INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• The story of Roger Bannister is legendary in the annals of sports history.
• On May 6, 1954, Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier. People said it was humanly impossible to run a mile under four minutes.
• They thought we were incapable of covering that amount of distance in that amount of time.
• SLIDE #2
• The record Roger broke had stood for 9 full years. The record was 4:01.4, set by a Swedish runner named “Gunder Haegg,” in 1945.
• They called him, “Gunder the wonder.” Until Bannister, no one approached Gunder’s time; no one threatened it. All but a few dreamers thought it couldn’t be done. But 46 days after Bannister broke the four-minute barrier, an Australian lowered the record still further.
• Once Bannister proved it could be done, many others did it. Today, hundreds of runners have eclipsed four minutes. John Walker did it 129 times. Steve Scott did it 136 times. Bannister ran a 3:59. The record today is 3:43.
• As we are considering How to Fireproof Our Relationships most of us have difficulty doing things we’ve never seen or experienced before.
• Throughout the rest of the messages in this series, we are going to examine some practical tools and suggestions on how to be a better husband, wife, neighbor, and friend.
• Today we are going to examine the source of good relational behavior. Like the sub-four-minute mile, many of us have missed out on an experience that God says is essential for the human soul: we’ve missed out on experiencing love at the deepest level. What you have not seen or experienced, you will not duplicate.
• Today I want you to consider God and His love. I hope that you can see and experience love.
• In the clip from Fire Proof I want to share with you today, Caleb’s dad has given him a book with some practical suggestions on how to love his wife. Caleb tries these steps, but they don’t work for him.
• CLICK TO VIDEO LIKE A NEW SONG.
• VIDEO CLIP #1
• CLICK TO NEW PP SLIDES AFTER VIDEO. IT WILL BE SLIDE #1
• You cannot give what you do not have.
• One of the great problems of our world is that many people are walking around these days trying to give and receive something they’ve never experienced for themselves.
• BESIDES NEEDING TO GIVE LOVE, ALL OF US NEED TO BE LOVED because we can’t go where we can’t see. We’ve got to receive love before we can give it.
• Let me show this to you in very practical terms. OPEN A BIBLE AND TURN TO 1 JOHN 4:7-19
• 1 John 4:7-19 ( ESV ) 7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19We love because he first loved us.
• Today we will examine FIVE PRINCIPLES OF RELATIONSHIPS from what John shares with us from his experience and relationship with Jesus.
SERMON
• The first principle is more implied than stated.
• SLIDE #2
I. When people have profound experiences, they want to share them.
• Have you ever had a profound experience in your life? Did you find yourself wanting to share?
• John had a profound experience that changed his life.
• John responded to the call of Jesus in Matthew 4. For 3 ½ years, he watched Jesus, listened to Him, ate meals with him, slept beside him, heard Him pray, and watched Him die. John concluded that, in Jesus, he had found the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
• By the time John writes this letter, he no longer a young man.
• This young man devoted his life to telling others about God’s love. He did that for 50 years, then 60 years. Finally, age 65 or 75 years old, John writes to a group of people that matter deeply to him. In this little letter he calls them, “Dear children, my dear children,” and “dear friends.”
• Over the years, something has happened to John. In his early years, he experienced God’s love, through His Savior, Jesus. When Jesus went to heaven, the Bible describes in Acts 2 how the Holy Spirit descended and moved into the hearts of Jesus’ disciples.
• John felt it. John lived with the Holy Spirit, God’s love, inside of him for 5 or 6 decades. And now, towards the end of his life, it’s practically all he can talk about, all he can think about, all he cares about.
• When you have had a good experience you want to share it, which is how businesses thrive also!
• Listen to verse 11 with me as we move to the next principle.
• SLIDE #3
• 1 John 4:11 ( ESV ) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
• Let me share something with you that IS a profound experience!
• SLIDE #4
II. An encounter with God’s love is a profound experience.
• When we have profound experiences, we naturally want to share them. So when you experience God’s love, you naturally want to share that love with the people you love. Did you follow that?
• I remember when I first started to realize that God did indeed love me. I felt so UNWORTHY of His love. I was a mess inside, I believed in God, but I did not KNOW God enough to realize that HE loved me UNCONDITIONALLY.
• When I started seeing how God had worked in the lives of my wife, then girlfriend’s friends from Church, it started to sink in over time.
• An encounter with God’s love IS a profound experience that we should share with others; we NEED to share it with others!
• One of the ways we can share God’s love is VERBALLY, but another way is just simply by loving people.
