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Notes: 

Everyone wants a great sex life

Interrupted Sex Life:

A temporary season should not become a permanent lifestyle.

Scientific Evidence:

Science has proven, “IT’S JUST SEX” is a lie.

Biologically

SEX: is more than vaginal intercourse

Oxford Academic: The brain’s role as the ‘master organ’ governing sexual function

“You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a ‘person’ with lust has already committed adultery with ‘them’ in their heart.”

A dumbed-down definition of sex will derail our dream for a “great sex life”

God Designed Sex:

During orgasm the brain releases a cocktail of neurotransmitters that boost feelings of happiness and relaxation (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin).

I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love…His left hand is under my head, and his right hand caresses me….Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

God Designed Sex:

Sex, including casual sex, causes the brain to release neurotransmitters, which makes us feel more emotionally tied to a person. Basically, you're biologically wired to attach to any sexual partner…

Medical Institute for Sexual Health:

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

God Designed Sex:

Medical Institute for Sexual Health:

…studies have shown that having multiple premarital sex partners is negatively associated with marital quality and stability.

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.

Understanding God’s purpose and design for sex reveals a sacredness that can protect us from misusing sex!

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Notes: 

The number one cause of dissatisfaction in romance and marriage comes from a myth we all buy into.

TRUE LOVE’S MAGIC:

The myth of ‘true love’ leads to this lie:

What does ‘true love’ look like in the real world?

Loved by another

Just because something is “good” doesn’t mean it erases the damage of misuse

What does ‘true love’ look like in the real world?

Philia – deep friendship

Without “agape love” at the core we will selfishly misuse all other types of love

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.

Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.

…So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

True LOVE requires the hard work of being selfless

We can’t give what we don’t have

Receiving God’s true love in Jesus allows us to pass-on what we don’t naturally have 

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Notes: 

Loved by another

Just because something is “good” doesn’t mean it erases the damage of misuse.

What is one of the greatest threats to our fulfilment of love, romance, and sex?

Single – Married – Complicated

Choosing the path of self-gratification sabotages our hopes for fulfilment.

Failure is NOT final!

What path leads to fulfilment without damaging our dreams?

Don’t throw the baby out with bathwater

In our passion to rid ourselves of something unwanted and harmful, don’t accidently get rid of something valuable and important to ourselves.

God’s path to healthy fulfilment in love, romance, and sex is purity.

Purity distorted:

Purity is not just do’s and don'ts

“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”

“For it is from within, out of A PERSON’S HEART, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

“And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Using something made to be selfless in a selfish way just becomes exploitation.

1. Surrender to God’s version of good, not our own

Trusting God’s goodness and boundaries through obedience protects us from the trap of self-gratification that harms fulfilment

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Notes: 

Loved by another

Trusting sources with failing records harms ourselves

Church:

Sometimes churches create the illusion that God’s timeless truths are outdated and out-of-touch

Modern Take:

All our romantic wishes deserve to be met

Modern Take:

How do we not get misled by either the church or culture?

Just because something is “good” doesn’t mean it erases the damage of misuse

Half-truths often create the most powerful lies

Half Truths:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”

Half Truths:

Jesus said to them, “I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin.”

True freedom isn’t the lack of boundaries, it’s the absence of being bound to unwanted consequences

Half Truths:

…when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires…

Half Truths:

God’s wisdom and truth helps us avoid the myth that misusing good won’t cause damage and dysfunction.

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Notes: 

Why are we here today?

Celebrate:

Political hostility

Life is unreliable

Security in the unsecure makes peace impossible

Without peace we’re trapped in a life of anxiety, stress, and pain-avoidance

Jesus of Nazareth did what no one else has ever done!

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.”

From that time on Jesus began to say plainly to his disciples, “I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. I will be put to death, but three days later I will be raised to life.”

Chaos, ruin, and uncertainty gave JESUS it’s best shot and lost!

Historical Facts:

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day…

He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive…Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.

