The Love Bug

INTRODUCTION

“Romeo, Romeo, where Art thou Romeo?”

“Here I am!”

- They use to call me Romeo (Romeo Baumgartle) Because I was so cute... until puberty

- My OLDER SISTER told me I drove all of her friends CRAZY

- I read Romeo & Juliet (the Clef Notes) . I don’t get it - Boy meets girl... Falls in love....

she plays dead... he kills himself... she kills herself...

A. LOVE IS A SICKNESS…

Love makes you do stupid things... It’s a disease... a sickness... that’s why they call it the “love bug”

ILLUSTRATE:

A girl came home from school - hot… light headed… butterflies in her stomach…

weak in the knees… Do you know why???? She had the flu.

But her friend came home the same way -- hot… light headed… butterflies in her stomach…

weak in the knees… Do you know why???? She was in love!!! (Same Symptoms)

The girl with the flu... lasted 24 hours. The girl in love… lasted 24 hours

IT’S A SICKNESS!

B. AND IT MAKES US DO STUPID THINGS…

Elvis sang, “I CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU”

ILLUSTRATE:

1. “FALLING” - nobody means to fall… Everybody laughs at you when you fall…

You always get hurt when you fall

2. “I CAN’T HELP” - I bought Steph a leather coat, a camera, and a watch our first Christmas (We had only been dating for 2 weeks!)

- I knew a girl who fell in love with a boy. The Boy borrowed her credit cards.... maxed them out! You know what she did? She GOT MAD.... Then, she GOT A SECOND JOB... Then she got another credit card - And HER BOYFRIEND ASKED TO BORROW IT! You know what she did? She said, “You be careful this time.”

(TS) So if Falling in love is a disease that makes us do crazy things, why do so many of us want to do it?

C. LOVE IS FUN

- Because it’s fun!!! It’s fun to fall.... It’s fun to be helpless... to lose control... to be lost in the clouds… It’s exciting... it’s exhilaration (Like riding a roller coaster)

I know that falling in love is EXCITING… but I also know that falling in love is DANGEROUS!

MY GOAL: TO HELP YOU FALL IN LOVE WITHOUT FALLING OUT OF GOD’S WILL

- Roller coaster has safety features

- Parachuting out of a plane. KNOW THE BOUNDARIES!!! (Get lost in the clouds - but make sure the cloud is over a safe target - not power lines, or a war zone!)

1 Corinthians 6:14-15

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

Someone once said, “If you are a child of God... and you marry a child of the devil... You’re going to have problems with your in-laws!”

ILLUSTRATE: I Visited a local neighborhood and asked, “Do you go to church? If not, why not?”

One lady answered with tears, “Because I grew up a Baptist, and my husband grew up a Jehovah Witness. And we can’t agree on which church to take our children - so we don’t take them anywhere.” (SAD)

Zig Zigglar said,

“You can marry the right person, and treat them wrong. And they will become the wrong person.

Or you can marry the wrong person and treat them right - and they will become the right person.

Then he said, “More important then marrying the right person is BEING the right person.“

I believe it is so important that you BE the right person. But I also believe you need to marry the right person! And how do you do that?

D. THE LIE

First of all, let’s talk about... THE LIE. The way THE WORLD has taught us to fall in love

STAGE 1: ROMANCE

- Did you know that romance is a $1 billion business? 53% of all paperback books are... Romance. Romance Novels bring in more $$$ in USA than baseball (which is suppose to be our national pass-time) AND what about MOVIES? “Sleepless in Seattle” to “Snow White” are all about falling in love (Romance). And in the movies - they all lived happily ever after.

Most all the movies we watch come from HOLLYWOOD. They are setting the standards for the rest of our nation. They are telling us what is acceptable… what is right… what love is. But has anyone told you that HOLLYWOOD has an 80% divorce rate?

STAGE 2: TRANSITION

- The adjustment stage (Their expectations... their habits... their values)

STAGE 3: REALITY

- In the “Romance Stage” - the love of your life can do no wrong!