"Everyday Relationships"
(2nd message in an 8-part series, "An Ordinary Day With Jesus")
Sermon Transcript for February 10, 2002
By Rev. Mike BeckScripture Reading: I Corinthians 13
We continue this morning what will be an eight-part sermon series entitled, "An Ordinary Day with Jesus". And here is our goal: That we would learn not to compartmentalize our lives into those things that are spiritual and those that are non-spiritual, but instead that we would learn to see all of life as spiritual. To do everything that we do, everything that we say 24 hours a day, seven days a week, mindful of Jesus’ presence with us and doing it in His name. Our text verse for the whole series is Colossians 3:17 where we are told, "Whatever you do in word and in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through Him." And we talked a moment last week about the significance of that phrase, "Doing things in Jesus’ name" for in Bible times, the name of a person was much more important than in our day. It expressed the character and the nature of the person. In this case our words and actions are to express the character and nature of Jesus in our words and actions. And today, we especially think of our interactions with other people.
Let me review just a moment last week. We talked about an ordinary day with Jesus and we begin by asking the question, "When does the day begin?" which we normally think is morning. But from a Biblical perspective, the day begins at sundown. So we talked about sleep as a gift from God and we said many of us probably need to get a little more of it. Some of you probably said, "Yeah, but Reverend Mike, if you knew my schedule, you wouldn’t know how to do that!" But we talked about when it does come to the end of our day we lay our heads on our pillows to allow the last thoughts of our day to be on our Heavenly Father. We suggested that a good practice to get into was ask…we’re preparing to go to sleep, to review our day like you are reviewing a videotape letting scenes come to mind, praying for people in those scenes, offering thanks to God, offering prayers of confession to where we have failed Him. And then as we wake in the morning to let our first thoughts be with our Heavenly Father to invite God to be a part of our day, to acknowledge our dependence upon Him. And then as we go about the day to be aware of His presence with us whether it be on the golf course, in the operating room, at school with our friends or classmates – that we’re aware of Christ’s presence with us. And the analogy we used was those books of, "Where’s Waldo?" where there were these detailed cartoon drawings and hidden within the drawing was this little character, Waldo. And if you looked close, you might have to look for a while, but he was always there. And the job was to find Waldo. So in a sense our job is to be aware and to find the presence of Christ in our lives. In that light, Helen Brady shared with me this week this insightful reading that beautifully illustrates this. It’s entitled, Expect the Unexpected.
"The man whispered, "God speak to me". And a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled, "God speak to me!" And thunder rolled across the sky, but the man did not listen. And the man looked around and said, "God let me see you." And a star shined brightly, but the man did not see. And the man shouted, "God show me a miracle!" and a life was born, but the man did not notice. And so the man cried out in despair, "Touch me God and let me know you are here." Where upon God reached down and touched the man, but the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on."
And the writer says, "I found this to be a great reminder that God is always around us in the little and simple things that we take for granted and even in our electronic age." So I would like to add one more. The man cried, "God I need your help." And an email arrived reaching out with good news and encouragement, but the man deleted it and continued crying." Don’t miss out on the blessing because it isn’t packaged the way you expect.
Well, today we want to look at how we experience Jesus’ presence with us in everyday relationships. A person once said, "My life and my world would be great if it didn’t have to have other people in them!" But unfortunately most of our lives are filled with ongoing relationships. Are we Christ-like in relating to family members, and co-workers, and neighbors? And then the harder question, "Are we aware of Christ’ presence with us in our relationships with those persons that aren’t so easy to love?" Any of you have some of those in your life? I imagine that you do.
We have many kinds of tools and gauges that help us to know how well things are functioning. If you’re starting to feel ill, you often reach for a thermometer to check your temperature. If you’re driving somewhere and you look at the gas gauge on the dash to see if you’ve got enough gas to get there. Some of you are diabetic and you get the great fun experience of several times a day pricking your finger to draw a little blood so that you can check to see what your blood sugar is. Or a gauge that some of us ought to look at a little more often than we do but it’s kind of sobering, the bathroom scales are a gauge of what’s going on in our lives.
