Uncomplicated Series# 1, Relationships

Uncomplicated Series# 1, Relationships
By: Bobby Sullivan

Isaiah 54:2-5 “Clear lots of ground for your tents! Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big! Use plenty of rope, drive the tent pegs deep. You’re going to need lots of elbow room for your growing family. You’re going to take over whole nations; you’re going to resettle abandoned cities. Don’t be afraid—you’re not going to be embarrassed. Don’t hold back—you’re not going to come up short.

LET’S NOT TURN A RELATIONSHIP into a RELATIONSLIP

Relationships are enormously complex requiring compassion, forgiveness, tolerance and a desire to seek the happiness of the other. “Love is a mixture of loving the self in the other, loving the other because they make oneself happy, and the finding of pleasure in the other’s happiness.”

Love is all about the other person.

There are a number of reasons that human relationships are so complex. There are 7 billion people in the world and they are all different and this difference makes human relationships complex and difficult.

Religion: There are an estimated 4,200 different religions in the world, each with a different set of rules, regulations and beliefs.

Culture: It is difficult to measure cultural identities directly, but some people use languages as an indicator, therefore there are 5,000 to 6,000.

The population of Toronto is the fastest–growing in all of North America, according to a new study released by Ryerson University’s Centre for Urban Research and Land Development.

In Toronto metroplex the population is like 6.47 million not counting the surrounding cities with over 160 nationalities represented so the title Canadian is so diverse which makes forming an ongoing relationship complicated by itself.

We need to bring Godly clarity to this topic so we want to help you deal with relational complexities. How many of you have ever received a reply like: “It’s complicated”?

We place a high importance on family here at Impact Church. Relationships can be complicated both in and out of the church.

“For beauty and clarity to be revealed you need context” Example a diamond ring

You put it on display or a setting. God wanted to show off his workmanship, The Family of God is the context where the Nature and Kingdom of God are best displayed.

Matthew 6:9 “Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed be your name.”

“Hallowed be thy name” means God’s name is holy and special. Even though God wants us to call him our Father, he is still God, and He is to be respected and honored. … This part of the prayer says let God’s kingdom come and let God’s will be done on earth, both just like it is in heaven 

Psalm 118:1-5 ¹ Keep on giving thanks to God, for he is so good! His constant, tender love lasts forever! ² Let all his princely people sing, “His constant, tender love lasts forever!”
³ Let all his holy priests sing, “His constant, tender love lasts forever!”
⁴ Let all his lovers who bow low before him sing, “His constant, tender love lasts forever!” ⁵ Out of my deep anguish and pain I prayed, and God, you helped me as a father.

Ephesians 3:1 “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,…”

*Gods original plan was to be a whole family not a divided one.

*Many people think that Christianity is a belief system, but it’s really a belong system.

*Belong-Believe-Behave is the philosophical approach at Impact.

Notice Genesis 2:24 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

It says the 2 shall become one. It doesn’t say the ½’s will become whole.

The question is , “What are you becoming?”

The Kingdom of God is a community of like minded citizens. Thank God it is not a gated, scheduled, isolated social club for the spiritually elite! 

It would be strange to have a set of guidelines or rules of behavior posted on my front door.

It’s hard to know the beliefs and behavioral practices if you’re not part of the community. As you willfully engage you become a part of it.

The 3^rd most important need of mankind is to BELONG.

In church you learn by observation not just a rule book. God sent his son for you to observe not a textbook to read.

John 13:35  “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  

John 15:12  “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

We will love you even if you leave. We will be there for you even when everyone else has left you.

John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Matthew 5:44
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

Romans 13:10
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Galatians 5:14
The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Ephesians 5:2
and walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God.

1 Thessalonians 4:9
Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

1 John 3:23
And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us.

1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

“Communion is strength; solitude is weakness. Alone, the fine old beech yields to the blast and lies prone on the meadow. In the forest, supporting each other, the trees laugh at the hurricane. The sheep of Jesus flock together.

The social element is the genius of Christianity.”    C.H. Spurgeon

The social element of Christianity Is how we do life together.  Community is how we commune and communicate with each other.

California Redwoods

example from nature  is the huge redwood trees in California. They are the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and more than 2,500 years old.

You would think that trees that large would have a tremendous root system, reaching down hundreds of feet into the earth. But that is not the case. Redwoods have a very shallow root system.

The roots of these trees are, however, intertwined. They are tied in with each other; interlocked. Thus, when the storms come and the winds blow the redwoods still stand.

Community—The article “What Good Is a Tree?” in Reader’s Digest explained that when the roots of trees touch, there is a substance present that reduces competition. In fact, this unknown fungus helps link roots of different trees–even of dissimilar species. A whole forest may be linked together.

If one tree has access to water, another to nutrients, and a third to sunlight, the trees have the means to share with one another. Like trees in a forest, Christians in the church need and support one another. [1]

Genesis 1:31  “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” When he created man he said, this is ‘very good’.

Genesis 1:25 He was the original Dr. Doolittle! He could talk to the animals!      SLIDES OF ANIMALS

Mr Ed, Nemo, Bambi, Ehor, Winnie the poo, dumbo, tigger, flipper,  yogi, tom and jerry, micky

Genesis 2:18 “And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.ʼ”

 EQUAL NOT SUPERIOR!

It doesn’t mean that man was lonely but it appears he needed help!

helper:— (ezer) strong help  comparable:— (kenegdo) as in front of him; perfect match, same nature.

