Focusing Our Relationships

One of the most amazing facts in all the universe is that God wants to have a personal relationship with us. Yes, the God of the creation, the God who created the whole universe wants to have a personal relationship with you and with you and with you. Another most amazing fact in the universe is that we keep putting Him off. We don't have time when we're young, we're too busy when we're in middle ages, we've experienced too much and he's not important when we get old. Yes, in the stress and busyness of life, sometimes relationships suffer and they become difficult because of the stress of life, because of the busyness of life, relationships tend to get neglected. We tend to start skimming over our relationship with God rather than going deep. We start skimming in our relationship over the surface with others rather than going deep with others. In the busyness and stress of life, relationships get out of focus. We just feel like what's demanded of us to make relationships work, whether it be our relationship with God or our relationship with others, what's demanded of us is just too much. We can't give anymore. It just adds more stress and so we quit trying. Kind of give up on those relationships. Well in Mark chapter 12, Jesus helps us to focus on what's really most important about relationships. Our relationship with God, our relationship with others, what's really most important about those, Jesus helps us to focus on like a laser beam. He cuts through all the expectations that we put on ourselves for maintaining all of our relationships, all of the demands that we feel for meeting everybody's needs, like a laser beam, Jesus cuts through all of that and reduces our relationships to a simple principle. The second principle in this series on coping with stress. Last week we looked at the principle of God's enablement. Today we look at the principle of relationships or better yet, the principle of love. The all controlling principle of relationships is the principle of biblical love and what that means and how it's played out in our lives. So let's look at Mark chapter 12 and we'll see what Jesus had to say about the principle of relationship and how to focus our relationships. Rather than them being so scattered and so demanding and just skimming over the top of them, how to focus our relationships and get the right focus on them. Mark chapter 12, verse 28, one of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him of all the commandments, which is the most important. The most important one answered, Jesus is this, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. Now, what Jesus does, as he really does, cut through all of the junk about relationships and all of the man's and stresses and reduces it to the principle of love. If we can keep that at the core of our relationships, everything else will take care of itself. Notice how Jesus, first of all, addresses our relationship with God. Verses 28 to 30, the text here reveals to us four things about our relationship with God. Number one is that relationship is not based on performance. In verse 28, the teacher of the law that asks Jesus the question, did you notice the question there? He says, of all the commandments, which is the most important. You can almost hear the sigh in his voice and see the slump in his shoulders as he says, of all the commandments, which is the most important. Of all the commandments, the scribes, the teachers of the law and the New Testament had counted them up. They knew there were 613 commandments that Jesus or that the Old Testament expected of God's followers. In fact, they had subdivided them even further. 248 positive commandments, 365 negative commandments. 248 do this, 365 don't do that. So they knew what the commandments were all about. And the bad part was not that they had counted up the number of commandments. The bad part was that the Israelites had come to see the commandments and keeping them as a way to earn God's favor, as a way to merit salvation. In other words, if we keep all those commandments, if we work hard enough, if we do enough of the right things and we stay away from the bad things, then we can earn salvation. We can merit something in God's eyes. Now they were realistic enough to know that they couldn't keep them all. That's a lot to expect. 613 of them. And so they further subdivided them into what was called heavy and light commandments. The heavy ones were the really, really important ones that if you're going to keep any of them, you better focus on those. The light ones were, well, you know, all of us are going to mess up, so don't worry about those too much. That's the background of this question that comes to Jesus. What this lawyer, this expert in the Old Testament law was really saying was, of all the really heavy ones, what's the heaviest? What's the most important law if we can only keep one, tell us which one to focus on. And Jesus does not play the game. Jesus says, I'll take all 613 of them and I'll summarize them in one principle. One principle. I'll summarize them in one principle. That is, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And in the same vein, love your neighbor as yourself. The principle is love. But you see, every religion is based on performance. Every religion that man has come up with is based on doing certain things to somehow gain merit and favor in the eyes of God. We were in Japan a couple of weeks ago and we visited a Buddhist temple. We'll talk a little bit about that tonight, show you some pictures of it. But we were in a Buddhist temple and we saw people paying money to write little prayer requests on pieces of paper to pin up. We saw them paying more money to get holy water in a cup and drink it. We saw them paying more money to buy a candle to burn in a large incense altar and then trying to wave the fumes on themselves. Then we saw them go into the main part of the temple and pay more money to put in the coffers to be able to pray to a statue. Every man made religion prescribes a certain number of things you do or a certain kind of thing you don't do in order to somehow gain merit