Well, what’s the gauge that we can use to see how things are going spiritually especially in this area of relationships? The religious leaders of Jesus’ day more often than not made use of the wrong gauge. They watched one another carefully. They judged others harshly in terms of how well they observed all the religious ceremonial laws of the day. They adhered to the strictest of doctrines in terms of their understanding of God. Now please, hear me carefully, I do not want you to miss understand as we consider this. Our attention to proper moral behavior, to sound Biblical doctrine, is critically important in the life of a believer. But I remember in my earlier years of being a Christian, this is the gauge I often used as to whether some one was a Christian. They were Christian if they didn’t smoke, they didn’t drink, they didn’t gamble, they didn’t engage in sexual sin. If they didn’t do those things they were Christian; if they did, surely there weren’t. But you know as I’ve gotten older and, hopefully, a little wiser and a little more mature, some of the most devout Christians I know have an occasional drink. Some of the men in my previous church in Corydon who were the strongest in their faith had picked up earlier in their life a nicotine habit and had never been able to shake it.
But I look back on those early years and say, "Hey, I was using the wrong gauge in looking at folks." And this is very true here at Grace and it’s true within our United Methodist Church that we love so much, there’s perhaps an equally dangerous gauge that we can use that has to do with belief and doctrine. And again I want to be heard clearly. Belief and correct doctrine are vitally important. Our Lord said, "There’s a way that seems right to man, but the end there of is death." And I don’t want to be on that wrong road. But having said that, some conservative Christians, and I appreciate their devotion to God and I share much of their theology, but sometimes I observe them beating up their brothers and sisters in the Lord with the crowbar of correct doctrine. And I ought to point out this same thing can happen from the other theological perspective as well. The last I checked my Bible, some of the last words of Jesus He said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciple." And He didn’t say, "By getting an A+ on a theological test." He said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciple that you love one another." It may be possible for us to hold to totally correct beliefs and miss heaven because, like the Pharisees, we used the wrong spiritual gauge.
In our hymnal, I found this a few weeks ago. I really like it. It comes out of Kenya. It’s a prayer for a spirit of truth. It goes like this; it’s very short. "From the cowardice that dares not face new truth, from the laziness that is contented with half truth, and from the arrogance that thinks it knows all the truth, Lord, deliver me." I like that. I’m going to read it again. "From the cowardice that dares not face new truth, from the laziness that is contented with half truth, and from the arrogance that think it knows all the truth, Lord, deliver me." The correct gauge for evaluating our relationship with Christ is found in Matthew 22 when Jesus was asked by the religious leaders, they thought they were going to put Him on the spot, "What’s the greatest commandment?" they said to Jesus. And He didn’t hesitate a moment. He said, "Simple, love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul." And a sentence like, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And He said, you wrap the whole thing up in that." What E. Stanley Jones use to tell people when they asked him whether or not they could do this or that, he said, "You can do it as long as you can do it and still love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself." He said, "Use that as the criteria."
According to Jesus the right gauge is "love". Love for god; love for others. The Apostle Paul echoed this theme in those words that Dan read from I Corinthians 13. Friends, they are rather sobering. Paul says, "If you have all knowledge…all knowledge…". He says to Reverend Mike, "If you’ve got a faith that can move mountains…". He says to those with wealth, "If you would sell everything you had and gave it to the poor or if you martyred and gave your very life for your faith and you have not love, he says, "Zilch. I gave nothing." We must understand this very important truth. Hear me carefully. God is not interested in some abstract thing called your spiritual life. God is interested in your life – all of it. And God wants you to be filled with love for Him and love for others.