Psalm 142:4  (NLT)  “I look for someone to come and help me, but no one gives me a passing thought! No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me.”

Psalm 25:16  (NLT) “Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in  deep distress.”

It is not good to be alone or feel alone! Why do you think God created a human?   Wasn’t just to display his glory and majesty. Fellowship-communion-relationship

Dr. Les Parrot    “If you try to build intimacy with another person before you have done the work of getting whole on your own, all your relationships become an attempt to complete yourself.”

Your relationships are only as strong as you are. 

I would be cautious entering a relationship to fill your needs only. It borderlines fraudulent. Your relationships are only as strong as you are. 

Niel Clark Warren Founder “E Harmony”
Asked if you could just give one word of advice what would it be?
“Get yourself healthy before you get yourself married.”

You can’t enter a relationship to fulfill your needs only. Mutual compatability 

“Love and intimacy — our ability to connect with ourselves and others, is at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for his or her patients. It would be malpractice not to prescribe it.”   Dr Dean Ornish — Ornish Lifestyle Medicine

God’s Set Up For Relational Success

Before Adam got a wife he had a job!  He was a gardener

1. Placement
   Genesis 2:8 “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.”

Acts 17:26  “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,”
1 Corinthians 12:18  “But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.”

God is pleased where he places you. He plants you where you can prosper. In the midst of our cancel culture this is an important scripture on dwelling together. 

You will be happy when you embrace the placement of God.  

2. Provision
   Genesis 2:9“And out of the ground the Lord Godmade every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”

There is provision in the placement of God.

3. Purpose: Genesis 2:15  “… Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”  I am planted for a purpose, rooted for a reason and secure in this season
   “Keep It” (Shamar):— to keep, guard, keep watch and ward, protect, save life and protect.
   Guarding against God’s Enemies.

Your job is to protect the place where he places you.

Genesis 1:28 “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;”   “Subdue” (kabash) :— conquer, keep under, subdue, bring into subjection.   You have a job!!!

We have a responsibility to guard relationships and abolish all conversation that will divide.  Gossip divides friends.

4. Personality-Identity
   Genesis 1:26“Then God said,‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…’” You are created by God and empowered by God.
   Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,”

If we are listening, Holy Spirit himself is constantly reminding us that we are Children of God!!

Romans 8:14 ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

1 John 3:10  By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

2 Peter 1:4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate (partakers) in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5. Parameters
   Genesis 2:16-17“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (spiritually not physically)

Because we are not all knowing and the originator of knowledge, we can’t out  with a clear conscience cast judgement on something or someone I have no authority over.

“Out of love God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in garden, it was as Boyd says, “God’s No Trespassing Sign” reminding us that we should never imagine we have the right or capacity to judge God, others and even ourselves by our standards of good and evil.” Greg Boyd http://reknow.org

Original sin” was eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The sin of pursuing LIFE (our identity, worth, significance and security) for ourselves.

“Then the evil tempter comes along, an intruder and interloper whose sole enterprise was to devise a way to destroy God’s creation and final intention”. Paradise Lost page 979 

“Satan took a loving act of God and put his own evil spin on it, and painted a picture of God that was trivial and disloyal. He made it seem that God would be threatened by their participation in the knowing good and evil.”

The act of grasping for “the knowledge of good and evil” implies an attempt by humans to define and experience and know good and evil on their own terms—apart from God. It is an effort to exercise moral self-government, self-rule, and self-sufficiency… an exercise of sovereignty apart but appropriate to God only.

Rebelling from God and seizing that otherness of God we habitually see and experience the entire world through a filter of our self-serving judgments of good and evil.

Humanity has from that moment on lived unlawfully trying to become what God had originally made us to be. The world has become an arena in which we continually judge things and people as good or evil, through  our own skewed lens.

Results of the fall was Alienation from Relationship”

ALIENATION—Colossians 1:21

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

1. Creation was plunged into a prison of contamination
2. The corruption of man’s own nature- a wound that struck at our very nature and a poisoned, tainted us and wounded us at the core.
3. Man’s intellect is used perversely, instead of being used to admire and worship God.
4. The guiltiness of man before God- certainty of punishment sending us to clothe ourselves with the most ill-fitting attire… shame, blame, fear.
5. Separation from God- inability to communicate as they once had, before Adam had no cause to doubt or argue with God but as soon as God questions him on his actions … we hear blame and accusation… the woman YOU GAVE ME.
6. And it tainted every relationship going forward with blame, shame, fear,
7. Imprisoning us in the futility of defining ourselves outside of the goodness of God
8. Dead in our sin, and following the ways of this world which had come under the rule of an evil and diabolic tyrant…
9. We became aliens and foreigners outside of God’s household
10. Resulting in toil, sorrow and death

An evil ruler reigns, the planet is darkened, and we are in captivity.

SELFISH — An attempt to know what only God can rightly know.   We are being taught MORALISM RULED!

God did not in any way change because they ate of the Tree of Knowledge.
Man Changed!!! And our concept of God was diminished because of it. 

The Lie was “don’t you wanna be like God?” Why would I want to be like him when I was created in his image and likeness? 

Len Sweet 4 Untruths unleashed in the Fall

1. Our sin has made us enemies with God
2. We are unsafe
3. We are better off alone
4. There is no place for us… we are hiding from the garden planet God created to put us in

God isn’t hiding from us, we are hiding from him. Because of this Adams….

His View of Himself Changed
His View of Others Changed
His View of God Changed

John 17:20-23 “…that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one,…”