with God, however he is conceived, however he is thought of. Every religion is performance based. Do this in order to gain salvation, order to gain merit and Jesus says that doesn't work. In fact, it is so stressful to be under that kind of religious expectation because you never know if you've done enough. You never know if you've gained enough brownie points with God to earn salvation. You just never know. So it leads to increased stress of not knowing whether or not your religion is really working. So Jesus says your relationship with God that I'm talking about is not performance based but he does say this, it is a personal relationship. It's not performance based, not based on performance but it is a personal relationship. Want you to look again at verse 29. He says the most important one, answer Jesus, is this. Here oh Israel, now notice the pronouns, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Verse 30, love the Lord your God. He uses two personal pronouns there, our God your God. The idea is that God is personal in his relationship with us. He is not just the creator, he is not just the God, he is not just the God of the universe, he is our God, your God, he is a personal God. He wants a personal relationship with each of us. And that personal relationship means he wants to know you personally, he wants you to be in his family. That's as personal as it gets. Now here's how he's designed for that to happen. All of us come into this world separated from God. We do not come into this world knowing him and being in a relationship with him. We come into this world separated from him because we're born with a nature that's a sinful nature. We inherited it from Adam, the first sinner. And everyone born into the human race since then has been born with that sinful nature, that tendency which leads us to disobey and disrespect the holiness of God. And so we're born not in a relationship with God. It's not like you come into this world with a clean slate and you add up the good things you do and subtract the bad things you do. If you have a positive balance you get into heaven, it doesn't work that way. You start out separated from God because you're born with a sinful nature, alienated from God, the Bible says, in hostility toward God, Colossians 1 says, with no life at all spiritually Ephesians 4 says. But you see God loved you and me so much that he did not want us to stay in that alienated relationship. He wanted us to be a part of his family and he loved us so much that he said, okay, I'll do whatever it takes to make it possible for you to be in my family. And the only thing that could happen to make that possible was for him to send his sinless, perfect son to be our substitute and pay the penalty for our sin. Because you see, we can't pay enough. The Bible says that even our good deeds are like filthy rags in the side. They're contaminated because of that sinful nature. And so God sent his holy spotless son who never sinned, who took our place on the cross and bore God's punishment for all of our sin. And the Bible says, if you will place your faith in Jesus Christ, if you will trust him as your Savior, place your confidence for getting to heaven in the work he did on the cross, then you get to be one of God's children. It accepts you into his family through faith in his son. That personal relationship with God begins with faith in his son, Jesus Christ. Here's the way Jesus himself said it. John said it in John chapter 1 and verse 12. Look at this verse, yet to all who received him speaking of Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. We become God's children. We enter his family, we start this personal relationship with God through faith in his son, Jesus Christ. And then once you come to know Christ as your Savior, God wants that relationship to grow. He doesn't want you to say, okay, I'm saved. I'm not going to hell any longer. My sins are forgiven. I'm one of God's children. Yay! I get to go to heaven. Now, I'll live the rest of my life the way I want. No. Once God develops and starts that relationship with you, he wants it to grow. He wants it to develop. And so Peter says, in 2 Peter, chapter 3 and verse 18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So it should be a growing relationship. It's a personal relationship that begins when you trust Christ as your Savior and then it ought to grow. It ought to be growing as you get to know His Word better, get to know who He is better and you fall in love with Him more and more along the way. A growing personal relationship. Jesus says, this relationship with God is not based on performance. It is a personal relationship. Thirdly, it is a relationship of surrender. A relationship of surrender. Look at verse 30. He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. I want to focus on the word love for just a moment. What does he mean by that? The word for love that's used here and often in the New Testament is an unusual word. There were at least four words that could have been used for the concept of love in New Testament times. The word which is chosen here is a word which is a sacrificial giving kind of love. It is the giving of oneself for the good or the benefit of another person. It really means surrender. It is a surrender of your own desires for the good of another. It means to surrender your own plan, your own will, your own desires to the good of another person. That's the kind of love he's talking about here. And in relationship with God, it means something like this. It means that we surrender our preferences. We surrender our pride. We surrender our passions. We surrender our desires. We surrender our dreams. We surrender our possessions, our time, our friendships, our plans, our ministry, our family. It's not ours, it's his. Did you notice what one of the characters in the drama said earlier? Well, it's my time, really? Really? You see, to love the Lord your God means that everything is surrendered to Him. And that's what this concept of love is really all about. We prove our love for God not by religious rituals that we go through. It is not because of certain religious things