Building Godly relationships #5

By Pastor George Lehman

 

“I only love God as much as I love the person whom I love the least.”



This is a How do I make it work or not work service?  Faults are thick where love is thin.



Matthew 23:23-24 (Amp) - Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)!  For you give a tenth of your mint and dill and cummin and have neglected and omitted the weightier (more important) matters of the Law – right and justice and mercy and fidelity.  These you ought [particularly] to have done, without neglecting the others.   You blind guides, filtering out a gnat and gulping down a camel!

 

Luke 6:42 (NIV) - How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.                  



The history recorded in a museum in Nantucket island:

It was about an organization formed centuries ago.  In those days, travel by sea was extremely dangerous because of the storms and the rocks along their Atlantic coast.

Many lives were lost within a 1,5 km distance of land.  So, a group of volunteers went into the lifesaving business.  They called themselves the Human Society. These people built little huts along the shoreline.  They had people watching the sea all the time.  Whenever a ship went down, the word would go out.  They would devote everything to save every life they could.  They did not put themselves at risk for money, fame or recognition - only because they prized human life.



To remind them of what was at stake, they adopted this motto:

“You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back”



Not such a great recruiting slogan, but it was.

So many accounts and testimonies of people who would risk everything – even their lives to save people they had never met.



Over the years things changed.  The U.S. Coast Guard eventually took over.  Their saying was “Let the professionals do it.”  They were better equipped, better trained and paid for it.  Volunteers stopped manning the life saving huts; they stopped looking out for shipwrecks.  They could never get themselves to disband the life-saving society.  They still get together once in a while, but to have dinner and a chat.  They enjoy one another’s’ company.  The point is, “They’re just not in the life saving business anymore”.



Here are some truths about this story:

Live saving relationship building is not just the function of the pastor or leaders or those that are on fire for Jesus.
We are all in the life saving Godly relationship building business.



We don’t always see it, because we are so pre-occupied with our own life. I mean It’s a professional job after all Oh yes!!.



People around us have mini shipwrecks everyday:

They have family fights, mess up at work, children fail at school, make foolish financial choices, have bad habits and choices causing personal low self esteem, they fail, are hurt, disappointed.  The list just goes on…



So much has been left by so many to so few.

Our lifelines mostly are words that we offer to people.

Our words offer:
- acceptance,
- love and
- hope



BUT…

Our words have the ability to:

- judge,

- condemn,

- wound,

- be critical,

- unkind and

- degrading



Romans 15:7 (NIV) - Accept one another…                 



Accept is an action from my side to accept people; to be there for them; to say they are valuable and precious and that you long for the best for them.
Just note that it doesn’t mean to approve of everything they do.



Here’s a story of Jesus, a woman and a bunch of stone throwers:

John 8:3-11 (NLT) 3“As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

Like the paralytic, she is brought to Jesus, not on a mat, but wrapped in sheets.  It’s the same purpose, but totally different attitudes:

One was for Jesus to heal.
One was for Jesus to approve her killing.



Before you judge these guys too quickly…

Question:  Have you ever held a stone in your hand…?



As Christians we can be great stone throwers:

- You go through life with judgmental thoughts

- A superior attitude

- Impatient words

- Bitterness – unforgiveness
- Not much room for love
- Expressing a critical, condemning attitude about individuals
- Saying something about someone in a way, that you would not want the other person to hear.



There are so many trembling, fear filled, guilt ridden, brokenness and lost ness around you, BUT it doesn’t move you – you don’t even notice, because you’re caught up in your own self-righteousness, pride and judgmentalism.



There is no room for stone throwing in Jesus’ plan for Godly relationship building.

The reason is: We are all too guilty!’

Phillip Yancey says:
Jesus’ audience would have divided people into 2 categories:

Sinners (like the woman)
Righteous (like the men)

 

YET… Jesus in one brilliant stroke replaces them with two different categories:

Sinners who admit
Sinners who deny



Ask yourself the question when you are tempted to pick up a stone or see a speck:

Why do I take pleasure or feel the need to do this?
2. What am I running away from in my own life?
3. Am I guilty of some of these issues?
4. What good will this do me and those who listen?



If you say you are serious about Building Godly relationships.  (It’s not optional, it’s a command.)  ‘Because God truly is.’

 

Then when you get the urge to throw a rock or pick a speck, look within and ask:

What do I need to work on myself?
Where have I failed in the past?



Let us get back into the lifesaving business: ‘Building Godly relationships’

Ephesians 4:29 (Amp) - Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as if fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it