Formation Church - Chandler, Indiana

Even us - 1 Corinthians (message 1)

By the Grace of God I am who I am! Easter 2016 - 1 Corinthians 15

Abandoned but Thankful - Church Hurts - 2 Timothy 4

Rejected but Saved - Church Hurts Message 1 - Luke 19

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Get With God's Program for Marriage

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Run Towards Love

Run Toward Love - 1 Corinthians 6

(Find this message on our church website)

The Second Message in the Together Series on Love, Dating, and Marriage.
See the first message of the series

Sermon Video

 

 

Sermon Notes

If I were to say the Big Apple you would know I meant New York City If I were to say Sin City you would know I meant Las Vegas If I were to say The Big Easy you would know I meant New Orleans If I were to say Motor City you would know I meant Detroit If I were to say the Windy City you would know I meant Chicago If I were to say the Electric City you might know that I means Scranton. 2,000 years ago if I were to say Sex City, you would know I meant Corinth. Corinth was synonymous with sex, but not just sex casual or illicit sex. The verb "to Corinthanize" meant to have sex with a prostitute. Corinth was the prostitution capital of the world. It was in Corinth that Paul started a church, and then later he would write them a few letters because there was so much brokenness to work out of the Corinth believers and their church. But hear this- there was not too much brokenness. Even in places where there is so much brokenness, there is not too much brokenness for the powerful gospel of grace. Now what I’m going to cover today may sound strange or foreign to some of you. If you haven’t experienced the Gospel of Grace- this probably won’t make much sense to you. Paul makes an important statement in verse 20
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. If you belong to the Lord, following these commands that we are about to read makes sense. If not, then they probably don't. I hope that by the end of the message anyone who does not belong to the Lord will have a strong desire to become His child. To be a part of his family.

Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-20

In verse 18 there is a simple and straightforward command- Flee Fornication. The word for “Flee” means to seek safety by flight or to escape. It means to run from danger toward safety. In this passage, Paul is calling the Corinthians to run from danger of sexual sin and run toward’s the hope and safety of grace. Paul calls the Corinthian believers to run from lust and run toward love. 

I’ve seen a couple versions of the t-shirt that say something like, "I don’t run. If you see me running you should run too cause something is chasing me." My favorite version is one that says "Bomb Squad" on the front and on the back it says, "if you see me running, try to keep up."

Paul says run from fornication- run from danger. Run from heartache and sorrow. Run toward Love! The case that Paul makes in chapters 6 & 7 is that sex is a wonderful gift to be experienced within a lifelong commitment- but a dangerous trap to who would just fool around with it. He makes the argument here that Sexual sin harms us, controls us, and robs us. 

Sexual Sin Harms us. 

Our culture today says “what is the big deal? Why are you trying to control my life? Why do you care what I do with my body?” I don’t want to control anyone- neither did Paul. He was writing about the liberty that is found in the gospel. What Paul wanted to do was warn them, and that’s what I want to do. Warn you.
 

18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 

Sexual Sin harms us. It ruins us. If you think that Sexual sin is just harmless fun, spend some time reading Proverbs 5, 6, and 7. 

Proverbs 5:3, “For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.”  

It’s enticing. It’s seducing. 

Proverbs 5:4 “Her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.  Her feet go down to death.  Her steps take hold on Sheol.”  

It’s a false advertisement. It promises a wonderful time- thrills and excitement but it ends in pain, heartbreak, and even death. It goes on to say, stay away from her door- don’t go down her street 

“Lest thou give thine honor unto others and thy years unto the cruel.”   
“Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth.”  

Many people have lost all they had to sexual sin. It takes everything from them… they lose their families, they lose their income… 

Proverbs 6:26, “For by means of an unchaste woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.”  

“And the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.  Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?” 
verse 28. “Can one go on hot coals and his feet not be burned,”  

Sexual Sin Controls us. 

