outside His male and female design All through the Bible, when God talks about sex, it’s between a _____ and a _____. Leviticus 18:22 In Romans 1, God talks about people abandoning God’s ways to do “degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. . . Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex, and instead indulged in sex with each other... And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.” Romans 1:24-27 “Let God deal with the deep _____ in your heart, and immediately your actions will start to _______ God.” Here’s what God says about living outside His plan for sex . . . I Thessalonians 4:3-8

Amazingly, even when we hijack God’s gift of love . . . “You _______!” Clean. Changed. I Corinthians 6:9-11 Because of Jesus, our “Someone Stronger” who mended the broken relationship between us and God. Now we can have love without judgment and without regrets. You can’t get life right if you don’t get _______ right. And the One who loved you enough to die for you can help you get love right!