First Things First

RECORD ON IPAD

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Announcements:

1. QNA! Submit Your Questions!

The Relationship Series that we’re starting tonight will culminate in a QNA session where we spend the whole night answering ANY questions you guys have: We’d rather you ask us anonymously and invite God into your questioning than ask the internet. Let’s be open, honest, and be curious together. Questions on God, dating, sex, etc.

So, we will be passing around this box and some paper slips for you to write questions on. Just drop them in the box at ANY time and keep your name off of your slip. Lets ask questions!

2. Baptism: If you have chosen to follow Jesus and desire to take the next step in your faith, you should get baptized.

Does anyone know the reason we get baptized?

One of the last things Jesus says to his disciples is “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

Baptism is an outward declaration of an inward decision.

To get baptized is to declare to the world, HEY, I follow Jesus! I follow the King!

Baptism is a celebration, and an outward representation of your Choice to follow Jesus.

So, if you’ve never been baptized and want to, lets talk after the service and get you signed up.

3. Worship: Right now, we’re going to enter a time of worship through song.

Begin to reflect and give thanks to God for all of the ways he has blessed you.

A video will begin to play, and the lyrics will be on the screen.

Stand and let’s worship!

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WELCOME:

What’s up students?

How’re we doing tonight?

This week we’re going to begin our series “Relationship Goals”

In this series we’re unveiling the truth about relationships with God, others, and how to navigate some of the largest difficulties of life: life with OTHERS.

Can I get an amen? lol.

Now before we jump in let’s pray…

In Jesus Name Amen.>

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Has a relationship ever drained your joy?

It was New Years Eve during my Senior year of High School and I KNEW I needed to break up with my girlfriend.

So, yes I totally understand that a holiday isn't the best time to break up with somebody.

But to make it EVEN worse, I knew this had to happen, but when I went over to her house to talk with her, she gave me the Christmas presents that she didn’t get to give me yet.

Roll call: its new years eve, a holiday, she gave me gifts, and now I knew I had to break up with her…but why?

Since the time we began dating until that new years eve, I had become a Christian and started following Jesus. I knew what the Bible said about putting God first and seeking Him as the priority…but for one reason or another I thought I could balance both worlds…

I thought I could keep leaning into this relationship, seeking joy, pleasure and satisfaction in the wrong places

WHILE ALSO seeking God and praising Him in Church on Sundays, living a happy medium of both worlds.

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I don’t know if anyone has tried this, but Imagine two canoes side by side…if you put one leg in each boat and tried sailing down stream, let me know how that would work out! SPOILER: it WONT!

You’d fall in the water and miss both boats. This was me. Stuck in a sinful relationship, wishing for joy and goodness but looking in the wrong places.

After months of internal wrestling, everything built up to this New Years Eve night.

My heart was numb. My soul was thirsty. I desired hope. I felt hopeless.

This relationship wasn’t an abundant pool of life but a pit that drained my heart.

After a while, I learned, Instead of asking, why did this relationship drain my joy, I should be asking why was I looking to this relationship for joy in the first place?

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One Pastor said it this way, “When you have a source of life, you are a source of life.”

But when you don’t, desperation sets in, and desperation often becomes exploitation of others.

If we don’t sense ourselves receiving life from anywhere, we tend to panic and look to find purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction in other things…or in other people.

One of the main things we look to meaning for is relationships.

We look for another guy or girl to “meet our needs,” and what we seek for others to meet is often far too lofty even for those closest to us.

We use others in relationships to fulfill needs that relationships were never constructed to meet.

That’s like me building a the largest and most inspiring fish tank aquarium in the world but drilling holes in the glass down the sides…although magnificent in size and splendor that thing ain’t EVER gonna be able to hold WATER.

I cant’t expect the tank to house the life giving ability the fish need if it wasn't deigned with those intentions in mind.

We must stop looking to the wrong places for life and must begin to look elsewhere. We’ve been down this road before, lets explore another option.

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Our desire for life and hunger for fulfillment begins in the soul… and that’s where we need to begin.

If we try to find lasting joy in any human relationship, it will end in vanity, something that passes like a morning cloud. The true joy of a man’s life is in his relationship to God.

Oswald Chambers

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Sticky Statement: “When you have a source of life, you are a source of life.”

So what’s your source?

I submit that:

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Main idea: Jesus must be the first and greatest relationship in our lives. We must get a relationship with God right before we can get a relationship with guys or girls right.

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1 John 4:7 Says it this way:

New Living Translation (Chapter 4)

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another…

John writes a letter to believers and encourages them to love others- BUT here’s whats interesting, his encouragement is NOT love others because its the right thing to do,

Or love others because if you don’t you'll be punished. No no,

John says:

New Living Translation (Chapter 4)

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

John reveals that the way we are to live and love others is out of God’s love for us. The only way we are a source of love to others is that God Himself is our source.

Tonight we are going to dive into this passage and extract three portions to better understand how to live from the proper source and make a relationship with God our first priority.

So without further ado,

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Point One: Receive His Love:

Can you remember back to when you were a baby?

Well I would doubt it… but let me tell you, a baby is FULLY dependent on the love of the parent. The love of a parent or parent figure is a quick love, often silent love that goes unnoticed for long stretches of time. But the reason we are here is because we were first loved at a time of our greatest need.