Singleness is celebrated by Paul in chapter 7. Paul believed that a single person could serve God with greater ability than a married person- You figure in Paul’s day being a Christian was life threatening, serving as a missionary was life threatening and if you are married and have a family you have to worry about how your actions affect them and put them in danger… 

However, singleness is celebrate today because the idea is that there is a freedom to do what I want. I can have the fun that I want to have. I can keep things casual. Keep things from getting too serious that way I can move on if and when I want to… That lifestyle doesn’t bring freedom, it brings bondage. There is not sexual freedom in the hookup culture, there is sexual slavery and addiction. 

Paul says in verse 12 
“I will not be brought under the power of any.” 
and in verse 16 
What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 

God designed sex to be more than a recreational activity. God designed sex to be more than about reproduction. God designed it to be a part of intimacy, for that reason every sexual encounter is more than “just sex.” Every sexual encounter is two becoming one on a deep level- a soul level. 

In his book Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis says,

Every time a man and a woman enter into a sexual relationship a spiritual bond is established between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.  

In verse 13 Paul makes a distinction between food for the belly and sex. He says the belly and the meats will be eliminated… Your soul goes beyond the grave…and sex brings a bond between people that is more than just physical. 

John MacArthur said  Sex is not just biological.  No.  It is spiritual.  It is two becoming one.  That’s the way God designed it.  It unites two people.  That’s why the Bible says that when adultery is committed that’s grounds for divorce.  Why?  Because they have consummated a union outside the marriage.  Two becoming one is the integrating of two people in the deepest parts of their being. 

So you’ve got this teaching from scriptural on the spiritual ramifications of sexual sin, and then we now have a scientific perspective on the chemical and hormonal reactions that take place as well. We have discovered that there is a powerful chemical that is produced by the Hypothalamus and secreted by the posterior pituitary gland. In women there are 3 main times that this chemical is produced. Let me talk to you about 2 of the 3 first…
Oxytocin is secreted during birth & during breastfeeding- this hormone has been called the love bug or the love hormone because it produces trust and feelings of bonding. Which makes sense that when a mother gives birth and holds her newborn child that there are strong impulses toward bonding with this child and caring for the child… It makes sense that when the mother breast feeds this baby that she feels these powerful feeling of love and bonding… The other phase in which oxytocin is produced is during sex. So when a woman has sex, there is a chemical reaction that nudges her toward trust, love, and bonding. 

Sex ties people together like nothing else in the world.  When you have a casual sexual encounter or you have sex with someone that you’re not committed to- You’re not just having fun- you are being connected to and tied to that person in ways that we don’t fully appreciate. You see, God isn’t trying to keep you from having fun, He’s trying to save you some heartache. 

Are you familiar with the story of Br’er Rabbit and the Tar Baby?
 Br’er rabbit comes across a little doll made of tar and turpentine. The tar and turpentine have become soft and sticky in the hot sun and when Br’er rabbit speaks to the doll and it doesn’t reply, Br’er Rabbit hits the tar baby. His paw sticks. 
He says if you don’t let me go I’m going to punch you again with my other hand… he does and then that hand is stuck… Eventually all four of his paws are stuck to the tar baby.

Sexual Sin traps us and controls us. When we participate in sexual sin, we aren’t getting away with something, we are getting in entangled in something. 

Sexual Sin Robs us. 

Even back in Proverbs God’s Word communicates that sex is a gift to be enjoyed in a lifelong committment. 

Proverbs 5:18, “Let thy fountain be blessed - ” “rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”  “Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, – let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love.”  

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says if you need to have a partner, find someone you love and marry them and then participate in sex. He even says, don’t withhold that gift from the other person. Even if you were to do so for the sake of fasting and prayer, you should only do so after communicating with your spouse and establishing an amount of time, but don’t make it a long period of time. 

While chapter 6 commands us to flee from fornication, chapter 7 commands us to faithful and regularly have sex with our spouse! I bet some of you are gonna go underline some verse later, right!?