we do or don't do that proves our love to Him. We prove our love to God not by following a list of some legalistic observances. We prove our love for God by choosing Him above ourselves, by honoring Him above everything else in our lives, by surrendering everything we are, have hope to be. To Him, that's the word here. It is a surrender of ourselves totally to Him. So this relationship with God is a relationship of surrender, but it goes further than that. Fourthly, Jesus describes our relationship with God as a relationship of wholehearted devotion. Notice how He says, we are to love God in verse 30. He says, love the Lord your God with all your heart. Speaking probably of the inner man, just who we are inside, our will, our desires, our plans, our choices, our motives, what makes us tick on the inside. And so what Jesus is saying is to love the Lord your God with all your heart means your plans, your motives, your decisions, your choices, your desires, all of those things are submitted to Him, they are surrendered to Him. That's loving Him with all your heart. Secondly, He says, love the Lord your God with all your soul, probably speaking there of the emotions, the attitudes. In other words, every time I experience joy, every time I experience peace, every time I experience hurt, I experience sorrow, every time I feel anger, welling up inside me, every time I feel a sense of excitement, all of those emotions, all of those attitudes need to be brought into surrender to Jesus Christ. That's what loving Him with all my emotion, all my soul is all about. It doesn't mean you live an emotionless life, doesn't mean that everything is bland and straight faced and harsh. No, there's a lot of joy and fun and happiness in life, there's a lot of pain and sorrow and grief in life as well. And in all of those emotions, in everything our soul encounters in this world, we're going to say, Lord, how does this fit into your plan? If it's a time of great joy, happiness in your life, thank God that He's allowed that to happen. That's a special gift of His. If it's a time of great sorrow and grief and heartache, ask God, Lord, how do you want this to be used for your kingdom and your glory in my life to make me a better servant of yours? I want to take this heartache and surrender it to you for you to use. That's loving God with all your soul. And then He says, love the Lord your God with all your mind. There are lots of things involved there. I believe that involves our ability to think. I think our ability to think, our intellect ought to be developed fully as fully as possible for most of us that leaves a lot of room for improvement. Our intellect needs to be completely involved in life, but in surrender and in humility to Him, not for puffing ourselves up, not for the vain glory of getting knowledge, but for His use. See, that's loving God with all your mind. I think it involves not only our ability to think, but our ability to reflect. We all have the ability to dwell on things, to reflect on things, to meditate on things on life. What God's saying is loving me with all your mind means that you use that capacity for God's glory, to think on those things which honor Him and not to think on sinful things. The ability to reflect is involved in loving God with all of our mind. I think it involves our understanding of life. Jerry is saying a great song earlier about chasing the wind, which is Solomon's term in ecclesiasties, for going after everything in this world that really you'll have to give up when you go to heaven. If that's the focus of your life, it's like chasing wind that will never bring fulfillment in your life. A proper understanding of life is that all of those things are simply gifts of God that He's given us to use for His glory. We ought to rejoice in them, thank them, thank Him for them, but recognize they only have meaning in this life as they relate to our relationship with God. That's our understanding of life, and that's all involved in loving God with all of our mind, our whole approach to life, attitude toward life, all of that's involved in loving God with all of our mind. And then He says, love God with all your strength. You see, this is a wholehearted devotion. So all of our strength, that means our actions, our influence, our energies, all are to be directed toward loving Him, all to be surrendered to Him, for however He wants them to be used. What we're talking about here is an all-out surrender of every part of my life, every part of your life to Jesus Christ. That's loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now Jesus says, your relationship with God, through all the lists of do's and don'ts, your relationship with God basically is this. It's not based on performance. You cannot do anything to make God love you more. You can't do anything to make Him love you less. Your relationship with God is based on a personal relationship that you've entered through faith in Christ and you're really trying to grow through getting to know Him better. It's a relationship of surrender of every part of your life to Him and a wholehearted devotion loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Why I think that is so important to understand is because even after we know Christ as Savior, we tend to slip back into this performance-based relationship. In other words, do certain things to gain the favor of God and we become like Martha, busy, busy, do this, do this. Am I doing enough? Do a little more. Do this a little more. Do that a little more. Maybe I can please God better. Maybe I can earn some of His favor. What God wants is a personal relationship where we simply respond to His love with a deep-hearted love of our own, a daily surrender of every part of our lives, a daily commitment to Him, not a commitment to projects, a commitment to Him. You see my friend, if your heart is wholly devoted to Jesus Christ, all the do's and don'ts will take care of themselves. Faithfulness to church, reading your Bible, prayer, all those things- they'll take care of themselves. If your heart is wholly devoted to Jesus Christ, and nobody will have to stand over you and say it's got to be this level and this much to be pleasing to God, your heart will be in it. Nobody will have to tell you. You've got to do this or that or that. Your heart will be in it. That's why Jesus said to the guy who said, what's the heaviest of all the commandments? He cut through all the stuff and said, this is it. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That's it. And so every day of our lives, we're not to be asking how much can I do or what things should I do or not do to please God, what we should be asking is every part of my life in surrender to Him. Every part of my life, my heart, my soul, my mind, my strength, is it all in surrender to Him? And if it is, then you're walking in a personal relationship with God that He desires and wants for you. You're loving Him. Jesus goes on to say there are also relationships with others. And let's take a look quickly at our relationship with others and what that means as well. Because He said in verse 31, the second equivalent command is this, love your neighbor as yourself. Now, let's look at the meaning of that relationship first. What did Jesus mean when He said love your neighbor as yourself? Well, the first way I have to understand the word neighbor, what do you mean by neighbor? You mean the guy living down the street? Not necessarily, He's included, but not exclusive to that person. Another time when Jesus was talking about this same issue in Luke chapter 10, different occasion, but talking about the same issue of what's really important in life and He said love God, love others. Somebody raised His hand and said, hey, tell me who is my neighbor? Who do you mean by neighbor? In other words, in Jesus' answering, remember the story you answered Him with, the story of the good Samaritan. He said there was this guy going from one town to another and he sees a guy alongside the road. He's been robbed and beaten. He didn't know him, had no personal relationship with him, but he went over to helping. In other words, he put his own concerns, his own schedule, his own appointment where he needed to be secondary to helping that other person. What did he do? He loved that person. That's what he did. In the sense that the Bible talks about surrendering your own wants and desires and needs to the good of another person. So Jesus said that's the guy that was the neighbor. In other words, a neighbor is anybody you come in contact with. Loving your neighbor as yourself, your neighbor may be your husband, your wife, your child, your parent, maybe a family member. Your neighbor may be a fellow member of the body of Christ. Your neighbor may be an unsaved person. Your neighbor may be a coworker. Your neighbor may be someone who doesn't live down the street from you. Your neighbor may be a casual acquaintance that you rarely ever see or maybe someone you've only seen one time, but your pads crossed. Those are your neighbors are. So Jesus says, love your neighbor. So anyone we come in contact with in this life, we are to love them. What does that mean? Giving of ourselves for that person's good. In other words, it means to put that person in their needs first above your own. It doesn't mean that you entirely neglect your own needs. It means you put the needs of another person first. That's how you love whoever you come in contact with. If you're going through the checkout counter to grocery store, you're to be thinking of that clerk as a person that Christ died for, that God loves, and you are seeking to do whatever you can to reach out to that person. If it simply means putting a smile on your face and making their job a little bit more enjoyable, you're thinking of their needs ahead of your own. It can be very simple as simple as that. If we continually live our lives that way, we're loving our neighbor as ourself. So Jesus said, love your neighbor, but then He said, love your neighbor as yourself. What is that all about? Does that mean that we're supposed to work up as much love as we can for ourselves, learn to love ourselves real good, and then hope we can love others that much too? I don't think so. We don't have to work up self love. We've already got it. We have an instinctive nature that protects ourselves, that takes care of ourselves, that looks out for our own interests first. What Jesus is saying is learn to instinctively think of others that way. Learn to instinctively put others first to care for their needs, to protect them, to look out for their welfare and benefit. Learn to do that, and you're loving your neighbor as you instinctively love yourself anyway. So that's the meaning of this. Love your neighbor as yourself. It means that anybody we come in contact with in our lives, we are to put their needs ahead of our own and seek to minister to them. Now I believe there's some very important ways that we can do that. I just want to mention them briefly. The expression of this relationship. I think there are three key qualities that I want to expand on what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Biblically, that requires number one selflessness. Selflessness. It means that we're not going to be fighting when we come to, in relationship to other people, we're not going to be fighting or scheming to get our own way. It means that we're not going to be ambitious to make ourselves look good. It means that we're not going to be finding fault with someone else to exalt ourselves, and that is so easy for us to do. We're not going to be considering only my rights and my plans and my interests. It means selflessness. It means the other person's needs come first. A couple was in a pastor's office doing some marital counseling and they announced to the pastor not a couple in this church, somebody else. The couple announced to the pastor, we are getting a divorce. Nothing you can say is going to change our mind and he pleaded with them and counseled with them, tried to work with them and they said no. We are settled on that we're going to get a divorce. And finally in exasperation the wife said the problem is we are in love with the same person, him. We both are in love with the same person. And as an example she