• In the Fire Proof movie, once Caleb experienced true love from God, he was then able to TRULY love his wife. For Caleb it started out selfish, and turned to selfless when he experienced God’s love.
• Many people think Christianity and Jesus are just something you cash in when you die. Folks it is SO much more than that!
• When you experience the TRUE love God offers through Jesus, and then you too will be able to offer TRUE love to those around you!
• If you have not experienced this love yet, we will give you an opportunity to do that later!
• For now let us look at verses 16-17 for principle #3
• SLIDE #5
• 1 John 4:16-17 ( ESV ) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.
• SLIDE #6
III. As we experience living close to God our love for others increases.
• When you live close to God, you find your love increasing.
• It’s like when you hang around someone who’s really good at what they do. If you hang around with a great athlete, you’ll find yourself thinking about sports, eating better, exercising more, working to get better at one or more sports.
• If you hang around a focused businessperson, you’ll find yourself thinking about setting and achieving goals, being more productive, taking advantage of opportunities as they come your way.
• If you hang around a mom, you’ll find yourself noticing her children, thinking about their welfare. Greatness is contagious. If you hang around it, it’ll rub off on you.
• God’s love is so great that if you live close to Him, you will find yourself becoming more like Him, valuing what He values, acting like He acts. When you get close to God, you will find yourself becoming more loving, and that’s the key to all relationships.
• “So, how do you get close to God?”
• Very simple: you hang out with Him, just like you’d hang out with any other friend.
• You talk to Him, you invite Him to go with you during your day. You come to church, because this is where the rest of God’s friends hang out, and when you’re close friends, you start to hang out with your close friend’s friends.
• You NEED to accept Him and your LORD and SAVIOR! We will share with you what you need to do to make that happen later.
• It’s a funny thing. The more you know God, the better you love people. John says, “God is love.” Not, “God has love,” but, “God is love.”
• You cannot give what you do not have. God is love.
• If you have Him, you have love. If you do not have Him, you only think you have love because God not only has not only cornered the market on love, God is the market when it comes to love.
• If you take nothing else from what I say today, take that. The more you know God, the better you will love people.
• You cannot give what you do not have, when you have God’s love, you then have the ability to give everyone you relate to everything they could possibly want from you.
• The more time you spend with Him the more like Him you will be, but the time has to start as a child of Him!
• SLIDE #7
• 2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,£ are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
• Let’s look at verse 18 for the next principle.
• SLIDE #8
• 1 John 4:18 ( ESV ) There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
• Slide #9
IV. Love eliminates fear.
• See, most of us want to love, but were driven by fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear we’ll be hurt or disappointed.
• Fear is the belief that something nearby is harmful or dangerous. There are lots of things that are harmful and dangerous in this world, so there are lots of reasons to be fearful. - Unless you have love. Because perfect love drives out fear.
• SLIDE #10
• Romans 8:31 ( ESV ) 31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be£ against us?
• Love eliminates fear.
• John spent his life staying close to Jesus, the result was this great elderly man became a person who excelled in the fine art of loving.
• When you start to excel at loving, you stop fearing people. And when you have no fear of people, you stop competing with them, you stop trying to get them to notice you and you stop depending on them to make you feel good.
• Turn to verse 19 for the final principle.
• SLIDE #11
• 1 John 4:19 ( ESV ) We love because he first loved us.
• SLIDE #12
V. We love because He first loved us.
• That’s the great secret that John unveiled 2000 years ago. We love because He first loved us.
• We cannot give what we do not have, but once we have received love from God, if we stay close to Him, we just get better and better and better at loving people.
• Roger Bannister did humanity a great favor by running the mile in 3:59. He showed us we could do something that nobody thought could be done.
• Since his time, many people have run sub-four minute miles. In that way, Roger was like Jesus.
• John says that Jesus came to show us what real love is—selfless and others-centered, and to enable us to experience it.
• We cannot give what we do not have. But we can have what God is offering us. And He’s offering love this morning. Love so that we can love Him and love others.
• SLIDE #13
VI. Love Dare Challenge #2.
• Let us start with the husbands!
• SLIDE #14
• Ask God to show you one way to love your wife, then DO IT!
• SLIDE #15
• Wives- Do the SAME!
• SLIDE #16
• Singles- Make a list of 6 people you know and ask the Lord how to love them. For the next 6 days, show love to a different person on the list each day.
CONCLUSION
• If you are going to love your spouse or your future spouse, it needs to start with KNOWING with love is! You learn that from God. His love is the only love, the perfect love.
• If you have not experienced it yet, we give you the opportunity!
