Fix It Up Series

Well we’ve taken quite the journey together over these last several weeks at The Love Shack. If you’ve missed a week of this series, you can pick it up online or on iTunes, but we’ve been learning what it takes to move on up from the love shack relationally to the love palace or the love castle. And we’ve said all along that this series has something for everybody, because we all care about relationships. So whether you’re single or married, dating or engaged, young or old, it really doesn’t matter, I think God wants to say something to you today about relationships and romance.

I was thinking about this, years ago I was teaching on this subject and I had a single guy come up to me and whine and complain because I was preaching on relationships. He didn’t like the fact that I was preaching a whole sermon on relationships because he wasn’t in one and I remember thinking, with this attitude you never will be because no woman wants to be a big old whiny face baby. What he didn’t understand is that this is a series that is helping your relationships get better if you’re in one, but if you’re not in one, this is a series that’s going to help you make better choices for the next time you are in one, and it’s going to get you ready for one. In fact, I expect in about 6 months from now to be getting a lot a phone calls to our office asking us to perform wedding ceremonies as a direct result of God using this series in the lives of a lot of single people. I’m telling you – God’s getting you ready, and he’s getting some hunka hunka burning love ready for you! And I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to save you some money and I’m going to save the love shack and when you’re ready, you can just get married at the love shack. How does that sound? It will be awesome!

Today I want you help fix up your love shack because some of our relationships are in disarray. I heard about this husband who wanted to try to teach his wife a little lesson so one Saturday morning while she was frying some eggs for breakfast he burst into the kitchen yelling, “careful, CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my gosh! You're cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They're going to STICK! CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you're cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don't forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT!” Finally the wife threw her hands up and said, “What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don't know how to fry a couple of eggs?” The husband calmly replied, “I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I'm driving.”

Hey there’s no way around it, relationships are full of challenges and today if your relationship is looking a little bit like this rusting, old, dilapidated, falling apart love shack, I want you to know there are some things you can do to fix it up. Some things you can do to fix it up. Just like the house you live in, the relationship you live in might need some TLC, some fixing up and today I want to tell you three things you need to do to fix up your love shack. Grab that notes page out of the seat pocket in front you because we’re getting into the nitty gritty of relational health with three home improvement tips that will take your love shack and transform it into a love castle.

Number 1, it all begins with Pull The Weeds And Plant The Seeds. Everybody say it with me…pull the weeds and plant the seeds! We bought our house about 2 years ago from a retired couple and the lady was a horticulturalist. A horticulturalist. You know what means? It means that plants were her hobby! That’s it means! Working in the yard was pleasurable for her…so when I bought that house the yard was pristine. Flowers and plants and shrubs and green grass. But here’s what I’ve found. If you’re not constantly pulling weeds and planting the seeds, and I am not, the weeds will overtake the yard and the flowers won’t come back up and what was once supposed to be beautiful and enjoyable and exciting and rewarding, will become overgrown and ugly and exhausting and draining.