However, this wonderful gift is often robbed from us by or at least vandalized by sexual sin. Elmer Magnussen has a compelling article on how sexual sin harms marriages and robs them of their intimacy and power. He writes:

By pursuing sexual intercourse before the marriage commitment, a couple set a trap for their relationship by breaking down the process of intimate communication before it has a chance to develop and be tested. A couple’s relationship can be compared to a steam pipe for which pressure is released by a valve. The pipe has several weak spots which would burst were it not for the safety valve. But the weak spots are invisible, they are not repaired, and they eventually corrode and destroy the pipe. A couple can have several weak points in their communication pattern (which is the area of real intimacy) but will find release in the safety valve of sexual relations. If a couple is to prepare realistically for marriage, they need to find the weak areas in their communication process without resorting to the safety valve of sex. By not shutting off the valve they set themselves up for potentially serious marital problems later on.

Plus, researchers have found that Oxytocin reduces stress and anxiety and that oxytocin is produced most in the first 6 months of the relationship. So when the tension and pressure begins to mount, the release and stress reducing potential has waned causing the relationship to rupture.
It's almost as if God knew that there would need to be this release as a couple brings their lives together in a marriage but because this release has been wasted in the early, low commitment period of the relationship it is of little use.

Ron Rolheiser wrote some powerful words on sex and chastity. He writes: 

Sex that isn’t sublime doesn’t bring us a soulmate, it brings us a fix. A hit of a drug. It helps us through a lonely night or a difficult season but it cannot give us what we need… Sublime sex can only be achieved through first living through a real chastity… someone who sleeps with a person they hardly know or have no commitment to or lived in the tension of chastity with will not have have a sublime or profound experience. Short circuiting chastity is like trying to write a masterpiece overnight. It’s not going to happen. Great love, like great art takes effort, commitment, and time. 

When we jump ahead into the physical act of love before there is the time and commitment, we aren’t getting away with something. We are missing out on something.
 This idea of getting away with something also robs our relationships of something too… Magnussen says, 

There is in nearly everyone, especially those raised in a JudaeoChristian culture, an awareness that premarital sex is wrong. It may be deeply buried, repressed, ignored or openly justified, but it’s there. Something deep inside each person engaged in illicit, premarital sex says, “We shouldn’t be doing this.” And that’s what makes it exciting. There is something definitely stimulating in the wrongness and illicitness of the act. That illicitness can be translated into other terms: “What if someone finds out? … I’ll show my folks I can do what I want. … See how much we love each other. … No outdated church is going to control me.” Whatever is said, that illicitness is part of the sexual arousal prior to marriage, and the couple is conditioning themselves to respond to it. I have talked with many married couples who have said, “Before we were married we had a great sex life! Exciting, fulfilling and enjoyable. But on our wedding night, for some reason, it died. It has never been very good since.” What happened on their wedding night? That illicitness which had become a conditioned sexual stimulation was taken away. After the formal wedding vows, no one would be offended by their living together; they were no longer proving anything to an authority figure. In fact, sex was now mandatory. When the illicitness was taken away, there was only a big, black, gaping hole in their relationship. Intimacy had broken down. So how does a person recapture that illicitness which makes sex so exciting? One simple method is to have an affair. Bingo! Great sex again! (There is also something in each of us that says extramarital sex is wrong.) This seems to be a common solution today. So the marriage bonds crumble, and the divorce rate climbs. 

When I was about 8 years old I spent the night with a friend from school… He had several guys over and we were camping in a tent in his backyard. One of the guys brought rolls or toilet paper and we snuck out and rolled trees on some yards a couple of blocks over. It was a blast. A few years later I rolled a house along with some adults. Nowhere near as fun…  The thrill was gone because there was no danger of getting caught. There was no secret. No fear. Because many couples condition their sexual relationship on the fetish of the secret and the thrill of disobedience, they set themselves up for a let down later in the relationship.

Though sexual sin harms us, controls us, and robs us; Grace heals us, frees us, and restores us.

Grace Heals, Frees, and Restores.

Though Corinth was know as Sex City. Though Corinth was a place of casual sex for hire, though many of the people that Paul were writing to were guilty of these very sins, yet this letter is a letter of grace. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says, let me remind of you of the gospel by which you are saved. Later in 15 he would remind them that it was by the grace of God that they were changed. Just before our passage, Paul says:

9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 

If you are guilty of sexual sin I want you to hear me this morning, God’s grace is extended to you. 
If you are guilty of fornication, God’s grace is given to you. 
If you are guilty of adultery, if you are having an affair, God’s grace is offered to you. 
If you are addicted to pornography, God’s grace is available to you. 
If you are guilty of homosexuality, God’s grace is offered to you. 