In the same way, the heart of Christ is to love first. So that’s what He did.

New Living Translation 1 John 4:9

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Jesus chose to FIRST love us. Even in the lowest states, the joyless states, the hopeless states…Jesus saw through our sin stained brokenness and chose to love first…

And He loved through action.

One evening, Jesus met with a Pharisee in secret to have a little question and answer session about why Jesus came…listen how Jesus described his mission:

New Living Translation John 3

3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

The next verse is arguably THE most popular verse in the whole Bible, does anyone have a Guess at what it could be?!

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

One Pastor posed these questions: Do you want to be a great lover of others? Do you want to be a source of life to your family, friends, people you might date, or to that person you may eventually marry?

Then you will need a source.

Love embraced is love extended. So, we MUST Receive His Love.

We must receive his sacrifice.

RECEIVE HIS LOVE- ESPECIALLY IN REGARDS TO RELATIONSHIPS

If you have ever found yourself hurt or broken by another in relationship, with all the joy sucked out of life

Let me REMIND and AFFIRM that Jesus comes to bring RESTORATION and to REDEEM the broken.ness

I don’t know who has labeled you in the past but many of us walk around with an understanding that we are worthless or unwanted. That we aren’t worthy of Love.

I want to let you know tonight that Jesus speaks a different word.

Jesus says you are his.

Jesus says you are wonderfully made.

Jesus says you are a masterpiece.

Jesus says there is nothing that can separate you from his love.

Jesus came for YOU.

Jesus decided that YOU were worth DYING for.

YOU, even still while you were broken.

The Bible says, even while we were STILL sinners Christ died for us. EVEN THEN.

Let me tell you tonight that Jesus desires to redeem the broken.

There are many lies and labels that we believe but Jesus desires to invite you into healing and a love that never fails.

Jesus gives an invitation to all. All who hunger and thirst can find full satisfaction in the Son of Man.

Come to Jesus and He will give you all your soul desires.

Remember,

1 John 4:9 (Chapter 4)

We love each other because he loved us first.

We need a source of life to be a source of life.

Receive His Love:

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Point Two: The Second Point of this evening is that we must Reciprocate His love:

It’s one thing to be loved but it’s another to share in it and actively reciprocate that love.

Share in His love.

Learn to love God for WHO He is and WHAT He has done for you.

As you learn to love God you will be filled by Him and ready to pour out to others.

Water and cup illustration. This pitcher represents God’s love, living water. He desires to fill us…

Will you learn to trust God first as your source and share in His love for you?

The Second Point of this evening is that we must Reciprocate His love:

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Point Three: The last point from tonight is this: Reflect His love: You are to love others.

DO you know the word Christian means? It can actually be translated “mini-Christ”?

So, in one way or another, we are to be mini-Christs to this world. We are to be little mirrors of Jesus everywhere we go, reflecting His sacrificial love to all whom we encounter.

John continues in his letter by describing how we should respond to Jesus’ sacrifice: BY LOVING OTHERS.

1 John 4:11

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

We are the picture of God to others. We are to show others the character of Jesus by the way we love and operate our daily lives.

1 Corinthians 16:14 reads: “And do everything with love.”

Let all that you do be done with love.

For those who now have a source, you are to be a source to others.

The idea is NOT that you would fulfill others needs, but that you would point them back to Jesus who can meet all our needs.

Use water illustration. Pour love in to the cup, have that cup pour out. Ultimately you both go back to Jesus to be refilled.

We are to live as divine mirrors and arrows that point to Jesus.

Don’t let anyone believe the lie of the world: that they can find their satisfaction in things, lead them to believe that fulfillment can only be found in Jesus.

So, will you show his love to others this week?

A famous follower of Jesus once said:

To love is to will the good of another.

Thomas Aquinas

What is a way in which you can will the good of another before yourself?

Maybe that’s cleaning the dishes for your parents before you relax.

Or maybe it’s letting your sibling do something you wanted to do.

Or maybe it’s serving someone intentionally.

Whatever it is, will the good of another BEFORE yourself this week.

The last point from tonight is this: Reflect His love: You are to love others

New Living Translation 1 John 4:19

We love each other because he loved us first.

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RECAP: I know I may’ve lost you guys so lets recap where we’ve been…

Main idea: Jesus must be the first and greatest relationship in our lives. We must get a relationship with God right before we can get a relationship with guys or girls right.

Sticky Statement: “When you have a source of life, you are a source of life.”

Point One: Receive His Love: You are loved by God, He first loved us.

Come to Jesus and let Him fill you.

Point Two: Reciprocate His love: Share in His love.

Point Three: Reflect His love: You are to love others.

Point others to Jesus.

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If you’ve tried to be a source without Jesus and have been burned in relationship…

If you are tired of seeking fulfillment in other things and in all that the word has to offer and are sick of feeling empty, take a moment to hear me.

We are not built to find fulfillment in anything other than one: Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus gives us all an invitation: “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus says: John 7:37–38 “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me!

Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’ ””

If you’re tired. If you thirst for fulfillment. If you need a source.

Jesus says come to me.

If you receive the abundance of God’s love, you will have an abundance to give.

Jesus must be the first and greatest relationship in our lives.

Will He be yours?

Lets Pray.

Invitation.