Sermon Tone Analysis

Big Idea: Unless I'm wholeheartedly pursuing a relationship with Christ, all other relationships will be a hopeless attempt to fill that void.

*All Scriptures are NIV

Let’s be honest, there may be no greater emotional roller coaster than the teenage dating scene.

-How weird I was in Junior High relationships….check

yes or no…..your the best…phone calls…msn….then

I would be on to the next girl…..really bad bad……

Have you been there?

The whole world of love and relationships is a big deal.

It gets messy and tricky, and we want this to be a place where we can talk about it.

For the next four weeks we are going to do just that as we cover what God has to say about these things.

Tonight, we are going to start with relationships.

Relationships have always been a huge deal.

In fact, the first problem in human history was a relationship problem.

In and 2 we read the creation story.

In

, something happens that is “not good.”

I’m not talking about the whole snake and fruit eating stuff.

It’s before that.

It came when He created humans.

Check it out in :

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,

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15The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

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18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.

I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Did you catch that?

In verse 18 God said, “It is not good.”

What is not good?

It wasn’t good that man was lonely.

The first human problem was loneliness.

So, God being God… He came up with a solution.

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21So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

22Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

So, God creates relationship to deal with man’s loneliness.

And the crazy thing is it gets pretty risqué right away.

Let’s read on…

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23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Now, I know some of you just giggled when you saw that last verse.

Others of you got a little uncomfortable.

Still others of you rolled your eyes.

And then others of you actually just paid attention to me for the first time.

Now, when it comes to talking about this topic, there is a word that causes some similar reactions.

That word is sex, and it will come up in this series.

Whenever we do talk about sex, I want you to know that pretty much all of those responses I just outlined are completely normal and completely understandable.

No matter how it makes you feel when it is brought up

Commit to two things when sex is brought up

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Listen to what God has to say about it.

because He has a lot to say.

In fact, I know it sounds crazy, but the verses I showed you are actually talking about the moment God created sex.

We’ll talk more about that in Week 3.

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Please don’t distract others from hearing what God has to say about it.

Sometimes, when we get uncomfortable with a topic, we’ll do things to try to feel a little more comfortable.

We’ll crack a joke.

We’ll look at others to see if they are as uncomfortable as we are; and if they are, we will do things to try to break the discomfort.

In the process, we actually distract ourselves and others from what is going on.

So, what do you say?

Can we agree to those two things?

That’s all we are going to talk about it for tonight.

In fact I don’t even want to focus on guy/girl relationship.

Instead, I want to focus on all relationships.

Two big thoughts on relationships.

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1.

We need relationships.

There is something inside of us that knows it’s “not good” to be alone just like God said when He saw Adam alone.

Another word for this is belonging.

We can find belonging and comfort in our relationship with parents, in friendships or in coaching/mentoring relationships.

This is actually a big theme in the Bible; that we are better when we have relationships with others than we are alone.

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2. Relationships are complicated.

In the past week, have you dealt with some kind of stress or frustration with another person, whether it is a parent, a friend, a teacher, or someone else?

Relationships are complicated, right?

Although they are complicated, it’s not that complicated to figure out why.

When you take two people with their own unique likes, strengths, weaknesses, and desires and you seek to find common ground, it will get a little messy at times.

Sometimes relationships cause little messes… like somebody slightly annoying us.

Then there are other times where relationships cause huge messes…

Like the girl I knew who was getting bullied to the point she hated the thought of even going to school.Like the boy I knew who’s felt so pressured from his dad to succeed in football that he grew to hate the sport and even wondered if he hated his dad.Like the married couple who got a divorce because the wife cheated on the husband.

And then there were a 6th Grade Boy and an 8th Grade boy just watching their world crumble before them.

HUGE MESSES caused by relationships.

They happen all the time.

When it comes to Junior High relationships, I see two common issues that will lead to complications and messes.

1. Huge messes happen when relationships push us away from God.

Let’s go back to Adam and Eve.

God placed them in the garden and gave them freedom to do almost anything they want.

He really just put one rule in place; don’t eat the fruit from a certain tree.

Then the serpent (Satan) came along and tempted Eve telling her, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

And as Eve bought into a lie:

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6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

You know where it went from there, right?

There was a huge mess because the people in this relationship chose to push away from God rather than toward Him.