In watching some of the promotional videos for the Marriage Study by Francis Chan I came across one of the video in which Francis and Lisa go to East Africa and work with a ministry that reaches out to women and girls in the Red Light district. Francis said, it is by far the dirtiest place I have ever been. There are rows of little rooms and these women who look broken, sad, malnourished, they stand at the door and some man walks up and pay them a dollar to sleep with them. Some of these women they have children and the kids have to occupy themselves outside while this is going on or they’re asleep in the room… Chan said after we had walked through this place of brokenness we went to the ministry center where his friend operates the ministry to the women and there on the shelf behind his desk are pictures of weddings- of this ministry leader walking women down the aisle because one of those women were saved from that wretchedness and they are cleansed by the grace of God and they meet a man who treats them with respect and loves them, and they’re able to walk down the aisle and commit their life to someone… 

That’s how powerful God’s gospel of grace is… 

Even in places where there is so much brokenness, there is not too much brokenness for the powerful gospel of grace.

Even in couples where there is so much brokenness, there is not too much brokenness for the powerful gospel of grace.

Even in people where there is so much brokenness, there is not too much brokenness for the powerful gospel of grace.

Run from sexual sin toward love. Run from sexual brokenness into the arms of God's grace and hope.

Love Endures - 1st Message in the Together Series

Love Endures - 1st Message in the Together Series

1 Corinthians 13

February 14

When I was kid I got a bike, and I didn’t really enjoy that bike. In fact, at first I kind of hated it. It was scary because I fell a lot. I couldn’t go very far unless my dad was holding the back of the seat…But then, something happened that completely changed that bike from a source of fear and pain- I learned how to ride the bike. Suddenly I could ride by myself- I could go fast and further than I ever had before…

Though I would still occasionally crash, I loved riding that bike and later that bike would take me places that I couldn’t have gotten to on my own.

When I was older I got a larger bike and I loved that gift from the very beginning because I already knew how to ride it.

For some of you, love and dating and maybe even marriage has been a source of fear and pain…I don’t think that I’m gonna change that for you as easily as my dad taught me to ride a bike, but I do think that when we know how to enjoy the gift God has given us it can be so much more than we thought it could be.

In the account of Creation, God only saw one thing that wasn’t good. It was that man was alone. So He created Eve.

In the very beginning, God gave mankind the gift of love and companionship. This gift wasn’t just to Adam and Eve, it was to all of us. When Adam saw Eve, he said a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Now Adam said this though he had no parents and he had no children. It was clear from the beginning that God wasn’t merely giving Adam someone to love but that he was establishing marriage and the family.

It was not long until Adam and Eve had made a mess of this gift that was given to all of us. Their actions not only affected their relationship with God but with one another.

When sin entered into reality, it broke every relationship.

Though broken and in need of repair,  the concept and purpose of marriage did not change. Though your relationship is broken and in need of redemption, the purpose and design is the same. Though our culture has changed and dating, romance, love, and marriage are being redefined,

Though relationships are broken and culture has attempted to redefine them, God’s concept and design is still the same.

I would even say that a contributing factor to our culture’s redefinition of marriage is that even though Christianity has been clear on the basic components of marriage, we haven’t done well in living out the purpose of marriage.

It’s difficult for us to stand for the sanctity of marriage when our leaders have not remained faithful to the bride of their youth.

May our gathering of believers be countercultural in that our marriages grow stronger- may our relationships draw a sharp contrast to those of the world.

Our culture believes that love is the answer. This past week, to end the Super Bowl halftime show, fans in the audience held up signs that spelled out “Believe in Love” across the stadium as the musicians sang these lyrics to Up and Up:

how come people suffer

how come people part?

how come people struggle

how come people break your heart?

yes I want to grow yes I want to feel

yes I want to know show me how to heal it up

just need love just need love

Our culture believes that all you need is love…God’s Word agrees with them- but stick with me.