And so how do we use the gauge of love in an ordinary day? And as I was sorting through the materials in preparing these messages because again, in the bulletin, I give full credit to the authors of this study material that I am sharing with you, but in the essence of time this next point I thought I would leave it out. But then the more I thought about it I said, "No, this is an important point. I don’t want to miss it." One of the most important things we need to understand is the distinction between training and trial. We’re watching the Olympic games this week. Most of you are. The opening ceremonies the other night, I thought I’d just watch about fifteen minutes of it and then go to bed. I couldn’t turn it off. It was marvelous. Those athletes didn’t get there by just trying harder. They trained. And spiritual transformation happens the same way. It’s not just by trying harder; we need to train. Dallas Willard gives this definition of training. He says, "To train means that I arrange my life around activities that I can do that over time help me to do what I cannot do just by effort alone." The Apostle Paul wrote to his son in faith, Timothy, he said, "Physical training is of some value". But he said, "Don’t miss out on the most important thing. Train yourself to be godly, not just trying; disciplining yourself." Jesus echoed the same thought in Luke 6 when He said, "Everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher." So I want to suggest today three training exercises, so to speak, that will help you to become more loving in your everyday relationships.
Listen. The first one sounds so simple but it is so hard to do. We preachers do a horrible job of it. We need to learn to listen. Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived. But if you look at his teaching, He didn’t just speak, He listened; He paused. I wonder how often He said, "Tell me more." He asked questions. James 1:19 says, "Every one should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry." Would your life have been better this week if you’d put that in to practice? Be more quick to listen, more slow to speak, more slow to become angry. Those are good words of advice. Learn to listen.
Touch. The second thing we need to train in love as we learn how to touch. Jesus reached out and touched the untouchables of His day. See, we don’t live in Bible times. We don’t know and don’t realize how shocking it was that Jesus would touch a leper. Or that Jesus who went to the Samaritan well would touch a woman. We don’t realize that to be a respected teacher in Jesus’ day you didn’t pick up little children and hold them in your arms. That was beneath the dignity of a Rabbi. But Jesus reached out and touched people. A study at UCLA discovered we need eight to ten meaningful touches every day for good emotional health. Now if you’ve got small children I know you get your plenty of touches. But I’m looking out here at this good crowd of folks and I see a number of people who live alone. That I wonder if they get eight to ten meaningful touches a day. And that’s why what happens before and after worship is so important. We need to touch. A warm handshake, a touch on the shoulder, a hug where it is appropriate can be such a blessing to people.
Speak words of love. So we need to listen, we need to use touch and then finally we can train in love when we speak words of love. And don’t gloss over this too quickly because when we speak words of love and grace they come at us from two perspectives. The Apostle John said of Jesus, "The Word became flesh full of grace and truth." Notice that John described Jesus as "grace giving and truth telling". You need to hear both. Grace giving – that’s when in our everyday relationships we give a word of affirmation, we give a word of comfort or encouragement, we express our care or concern. Those are words of grace. But we also need to learn to speak words of truth even when the truth is hard to hear. This might mean asking for forgiveness, seeking reconciliation, or having the courage to address conflict. We need to learn to speak from a heart of love words of grace, words of truth.
Do you know where the best place to train in all three of those areas is? You’re not going to want to hear this. But the best place for you to train in all three of those areas is with the persons who are the hardest for you to live. Remember Jesus said, "So you love those who love you back. Big deal, anybody can do that." He said, "I challenge you to go further and love your enemies. Do good to those who despitefully use you." Some of us are just convinced our life would be so much better if we could just wipe out certain people we have to deal with. But instead God in living every day with Jesus said, "There’s your opportunity to learn to become more loving."
I close with these words of wisdom that speak to this challenge. Some of you I’m sure have heard these. "People at times are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will often accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. But do good anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good today anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll sometimes get kicked right back in the teeth. But give the world the best you’ve got anyway." It’s there that we train to be more loving.
Let’s pray, "Lord, we thank you for filling our lives with relationships. May we be open to the work that you want to do in and through those relationships including those folks that exasperate us to tears and where we find it so hard to love. Help us to listen, help us to touch, and help us to speak words of love. In Jesus’ name, Amen."
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn