Happy Healthy Holy, pt. 5—You Complete Me

 1 John 4:7-21 NIV

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

1. We are for relationships.

Genesis 1:26-27 NIV
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

We are created in the of a God.

Genesis 2:8 LEB
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a companion suitable for him.”

We cannot live without loving with others.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NIV

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

1 John 4:16 NIV

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

2. We are by relationships.

Proverbs 27:17 NIV
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

1 Corinthians 15:33 NIV
Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.”— Vygotsky.

“We learn to live by living together with others, and by living like them—a process which has disadvantages as well as blessings.”— Thomas Merton

and issues from the past sabotage our and with others.

3. We are in relationships.

James 4:1-2 NIV
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

stems from a lack of .

4. We are through relationships.

1 John 4:18 NIV
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

1 Peter 2:24 NIV
He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Our capacity to is only achievable when we are .

1 John 4:12 NIV
If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Our healing starts with God’s love us and is fully realized us .

James 5:16 NIV
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Galatians 6:2 NIV
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 

5. Healthy rewarding relationships are the result of and .

“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”— Dietrich Bonhoeffer