The Relationship Series Week 1

Relationship With Self

Psalm 139:13-16

Intro: Everything about life is about relationships. Everything and everyone you interact with is you having a relationship. Food, social media, parents, significant other, you have a relationship with everything. Sometimes it’s a good relationship and sometimes it’s a bad relationship but everything is a relationship whether you know it or not.

The culture that we live in loves to tell you what your relationships should look like. If you have healthy relationships then they look one way and if you have unhealthy relationships then they look another way but something that most people don’t think about is what the bible says about relationships. We look to movies and tv shows, books, music, Instagram and TikTok to tell us all about the relationships in life but there’s something these things often leave out, life isn’t always a fairytale. Life is hard which means relationships are hard.

It is more important now then ever to know what the bible says about relationships which is why we do The Relationship Series. The things we are going to be unpacking in this series; what the bible says about yourself and how you should look at yourself compared to what the world says, friendship, how someone your age should look at dating and what is a smart way to date in high school, and what the bible says about sexuality and sex. There will be a lot to unpack each week of this series but this might possibly be the most important series of the year because your relationships are often a direct reflection of your life.

Lets pray and then we can jump into the first week.

PRAY

Context: Like I said earlier, your relationships are often a direct reflection of your life. How you treat the people around you is often connected to where you think their worth is but speaks more so to where you think your worth is. 1 of 2 things usually happens, however we see ourselves, we either think that people are better than us, or people are worse than us but very rarely do we see everyone on the same level. Rarely do we look at the people around us and see them as the same. This is why comparison is so dangerous.

We look to the people next to us and start comparing our sins and lives to each other almost like they are hands of cards at a card game. We start looking at what other people are going through and start comparing whether they are better or worse than us when in actuality, every one is broken and everyone is going through things and no struggle is more or less than the other because Jesus came for them all. Jesus didn’t come for some broken people, he didn’t come for a certain type of broken people, if you are human then you are broken and Jesus came for you.

So the lens in which you view yourself shifts the way you view other people so what we need to do is understand who we are. While the world tries to tell us who we are, if you are a Christ follower, your identity needs anchored in who the bible says you are and who God says you are. So who does God say you are?

READ PSALM 139:13-16

1. We Are His Creation (V. 13-14)

We are starting off this series talking about how your relationship with yourself shapes the rest of your relationships. The world we live in, social media tells you exactly who you are, it tells you the kind of person you are, if you struggle with something then it instantly puts that label on you and that’s what you are and once you are labeled you can’t change it. You’ll always be a cheater, a liar, too skinny, too big, too short, too tall, you always be depressed and struggling with anxiety and an addict and the list goes on and on but these things, these people, have no power to label you because you weren’t created by them.

The creator gets to label the created. He knitted you together, knowing you and creating you in your mothers womb. He knew you before you knew yourself, if anyone gets to label you, it’s the one who created you.

Where we go wrong is we let the things we do tell us what our identity is. We go through life putting our personal value in things that will always let us down and always leave us empty. We search for ourselves in the things of the world and tie our worth in things that will fade when there is a creator who created you who already says who you are and has already told you where your value is. The fact of the matter is that we put our identity in things that make us valuable only when things are going well.

This can look like putting your identity in sports and as long as you are playing well or your team is winning then everything is going well and you feel like you are somebody but the second you make a mistake or have a couple games where you don’t play well you feel lost. Putting your identity in your school work; as long as you are making the grades and at the top of your class then you feel good about yourself but all it takes is one bad grade to make your entire world crumble. Putting your value in your boyfriend or girlfriend and relying on them to make you feel some type of way, always posting your relationship on your story because you want everyone to see that you finally have value because someone tells you some kind words and tells you everything you want to hear but you find out that once you put your joy and your happiness in someone besides Jesus, they end up letting you down and you feel broken inside.