said he won a trip for two to Hawaii and rather than taking me, he took the trip twice. That's how much he loves himself. I don't know that couple, it may be that she felt the same way about herself. I don't know. But if you're going to love your neighbor as yourself it requires selflessness, putting the other person first. Secondly it requires loyalty, loyalty. I think the best example in all the Bible of loyalty is Jonathan and David. But great story in the Old Testament, Jonathan is the son of the king of Israel, Saul and everybody by every right expectation would assume Jonathan will be the next king. But God has rejected Saul and has chosen a young shepherd boy named David to be the next king. And you know what, when David comes to Saul's throne or to Saul's court to begin ministering there, Jonathan recognizes what God's doing. And they make a covenant with each other to be loyal to each other, to be committed to each other and to do what is best for each other and also to look out for the interest of each other's families. And that loyalty, that friendship, that commitment, that relationship of love between those two friends was a great example of loyalty. Jonathan was loyal to David. He defended David even at the risk of his own life. He rejoiced in the successes of David even though he knew that meant he would not be king. He risked his life for David. And David returned the favor when Jonathan was killed in battle. David had been running from Saul. David got the news. He grieved and mourned over the death of Jonathan and followed through on his commitment to take care of any of Jonathan's family that would be remaining. He later on located one son, David brought him into the palace and took care of him the rest of his life. So there was a loyal relationship. Do you know the old sculptors in ancient Rome because they knew of the fickle loyalties of the Romans and that someone else might be the new hero tomorrow when they would do sculptures of the Caesars or of anyone else in power, they made them so that they could have replaceable heads. They really did. I read this the other day. They made them so they could have replaceable heads so that when a new hero comes along, use the same body, stick another head on and you got a new hero. We do the same thing a lot of times. Our loyalties run no deeper sometimes and when we love others as ourselves, what it means is loyalty. Thirdly, it requires forgiveness. Forgiveness. Paul Mayer and Frank Minerth to Christian psychiatrist in Dallas who also teach at Dallas Seminary written an excellent book, I've mentioned it before. It's called Before Burnout. It's a book that's given me a lot of ideas for this series. They say in that book that the number one cause of burnout is the lack of forgiveness, the unwillingness to forgive other people. And you know it's interesting to me that both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the root words, the core words for forgiveness literally mean to release or to send away. And you know what that means? It means that if we're going to forgive someone else and this is a good definition of forgiveness, to give up all my claim on them. Someone who's hurt me, I give up any claim on them and I let go of the emotional consequences of that hurt. Just let it go. You see, oftentimes when someone's hurt us, we've got a claim on them and we're going to reserve the right to cash in that claim. We are going to do anything we can or hope that something will happen that will hurt them or we'll be able to get even with them or we'll be able to show them a thing or two. And we've got this hanging over us, this claim that we've got it. And you know what that does? It destroys us. It doesn't do anything to hurt them, it destroys us. Spiritually, emotionally, inside we're being eaten away with bitterness and resentment. It's kind of like the old TV show Amos and Andy. Some of you in here are old enough to remember that. Amos and Andy were talking one day and Amos was talking about this guy that just irritated him because every time this guy would talk to Amos, he would poke his finger in his chest and it got irritating. I mean, that would get irritating after a while, wouldn't it? And so Amos was not really strong enough to just come out against the guy and really confront him. So he told Andy, he said, this is what I'm going to do to take care of that. I'm going to put some nitroglycerin on my chest and the next time he pokes me in the chest, he'll blow his finger off. Yeah. Well, that's exactly what happens when you say, I'm going to hold this grudge against this person. What you're doing is you're putting nitroglycerin on your chest. Next time they try to push your button, guess who gets destroyed? You. You see, lack of forgiveness is the greatest cause of burnout and stress because of the way God has wired us. The Bible has a lot to say about forgiveness and the need for that. Let me just close by saying this. What Jesus is doing is focusing our relationships. They get so out of focus, especially in our fast paced, stressful lives, relationships get out of focus. All we can think about is all the demands I've got to do to make my wife happier, my husband happier, my kids happier, my friends or other believers, I've got to fulfill all these responsibilities and what God is saying is, well, well, well, well, well, wait a second. All you got to do every day is ask yourself two questions. In relationship to God is everything in my life and surrender to Him. That's what it means to loving with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Second question. In relationship to others, whoever they may be, your neighbor includes everybody coming contact with. In relationship to them, am I putting their needs first? Loving them as I typically love myself. You see, if you zero it down, if you really focus zone in like a laser beam on those two questions, you will solve the stress of relationships. It's not all this I need to do. No, wait a second, man, am I loving them? Some things may not get done, but are you loving them in the way the Bible says to? That's the key question. Let's pray together.