Toxic

Why do we have so many problems in our relationship?
With:
· Friends
· No Friends
· Groups of friends
· Issues
· Marriage
· Men – Women

Generational differences

Values –
Culture –

Up is down
Right is wrong
You can’t be sure about any moral values – except that you can't be sure about moral values
“Are you sure about that?”

Everything is relative! Even that statement?

Culture trying to redefine - marriage - genders

Feelings over Fact
Feels over Reals
Conclusions arrived at emotionally cannot be argued away logically
Don’t confuse me with facts – my mind’s made up!

God is not going to rewrite his revelation to us or his character for each generation’s ideas about right and wrong

We struggle with relationships for those reasons and these:

Time – Event – Clock –

Love Languages
· Gifts
· Touch
· Time
· Acts of Service
· Words

We’re all different
Viva la difference!

What does an ideal relationship look like?

Families
Husbands – Wives
Dads & Kids
Moms & Kids

Guys – Girls
Side to Side
Face to Face

Plutonic
Romantic
Familial

Emotional – Logical
Men & Women?

God created us for relationship
1st with himself
Not because he needed us
Because he wanted us

That’s why he gave us free will –
So we could freely choose to have a relationship

That’s the 1st and Main point of this entire series . . .

You get to choose
You have to choose

He even said that it wasn’t good for us to be alone.

The only thing called “Not Good”
Being alone
· 6 days God created dry land, sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, birds, and animals.
· At the end of each day,
· “God saw that it was good” Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25).
· But for the first time during creation, He saw something that was not good—man being alone.

No sin yet – not good to be alone even in paradise

Why wasn’t it good to be alone?

Mutual edification

Notice:
You Choose –
· Not to tear down
· Your words
o have power
o have life & death
o Blessings & Cursings
· Build up

Random acts of Kindness?
How about
Intentional Purposeful and Intelligent acts of Beauty

Why did God let Adam see that he didn’t have an adequate companion?

Family –
Balance of male and female in
· Survival
· Parenting
· Seeing the world
· Understanding God
· Understanding life – kids – future –

The building block of Civilization
· Not good to have Spartans or Amazons
· Men need the civilizing influence of Women
· What men do when women aren’t around
· Might doesn’t make right

We go from “Not Good” to be alone to . . .

Through marriage, God teaches us
· forgiveness,
· sacrifice,
· patience,
· dying to self
· living for their spouses

Becoming one flesh is more than intimacy it’s a spiritual & physical union
· What’s best for the other person
· Their interests become your interests
· You care about someone outside of yourself

How do you do this?
Not just for Marriage
This is for life

How can we possibly get along with people?

1. You Recognize your need to not be alone – married or not

2. You Choose
Everything starts with a choice
An act of your will that translates into action
Changed Light bulb

3. In Christ
Love God – Love Others
When Jesus was asked the most important commandment:

Your love for God is expressed in how we love people
Our relationships with people – good or bad - illustrate our love for God

It’s our Life In Christ that makes any healthy relationship even possible

When we love people we treat them as Jesus would
· Compassion not Critically
· Love not Hate
· Patience not Rudeness
· Think of them 1st and Ourselves 2nd
· We put their interests before our own

In the next few weeks – we’ll talk about what that looks like
· How to handle conflict in a Christlike way
· How to create loving healthy relationships
· How to respond when we’ve been hurt
· How to love a world that disrespects our values
· How to love when we’re insulted and taken advantage of

We’ll be looking at Jesus’ sermon on the mount using the Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard as a road map