God loves you

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

We don’t know what tomorrow holds

JESUS’s peace frees us to live a life of meaning not avoidance.

A Love like Jesus’s is worthy of our response, today… 

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Notes: 

In Essentials – Unity

The Apostles Creed: 

In Essentials – Unity

God is Good

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. And this is eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.”

Religion – Relationship?

Religion - Relationship?

Religion – Information, Law, Guilt, My works, Activity, Fear

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for people to see…”

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old? Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” Jesus answered, “Very  truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 

“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

Afterward Joseph of Arimathea, who had been a secret disciple of Jesus (because he feared the Jewish leaders), asked Pilate for permission to take down Jesus’ body. When Pilate gave permission, Joseph came and took the body away. With him came Nicodemus, the man who had come to Jesus at night. He brought about seventy-five pounds of perfumed ointment made from myrrh and aloes. Following Jewish burial custom, they wrapped Jesus’ body with the spices in long sheets of linen cloth.

YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN – Jesus

Religion: Performance – Control – Keep the Rules – Me centered

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Notes: 

If God is good, why is there evil?

God’s goodness gave humanity the gift of freedom and dignity

Humanity’s self-first posture causes ALL of us to misuse our freedom to do wrong

Without justice evils wins

How does God fulfill the requirements of justice AND provide the mercy love demands

Getting the “essentials” of faith wrong sets us up to fail at what matters most in life

God is Completely Good

How does God solve the paradox problem of justice and mercy?

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“I am the good shepherd, who is willing to die for the sheep.”

“For I tell you that the scripture which says, ‘He shared the fate of criminals,’ must come true about me, because what was written about me is coming true.”

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations…”

Substitutionary atonement:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

…and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice…

Jesus is Essential

Salvation: can’t be earned

Without Jesus both our debts and disease keeps us stuck

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Notes: 

If God is good, why is there evil?

Intellectual truth explains BUT won’t remove emotional pain

Disliking an answer doesn’t make it any less true

Genuine love requires the freedom of choice

Love’s freedom and dignity make evil a possible outcome

Why do we choose wrong even when our personal history proves it harms ourselves and others?

Getting the “essentials” of faith wrong sets us up to fail at what matters most in life

God is Completely Good

Why do we keep choosing wrong despite history’s proof that it always ends badly?

“But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts - murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person.”

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

…they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Humanity is Fatally Flawed - All of humanity has a spiritual disease that leads to death that we cannot cure by ourselves

Fatally Flawed:

Truthfully admitting our problem isn’t about shame or guilt – It’s an honesty that allows for healing

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Notes: 

We lose-out on what’s best for us when we pick the wrong version of good

Version of “Goodness”

Exploitation: Good for me at the cost of you

What “good” is the most trustworthy?

Getting the “essentials” of faith wrong sets us up to fail at what matters most in life.

God is Completely Good

Jesus is the BEST authority on who God truly is!

What “good” is the most trustworthy?

light/dark - oceans/land - vegetation/own kind - sun/moon/stars - sea creatures/birds - animals/Mankind

And God saw that it was good.

…in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them…fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature.

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

“As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

God is Completely good

God is OTHER:

God’s goodness in Jesus proves He is worthy of our complete trust

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Notes: 

Misunderstanding the essentials leads to faulty outcomes.

What we believe determines how we live.

Orthodox

Essential: Irremovable – Necessary – Central - Required

Non- Essential – Cultural – Fashionable – Traditional - Harmful

God is Completely Good – Humanity is Fatally Flawed – Jesus is Essential – Eternal Life is Relational not Religious

Who’s the best authority on God?

I think God would want me to __________.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?” 

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?”

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ…

Jesus is the BEST authority on who God truly is! If we want to see God, we must look at Christ!

Without revelation we end up making God in our image instead of being made in His image.

See God through:

Jesus is the clear authority on God that we need to navigate the complexities of life.