living a life that counts ~ our relationships

All month we have been looking at what it means to live a life that counts. If we are going maximize our impact in this world and in the process experience the fullness of life God has for us, then we need to manage well all the days God gives us, all the money God gives us and all the gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities God gives us. While the number of our days will be different for each of us, and the amount of money we are given to manage will be different, and the gifts, talents and skills God gives us are all different, there is one thing that is the same for each and every one of us. We were all created for relationship so we can not live a life that counts for God in this world until we are willing to make the most of all of our relationships.

Let’s start looking at our relationships by looking back to the creation story. Look at Genesis 2:18. It was not good for man to be alone because man was created in the image of God and God himself is relational. Think about how we talk about God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are 3 persons who are all interconnected in ongoing and eternal relationships with each another. Because God is relational, we also were created to be relationship, not just a relationship with God, but relationships with one another. So we make the greatest impact in this world and live up to our God given potential when we are willing to invest ourselves in strong, healthy and faithful relationships with others.

The most important relationships that we need to tend to and care for are the relationships we have with our family and the best teaching on how to make the most of those relationships comes from Ephesians 5. Look at Ephesians 5:22-33

This passage often makes people uncomfortable because of the first verse we heard, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The problem is that many people stop reading there and they come to the wrong conclusion about the role of women in marriage. To really understand what the relationship of a husband and wife is to be, we have to keep reading because while Paul does tells women to submit to their husbands it is only because he also commands husbands to love their wives as Christ has loved the church. Now let’s stop and think about how Christ has loved the church. Jesus loved the church so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything he had for her. Jesus loved us so much that he was willing to die on a cross so that we could be forgiven and given the gift of eternal life. Jesus didn’t think about what was best for himself, he thought about what was best for us and that’s the kind of love a husband is to have for his wife. It’s not a love that rules over a person demanding it’s own way, it’s a love that is willing to sacrifice everything including our own wants and needs for the sake of someone else. If this is the kind of love that exists in a marriage, if selfless and sacrificial love is what exists in a marriage, than submission to that love is not a burden it’s a joy. Don’t we all want to submit ourselves to someone who we know loves us unconditionally and completely and always will? Wouldn’t it be a joy to surrender ourselves to one who would always be there for us and care for us in a deep and abiding love.

What Paul is saying is that in the relationship between a husband and wife there needs to be mutual love and submission. A wife loves her husband so much she willing submits to him, but a husband loves his wife so much that he is willing to sacrifice everything, including his own wants and needs to care for her, he submits to her in love. When we hear that the divorce rate in the church is over 50%, we know that this is not the kind of love that exists in many marriages today but it needs to be. The problem is that if we don’t love selflessly and unconditionally in marriage, those aren’t the only relationship that will suffer.

When marriages break down, so does the family and so does the health and development of our children. Not only is there less time and energy to spend on raising our children, but when marriages break down our children don’t have the faithful role models they need to become good husbands and wives. For those who are married, after our relationship with God, the single most important relationship to nurture and develop is the relationship with your spouse because that relationship in some way or another touches every other relationships in your life. Many parents make the mistake of putting their children first and while caring for our children is important, the most important thing a child needs is a stable home and loving mothers and fathers and good role models for what it means to be husband and wife. So if you want your life to count, if you want your life to really make a difference, then invest yourself in building up the relationship you have with your husband or wife and then move on to the other relationships in life.

Paul not only calls for mutual love and respect in marriage but he also calls for it in our relationship with our children. Look at Ephesians 6:1-4. While Paul does call children to obey their parents, and honor their father and mother, he also calls on parents to not exasperate their children but instead to bring them up, or nourish them, in the training and instruction of the Lord. Just as we saw in the relationship between a husband and wife, so the relationship between parents and children is to be one of mutual love and respect. Yes, children are to faithfully follow the example and teaching of their parents, but parents are we setting the right example for our children to follow and are we teaching our children the right things by word and deed.