Scripture does tell us that Love is the answer.

1 Cor 13:1 If I’m impressive without love, I’m nothing.

1 Cor 13:2 If I’m powerful and wise without love, I’m nothing.

1 Cor 13:3 If I’m noble, virtuous, & kind without love, I’m nothing.

1 Corinthians 12 had just listed amazing gifts that God has given to his church to accomplish his will on the earth…in the final verse of 12, before starting this discourse on love, Paul says We all desire gifts, but let me show you a more excellent way. Love is the more excellent way. Paul says here in the beginning of 13 that having all of that without love is meaningless.

At the end of 13, Paul says:

13And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love is the answer, but when our culture says believe in love or when our world says that love is the answer they are talking about a much different love than what scripture speaks of…

Our world’s view of love is very narrow and limited. (I’m sure they would find it ironic that I accuse them of a narrow view of love.) Our world’s definition of love is romance- sexual gratification, excitement, and giddiness.

The Greek had a few words for love- sexual love was Eros- Paul does not use that word here but instead he uses Agape – which is a word that some of the writers only used for love between God and man.

Our culture’s narrow view of love can not deliver on the demands we make of it.

Azis Ansari is a comedian that is most know for his role as Tom on Parks and Recreation. He recently wrote a book on Modern Romance. His book is not a biblical approach, but his research comes to many conclusions that are solid…Speaking of what marriage provided in the past he said,

now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide:

Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise.”

Do you hear it? He stumbles into the fact that what we are looking for in love from other people can not be provided in a relationship—-

Transcendence? Awe?
These are not things that we can find in another person, or even in a village- These are things that are only found in the supernatural.
The love you need is not Romantic. The love you are desperately searching for you will never find in another person. It’s not with the next guy or girl. It wont be found on a dating profile. It will not be uncovered in a new relationship, you wont find what you are looking for in an affair, you will not find the answer in a flirty text message… or a dirty one either.

I can say that full of confidence not only because it follows the wisdom of God’s Word but because I’ve seen it played out in lives of friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, and mentors, again and again and again. They leave the bride of their youth thinking that the transcendence and awe that they are desperately looking for will be found in that new encounter – but it isn’t there.

Let me return to Ansari’s book:

“Our romantic options are unprecedented and our tools to sort and communicate with them are staggering. And that raises the question:
Why are so many people frustrated?”

“Today, if you own a smartphone, you’re carrying a 24-7 singles bar in your pocket.”

Speaking of the man who created match.com he writes

“During his first big television interview, he wore a tie-dyed shirt, sat on a brightly colored beanbag chair, and boldly told the camera: “Match .com will bring more love to the planet than anything since Jesus Christ.”

We have greater ability to connect with, sort through, and experience love from others more than we ever have and yet we are just as dissatisfied as we always have been.

Romantic love is not the answer. Everlasting love is the answer.

According to Solomon, a man who had romantic encounters with thousands of women, you have eternity set in your heart and no man or woman is up to the challenge to fill that void. You think you just haven’t found the right person to make you happy, but that thinking is your real problem. No PERSON can make you content.

Sometimes we say someone is high maintenance or that they are impossible to please- in reality we all are. All of us need maintenance that only God can provide. All of us have a hunger only God can satisfy.

You can look all over for the right person, you can swipe right and left all day, you can find your match, you can hookup, and can burn through soulmate after soulmate and you will still have the same heart that is desperately searching for something more…

Instead of looking left and right, you need to look above. Instead of searching for your soulmate, you need to find the soul maker.

After emphasizing the importance of love in the first 3 verses, our passage then launches into a description of what love is- but instead of defining love in some philosophical or academic way, it tells us what Love Does and Does not do.

Love suffers long,
Love is kind;
Love does not envy
Love does not boast
Love does not puff itself up
Love does not behave unseemly,
Love does not seek her own,
Love is not easily provoked,
Love thinks no evil;
Love Rejoices in the truth, not in iniquity
Love Bears all things,
Love believes
Love hopes
Love endures
Love doesn’t quit.
Love is an action word.