The creator of the entire universe decided to create you and put value in you, making you in his image. Just think about how crazy it is that God, the one who literally made everything, all the people we look to in the bible, the God who was there in the very beginning, knitted you together, fearfully and wonderfully made you, created everything and decided to put value and worth in you. Knowing that we are made by him, we are his creation, how do we respond? We praise him. We sing and we lift our hands, we pray and read scripture, we give him the reverence he deserves as the creator. When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you praise God for creating something wonderful or do you judge and hate because you aren’t what the culture says you should look like or who you should be?

2. We Are Seen And Led (V. 15-16)

God sees you. The things you are proud of, the things that you want to keep hidden from everyone, God sees. This should probably bring 2 responses out of you when you hear this, relief because you can finally let go and stop acting like you are hiding and then it should scare you because it hits you that he sees everything you have been hiding and everything that you are scared to admit that you struggle.

The fact that God sees you is liberating. When someone sees you and really knows you and still accepts and loves you, a sense of relief should come upon you. When God sees you, and trusts me, he sees all of you, he still loves you and he still chose to come down and die on a cross for you. He sees you in your sin and shame and decided to pick you up, dust you off and love you. He sees where you are and doesn’t require you to come clean but meets you where you are. He comes calling your name, desiring nothing more than you.

What would happen if we looked at ourselves how God sees us? The more I learn about God and grow closer to him, the more I am convinced that he wouldn’t be near as harsh on his people as we are on ourselves. The book of Romans says that when you give your life to Christ then you become adopted into his family and become an heir with Christ, treating you as his own. Romans 8 says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”  God sees you and loves you so much that the darkest parts of your soul  couldn’t keep him from lighting it up and working all things for good when you put you surrender it all to him.

The fear I was talking about knowing that God actually sees you should lead you to your repentance. Not because you are scared but because you know that he actually sees you and your brokenness and still took your place on the cross. The fear is less of actually being scared and more of a respect and reverence to the power that he has. That’s what the phrase “Fear the Lord” means, not to be scared of him but to understand his power, understand who he is and respect it. Looking at Adam and Eve, when they sinned and ate the fruit of the tree, they went a hid because they were scared because they knew Gods power but they didn’t stay hidden, they came out when God called them and God does what he does and clothes them and loves them.

Verse 16 says “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” How many times does we look at ourselves in disappointment? We don’t have to wait for the world to label us because we label ourselves through our disappointment with ourselves. We are disappointed that we aren’t good enough, aren’t good enough for the world, not good enough for our parents, for our boyfriend or girlfriend, for our coaches and teacher and we turn it and spin it to say that we will never be good enough for God but he never asked you to be good enough, he asked you to trust and to love him.

Think about where disappointment comes from, expectations that weren’t met. We think that something would turn out a different way then it did, someone would have acted differently then they did but if you already knew what was going to happen, there’s no reason for you to be disappointed because you had the correct expectations. Verse 16 says that God already knew your days before you were even born. He knew what you would do every single day from the beginning of your life to the end, he knew all of the good that you would do and all the bad you would do, he’s not disappointed in you, he is madly in love with you. He looks at you with love and beauty and pride in his eyes.

Closing: God created you and he sees you. When you understand this, a couple things should start to change, how you see yourself, how you interact with yourself and how you interact with others.

How You See Yourself:

See yourself as not only a creation of God but a child of God. When you surrender your life to him, you become adopted into his family. Who you were before doesn’t matter because you have been made new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away and all things have become new. See yourself as a son or daughter of the king, someone who God is proud to claim and call his.

How You Interact With Yourself:

Take your thoughts captive and remind them who you are and who’s you belong to. Understand that your battle isn’t against flesh and blood but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil. If you were as bad as the enemy wants you to believe you are then God would have never wanted you but he does. When your mind is telling you that you are too big, too small, not smart enough, not athletic enough, too ugly or too pretty, remind yourself that you are a child of God and when God creates something, he says that it is good.

How You Interact With Other:

Understand that just like you are broken, so are others. Understand that they are also made in Gods image and God loves them just as much as he loves you and we should treat them with love as well never forgetting what Matthew 28 says- to go and make disciples. The most loving thing you can do for someone is share with them the love of the father and the secret to eternal life.

Pray