We exasperate, or frustrate, our children when we say one thing and then do something else. If you have ever had children you know that they are better than anyone at pointing out hypocrisy. Children remember everything that their parents say and then they hold their parents accountable to it. So parents need to make sure that their words and actions always line up. When my niece and nephew were young my sister and brother in law tried to teach them the importance of saying grace before a meal. When they went out to a restaurant one night, after the food arrived my sister and brother in law just started to eat, but their children looked at them and said, “Aren’t we supposed to pray first?” If we tell our children that prayer is important then we need to take the time ourselves to pray and we need to pray with our children so they can learn from us. That’s what it means to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. We can’t teach our children the importance of attending worship and Sunday School and then not attend worship and Sunday School ourselves. If we tell our children marriage takes love, forgiveness and hard work, then we need to model what that relationship of love, forgiveness and hard work is all about. Beyond the relationship with our spouses, the relationship we have with our children is vital. The biggest impact we will make in this world is the legacy we pass on to our children, so to live a life that counts means investing ourselves in our children and taking the time to nourish them in their lives and in their life of faith.

Our family relationships set the tone for all other relationships in life, but they are not the only relationships God calls us to manage well. When Jesus was told that his family was looking for him he looked at the people gathered around him and said this is my family. All those who seek to do the will of God are my brothers and sisters. In that single moment Jesus creates a new family and with those new relationships come new responsibilities to love and care for one another. As members of the body of Christ we are called repeatedly to care for one another. We are called to love and support those in the church as if they were our own biological family, and when we begin to take this seriously and reach out to care for those around us, we make a huge difference in their lives and in our own life as well.

Because so many families are divided by either divorce or distance, the extended family of the church is vital to our support and even our own survival. When my mom battle cancer a number of years ago I was away at seminary and both my sisters lived far away and had either full time jobs or were raising their children. The only way we had any peace of mind was knowing that my Mom was being well taken care of not just by my Dad, but the many friends my Mom had at her church. The church was her support during that time. The relationships she had developed through the years sustained her through months of chemo. When I had knee surgery a couple of years ago and was not going to be able to drive for 3 weeks there were dozens of people offering me rides and food and one gracious friend even came and cleaned my house. While it is not always easy to accept help – if we are willing to put away our pride and accept the help others offer, we will be blessed. We truly make a difference in someone else’s life when we reach out to care for them and God calls us to do this for our brothers and sisters in many ways.

A few weeks ago when we were looking at prayer we listed in the bulleting what some people call the “one another” passages. These are all passages found in the New Testament that teach us how God wants us to care for one another. We have listed them again on the insert in your bulletin because these are important for us to not just remember but to live out. If you notice, all of these passages come from the New Testament, which means these are the teachings God gives to the church and they show us how God wants us to care for our brothers and sister, our family in Christ. But there is something we need to understand here, if we want people to care for us in these ways we also must be willing to care for others. Too often people just sit back and expect others to take care for them but if we all just sit back and wait for someone else to take care for us, what happens? There is no one available to offer the help. We each have to be willing to do our part and help those around us in any way we can. When we love and serve others, relationships are established and strengthened so that when we need help there will be someone there to help us.

The last group of people God calls us to be in relationship with is the strangers around us and those in need. From the very beginning God has called his people to reach out and care for strangers. Throughout the Old Testament there is something called the law of hospitality that guided the people of God. This law called for God’s people to reach out and care for aliens and strangers in their land, and the reason they were to do this was because when God’s people wandered in foreign lands there were people who cared for them. One of the earliest examples of this kind of hospitality comes from Genesis 18. 3 strangers came to Abraham and when he saw him he not only greeted them but he gave them water to wash their feet, he had his wife Sarah bake them some bread, and then Abraham himself selected a choice calf and had it prepared for them to eat. Abraham went out of his way to welcome these men and he gave to them generously, and God continues to call on his people to give generously and even sacrificially to strangers.

Jesus said we are to invite the strangers in, but he then expands that out and says not only should we welcome the stranger but we should also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit those who are sick and prison. Jesus doesn’t say we do this just for our brothers and sisters, we are to do this for anyone we see who is in need – even the very least in our society. We can’t ignore those in need around us or those in need around the world, because God has called us to be in relationship with them. One of the truths we need to remember is that when we reach out to help those in need our lives take on deeper meaning and greater value. We begin to feel more meaning and purpose in life when we help others. When we reach out to care for others, we are living a life that really counts.

To live a life that counts means we have to invest ourselves in meaningful and faithful relationships not just with those who are closest to us but those who might be far from us as well. So let us live a life that counts and love one another, family, friend and stranger, just as God has loved us.