Love is a verb.

We often use “love” as a noun and we rarely think of it as a verb. We “fall into love.” or we are “in love.” We often use “love” as an adjective instead of a verb. We say it’s a “love story.”

The love that we find in God’s Word is a verb. It’s action. It’s not a state of being or a status, it’s an action. It’s a verb.

If you are in love, don’t just act like it. Act on it.

Love does deeds of patience.
Love does deeds of kindness.
Love rejoices in hope.
Love rejoices in truth.
Love does deeds of unselfishness.
Love is an action word & more specifically love is unselfish action.

Though the word here is love, the KJV uses Charity. This is derived from the Latin Caritas which was a contrast to typical love in that it is unselfish or grace filled. Charity is the idea of giving something away and that’s what Christian love is- unselfishness.

Love is the opposite of selfishness.

I enjoy coffee- not sure that I should say I love it because the relationship is pretty much all about me and what I want and not about the coffee…I don’t love coffee mugs. Now I like coffee mugs, but it occurred to me the other day that I don’t love coffee mugs… David was over at the house putting in a new door and I offered him some coffee and when I opened the cupboard I only had one coffee mug remaining. It’s pretty beat up and I hold onto it because it has sentimental value. I knew where my coffee mugs were… So later on I gathered up all the coffee mugs I had left in my office and in the teen Sunday School room… You see, I never forget to bring coffee with me to the study because in the morning when I walk over I want that coffee – I need that coffee. But at the end of the day, I don’t want the mug because it’s empty- I have no use for it, so it doesn’t even occur to me.

Now some of these mugs have value to me. A couple of them were gifts from people who matter to me- but my relationship with the mugs is clearly pretty one sided and when I get what I want I lay them aside and forget all about them until I need some coffee.

Some of you, your relationship is more like this than you’d care to admit. You hold your valentine tight and keep them close in your thoughts until you’ve gotten what you wanted and then they barely register on your mind until you need something again.

That’s not love. That’s selfishness. That doesn’t last. Let me show you why…Did you know that I will drink coffee out of a styrofoam cup.A cheap, flimsy, little styrofoam cup is sometimes all I need to get the coffee that I want…

You see, if all I care about is what I want to get, I can replace that with something cheap and flimsy…Selfishness endures as long as it get’s what it wants and there’s no easier way to get it. Love endures forever.

1. Love is enduring.

We love this concept and we believe it deep within. That’s why we make commitments like “I love you forever” when we are in Junior High. But this isn’t just sappy. It’s truth.
Love Endures.

Paul says in verse 7 that love endureth all things, then in verse 9 he says that Love will remain when other things cease. Now Paul was writing to the Corinthians who were making a very big deal about some specific Spiritual Gifts. Paul says, those aren’t going to hang around forever, they will pass away- they will cease. After they’re gone, love will remain. If your relationship is built upon something other than love, that will cease.

Sexual attraction, that’s going to fade.
Selfishness, that’s not going to last.
The adventure is going to wane.
The children are going to move out.
The careers are going to peak and end.

After everything else comes and goes, love remains.

Paul then says, when I was a child I acted as a child but when I became a man I put away childish things…In other words, he moved on from the smaller things. At the time they were huge to him, but now they are of little consequence.

In the different phases of life there are different things that are of great importance to us. When I was a kid that had just learned how to ride a bike, a bike was the greatest thing in the world. Now, I can’t remember the last time I rode a bike.

When I turned 16 and got my drivers license, driving was the greatest. I thought it was amazing to drive around Virginia Beach in my mom’s minivan. Now whenever I drive somewhere I don’t say, “this is amazing!”

All of that changed as my phases of life changed.

If your relationship is built upon something that will phase out, like sexual attraction, your career, your kids, or your hobbies, when those things go away the magic will be gone. Love matters at every stage of life. Love endures.

To build a relationship that lasts, base it upon love because love endures.

Loving the church is loving others.

The final message in the We Love Our Church Series.

FaithInChandler.com

The Church Built Upon Truth Overcomes Evil

We Love Our Church - The Church Is A Gift from Jesus - Ephesians 4