Fixing A Good Relationship (This Is Level 1)
Sunday Morning
Pastor Jim Lowe III
Sunday Morning, 9:30am Stream
3/07/21
{All scriptures are NIV unless stated}
We’re still talking about purpose.
If you’ve been following, you have an understanding of what this is about.
Our Purpose Is Something God Designed Us For
We’ve been talking about purpose for some months now.
“God Has A Purpose For Me”
How many of us have found out what it is yet?
We are now in March.
A quarter of the way through 2021.
Already!
As a recap:
We spent January talking about the importance of purpose and why you should pursue it in 2021.
We talked in February about checking the people around us to make sure they aren’t keeping us from either HEARING our purpose…or ACHIEVING our purpose.
Now that we’re working on making sure we have the right people around us.
How do we know if we’re hearing God correctly?
We’re asking God questions.
Why Am I Here?
What’s This Life All About?
What Is Your Will For Me?
We’re asking God for direction.
How do we know we’re hearing him correctly?
What’s our relationship look like?
What Makes A Good Relationship?
Depending on who you ask, you’ll get a different answer.
Everyone is different.
Because we are all different people, what works for someone might not work for the other.
How many of us found out that stuff that worked in one relationship can mess the other up?
Not everyone wants overbearing people with them!
{text back immediately}
There are things that work…and things that don’t work!
But if you search books and the internet, you’ve find some things common of what works.
Things That Make A Great Relationship:
- Love
- Friendship
- Genuine Care
While these things are common, you’re still dealing with other people.
I’m going to make a case today that:
Regardless to if you’re in a relationship, single, married or other.
Your Relationship With God Is The Best One You Can Be In
And we need to work on restoring that relationship.
Your Relationship With God Can Always Be Stronger
If you don’t know God right now, your relationship can be stronger.
If you are like Peter in Acts, and your shadow can heal people, your relationship can be stronger.
We Should Work To Strengthen Our Relationship With God
But what we find is that while we’re trying to decide on building the relationship…
God wants the relationship with us!
We are going to talk about Rebuilding Our Relationship.
Each week, we’re going to increase the level and go deeper.
You are going to want to share this.
This is going to be different.
So let’s use the list that makes a great relationship in reference to what God gives us.
This Is Level 1
Love:
This is easy.
God loves us.
But he doesn’t JUST love us.
God IS love!
1 John 4:7-8
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is the summary of what love looks like.
It is what God is.
It is what he shows.
God Loved Us First, And Still Loves Us
John 3:16-17
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
God doesn’t just love those who know him.
God loved the WORLD.
God sent Jesus to die for the WORLD.
Before we knew him, we were part of the world.
Jesus died for the WORLD so the WORLD could be saved.
That is love.
The world didn’t know him, but Jesus died anyway.
God Loved Us Before We Knew Him
If you want an example of love, look at the one who gave their life for you before you knew about them.
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When we didn’t know about him.
He was already making a way.
He was already solving the problem no one knew existed.
Here’s something else.
If you remember your childhood, you could have a nightmare and wake up in the middle of the night afraid…maybe even crying.
A parent or guardian would come to the room…and it was something about them being there that made everything better.
The Monsters Under The Bed Went Away When Mom/Dad Came In
Jonathan becomes calm when he sees one or both of his parents at night.
Something about the love of a parent that calms.
God’s Love Drives Away Fear
1 John 4:18
18 Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love drives out fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear, so love is not made perfect in the person who fears.
So why should we build our relationship with God?
Because God has a love for us that goes beyond anything.
Many people’s love is conditional.
God’s love is without conditions.
Isaiah 54:10
10 Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Though the mountains be shaken and hills removed.
That hasn’t happened…
But even if it does…
the unveiling love God has for us won’t be shaken.
{repeat}
God Is In Love With Me
The 2nd thing in a good relationship is friendship.
Remember you can love someone but not like them.
But God calls us friends.
Friendship:
James 2:23
23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.
He was called God’s friend!
All because he believed God!
Because You Believe God, He Calls You Friend!
Some of us may have a problem keeping friends.
We may feel like no one likes us.
We may have gotten rid of our friends from the message last month!
But we have someone who calls us friend.
John 15:15
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Jesus is telling us that he calls us friends.
He shares it all with us.
This is so different from what we normally experience.
There are people who have backstabbed us.
There are people who have wounded us.
There are people who have stepped all over us.
They’ve done it in the name of “friend.”
There are TONS of songs about friends.
What About Your Friends? - TLC
Back Stabbers - OJays
Friend of Mine - Kelly Price
Real Friends - Kanye
Old Friends 4 Sale - Prince
How Do You Sleep - John Lennon
The idea of bad friends goes back forever.
Even Jesus was betrayed by a bad friend.
Even with that…Jesus calls us friends.
If You Believe In Him, You Are A Friend Of God!
{repeat}
God Is My Friend
Genuine Care From God
Have you ever known someone and just got a vibe that they don’t really care about you?
Not terrible like they don’t care at ALL…but don’t care much for you at all?
Our God is not like that at all.
Our God cares about us.
He cares about the things we go through.
He cares about the thoughts we have.
He cares about the details.
God Cares About Us!
Psalm 40:17 (NKJV)
17 But I am poor and needy; Yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; Do not delay, O my God.
We are poor and needy.
We have nothing to offer.
Compared to God, we are nothing…
YET he thinks on us!
How small we are in his eyes…
YET he is concerned about us!
The THINGS we are concerned about…
…he wants to take it.
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
We serve a God who not only cares for us…
He doesn’t want us worried.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
He wants to take the things that make us anxious.
He wants to take the things that keep us up at night.
He wants to take all our pain away…
because he cares for us.
{repeat}
God Cares For Me
Isaiah 49:15
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
For any mother…can you forget the child you have given birth to?
Can you forget the child that you are nursing?
People may have given their children up…but do they really “forget” them??
Yet even so, God says he will not forget you!
God Will Not Forget You Because He Cares!
Psalm 23:1-6
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
We shall not be in want because he cares enough about us to supply all our needs.
God Supplies My Needs!
Verse 2
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
He makes sure that when we lay down…we lay in green pastures!
There are seasons when things don’t grow as well.
Yet God make sure the pastures are green…plentiful!
Growing!
God Places Me In Abundance!
We are beside quiet waters!
Everything is at peace!
Running waters can be dangerous as they can sweep you under them.
But quiet waters are at peace.
There is peace around you.
God Creates Peace Around Me!
3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
God Restores Me!
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
God Protects Me!
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
God Uplifts Me!
6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
God Guarantees Me!
God cares about you!!
So here is the case and recap.
When It Comes To Our God:
No One Can Love You Better Than Our God
No One Can Be A Better Friend Than Our God
No One Cares More For You Than Our God
So how do we work to build on this relationship?
Sneak Peek for Level 2:
- Seek To Know Who God Is
- Spend Time With Him
- Live Our Life For Him
