Beautiful Music
by Ptr.Eric Madonna
Text: Matthew 5:27-32
Topic: How to enjoy your relationships and sexuality to the greatest extent
Big Idea: The best music happens when a marriage is tuned to the frequency that God designed for it.
Keywords: Marriage; Sex; Family; Adultery; Divorce


Introduction:

• Young love remembered.

Sexuality is a beautiful gift.

• Illustration: Hugh Hefner got some of it right.
• Illustration: Marrying for love and lust.

Marriage is sacred.

• It is a way we find ourselves.
  Illustration: A.E Hausman describes love.
• Deepening dimensions of love.
  - Softening
  Illustration: Conquered by love
  - Affirmation
  - Creative Energy
  - Giving
  - Union

Intimacy demands safety.

• Marriage preserves security.
• Living together fails to provide it.
  -Illustration: Cohabitation surveys
• Adultery and divorce shatter it.

Conclusion

Christ helps humans relate.
-Illustration: The human race is like a radio.

Finding Good Sex
by Ptr.Eric Madonna
Text: Genesis 2:18
Topic: Why we have sexual desire
Big Idea: What your body yearns for is symptomatic of the yearning of the soul.
Keywords: Body, human; Marriage; Sex

Introduction

• We don't talk about sex much in the church, but everybody else does.
• Stats show that a majority have had premarital sex or extramarital affairs.

The church needs to talk more about sexuality because we are sexual beings.

• The best reason for the church to talk about it is because the Bible does.
• Nothing on earth could satisfy Adam's yearnings for a partner.
• Sexual yearnings aren't a part of the Fall; God created us that way.
• What our bodies yearn for is symptomatic of the yearning of our soul.

We all live with two bodies: the one we want and the one we have.

• We need to stop thinking we've got to change to be sexually attractive.
• We are sexual creations no matter what shape our bodies are in.
• Males and females are created from the same flesh (Genesis 2:21-23).
• Our sexual impulses tell us we are not yet complete on our own.

Our sexual yearnings are essentially a yearning for God.

• And such a yearning makes sexual intercourse something of a sacrament.

- Sacraments are visible signs of things that are eternal.

- When we have sex, we're not just touching a body; we're touching a soul.

• Since sex is holy, the Bible teaches it should be confined to marriage.

Conclusion

• For the unmarried or the sexually unfulfilled, there are three things to remember:

- While sexuality is essential to your created nature, sexual activity is not.

- We can find complete joy in knowing God as our partner.

- Most people who have extramarital sex aren't promiscuous, but lonely.

 

Learning to Love
by Ptr.Eric Madonna
Text: Luke 6:32-33
Topic: Why human love falls short in a marriage, and only divine love suffices.
Big Idea: We often base the success of our marriages on the feelings of our relationship, but we need to rely more on God's sacrificial love to make marriage work.
Keywords: Divorce; Love; Marriage

Introduction

• Learning to love applies to both the married and unmarried.

People experience misery in marriage for 4 reasons.

• Unrealistic expectations: Some people think marriage will make them happy.
• The myth of greener grass: Many are on the slippery slope of "What if…?"
• Illustration: Lutzer tells a joke about a visit to a mental institution where two different people are beating their heads against the padded walls—one in misery because he didn't win Linda's love, the other in misery because he did
• A misunderstanding of the role of conflict: Incompatibility is precisely how we grow.
• A failure to distinguish between human love and divine love.
• Jesus gives three statements on love from the Sermon on the Mount.

Statement one: If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

• Human love depends on the person who is loved. We tend to love people who are beautiful and/or have great personality.
• Illustration: A woman badly burned says her husband saw her in the hospital and said, "You're not the woman I married," and left to marry someone younger and more beautiful. Human love says, "If you change, my love for you changes."
• It's important to marry the right person, but more important to be the right person.

Statement two: Love your enemies.

• Divine love is based on the lover, so it can love even enemies.
• Illustration: A couple asks a pastor to approve their divorce, because there's no feeling left. The pastor tells the husband to love his wife as Christ loved. He says, "I can't do that." The pastor says to love her as he'd love himself. He says he can't. The pastor says, "The Bible says love your enemies. Begin there."
• Illustration: A wife tells a lawyer she wants a divorce, and wants to hurt her husband in the process. The lawyer suggests being kind and speaking well of her husband for three months, then drop the bomb, because that'll hurt even more. She follows the lawyer's advice…and the marriage is saved.
• How should we pray for our enemies? By asking God to bless them.
• Husbands need to communicate; spouses need to feel like they mean something.
• Divine love: "I may not need this, but you do, and I put your needs above mine."

Statement three: Love your enemies…you will be sons of the Most High.

• When people are hard to love, it's an opportunity for us to grow in Christ.
• Though not stated explicitly, forgiveness is implied in this text.
• Illustration: A woman whose stepfather molested her as a child now finds it hard to be intimate with her husband. Not until she forgives her stepfather does she find physical intimacy in her marriage.

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit is a supernatural resource for loving the unlovable.

Children of Promise
by Ptr.Eric Madonna
Text: Psalm 127
Topic: How to parent God’s way
Big Idea: God gives us children that we might be good stewards of them.
Keywords: Children; Parenting; Pressure; Child-Rearing


Introduction

• Illustration: Thompson quotes Erma Bombeck as wondering where all the children have gone, and comparing childhood as it used to be to what it has become today.
• Parents in our society are imposing adulthood on their children too soon.
  -Illustration: Thompson gives the example of the Pop Warner National Academic Football Championships (or “The Kids’ Super Bowl”) and the Little League World Series as evidence that our society has professionalized playtime.
  -Illustration: In this illustration, Thompson adds that cosmetic companies are targeting girls as young as nine years old with their marketing and ad campaigns.

As parents, we must heed the message of the Bible: God is God and I am not.

• We toil in vain when we try to build the house as panicky, perfectionistic parents, instead of leaving it to God.
• We are responsible not for everything our child does, but to our Father.

As parents, we do not own our children; they are a heritage from God.

• To improve as parents, we need to pray for our children, read books and listen to tapes on parenting, and let our kids be kids.
  -Illustration: Thompson tells the story of a baseball season during which players hit more home runs than ever before, and everyone speculated as to why. A coach said it was because there were no good pitchers, since kids didn’t get practice playing disorganized neighborhood baseball anymore.
• God gives children to us as blessings, that we might be good stewards of them.
• Illustration: Thompson quotes young Martha Taft listing her relatives and the distinctive positions they have held in the government, and she concludes by saying that she is a Brownie, illustrating the pressure kids feel to achieve.

Children are defensive weapons to be mobilized by their parents to fight future battles.

• As parents, we are to refine our children through discipline.
• Then we must let them go, to fight the battles God calls them to.