Jesus Changes our Relationships

Jesus Changes Everything

Jesus changes our Relationships

Matthew 25:31-40

JCE

Good morning and welcome to worship today! Isn’t God Good! Even when we are struggling, God is good! Psalm 121 reminds us, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Isn’t it amazing that when we are in trouble, we can look to the Lord! He is not far from those who call upon him.

We are in the final weeks of our series, Jesus Changes Everything! We know that when we give our lives to God, when “we are in Christ there is a new creation! The old is gone the new has come!” just as Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Jesus is making all things new!

Now, we know that if everything is special, then nothing is special, right… so we want to be a little more specific. The truth is, Jesus is making EVERYTHING NEW and that it is all special. But, to be more specific, Jesus is changing our heart! Our core, the center of our being is made new by Jesus. We know that our mind is being renewed… that the way we look at and experience life is changed by Jesus. As we begin to see the world through the eyes of Jesus, we look at our neighbors differently, we look at our enemies differently, we look at our political structure differently, we look at the world around us differently because Jesus is changing our mind.

Last week we talked about how Jesus changes our Rhythm. In other words, Jesus changes the patterns of our life, the very way we live.

This week, we are continuing to get a little more personal as we consider the ways that Jesus changes our relationships.

Jesus Changes our Relationships

That is one area that we just don’t want to give over control? Why, because it may mean that we are in relationship with someone we don’t like.

It’s like when Jesus made the Disciples go through Samaria. We read the story in John 4, where Jesus stayed by Jacob’s Well in Samaria as the disciples went to get food in town. Then, as Jesus waited a Samaritan woman of ill repute came to draw water. Jesus didn’t worry about the fact that she was:

1) a Samaritan

2) a Samaritan Woman

3) a Samaritan Woman who had been in multiple marriages and was living with a man to whom she was not married to.

When the Disciples came back, they were a little taken aback because of who Jesus was talking to… but, in that interaction, Jesus changed everything for that woman, for that community, and for the way the disciples saw the world. You see, Jesus changed their relationships, just as he is changing ours today.

A big part of our series has been the fact that we want you to hear from others, not just the preachers, so we have had various people share their testimony. This week, we have another testimony about how Jesus has changed relationships and through that, Jesus has changed everything.

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Turn with me to Matthew 25:31-40. Many of you know that this is among my favorite verses… in fact, you heard it last week in reference to our Jubilee Prison Ministry opportunities we have coming up.

What I love about this passage is that it all starts with our relationship with Jesus. Let’s hear Jesus words from Matthew:

Matthew 25:31-40

“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 36 I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

<Prayer>

How we treat others is a direct reflection of our relationship with God. Did you know that? If you are snotty and snooty – If you think of yourself as better than someone because they come from a different socio-economic group (and that goes both ways), or if you think less of someone because of the color of their skin or where they come from… what does that say about your relationship with Jesus?

I mean, Jesus drug his disciples through Samaria – that’s like dragging a Cowboy’s fan through Steeler’s territory and telling them to love on the fans… The Cowboy’s fan may go reluctantly, but they won’t like it.

Jesus was constantly pushing the boundaries between cultures and disparities. Rich and poor, male and female, Samaritan and Jewish, slave and free… Jesus didn’t see the differences, he saw person. If we are becoming like Christ, that is the kind of person we are becoming.

As we look at the fact that Jesus changes our Relationships, I want us to focus on 3 specific areas… Family, Church, and Community.

Jesus Changes our Relationship with our Family

Starting with Family, turn in your Bible’s with me to Ephesians 5. Paul has spent the previous chapters laying out how it is that we live in relationship as a church, I mean, I could probably have just Read Ephesians and called it a day… but here, Paul shifts focus from how to live as a follower of Jesus in community, to how we as followers of Jesus need to live in relationship with our families. So, beginning in verse 21:

Ephesians 5:21-6:4

And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.

As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”

Fathers (parents), do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord.

Well, there’s a passage that I could get in trouble with. I often use this passage in marriage counseling to dispel the deep-seeded inaccurate belief that men are to rule women. The passage starts with the fact that we are to submit to each other. Period. No questions… submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. That’s pretty blunt.

We can get into the wives submit to your husband because he is the head…. For too long we have ignored the fact that Christ led the church by giving himself as a sacrifice for all. If we keep that in mind, then “husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church” would get a lot more attention. It is our of mutual submission, love, and respect that we live in relationship together. We, husbands and wives, look to Christ for our example of how we live in relationship with each other. When one tries to rule the other, to get their own way, we have left the relationship example of Christ and are headed into evil.

If Jesus doesn’t change the way you and your spouse live and love, then you need to reevaluate your marriage.

And, by the same token, Jesus should change the way you love your children and your parents.

Those of us with parents… and that goes beyond just the biological people in our lives… but we who have parents should think of how we are treating them. Again, how we treat our parents reflects a lot about our relationship with God, and vice versa.

Parents, you don’t get off the hook. Verse 4 starts with the word translated as Fathers… other translations use parents in that place. Parents… are you exasperating your children? I know, their brains don’t work between the ages of 12 and 22… I get it. But just like the years between the ages 2 and 4, those ages between 12 and 22 are huge developmental periods, literally reforming their brains as they become adults. As our children and youth ministry says it, “It’s just a phase… don’t miss it.”

We are wrapping the passage up there, but I want to make a comment about the next verses. Paul goes on to talk about how slaves are to be treated and to respond to their masters. It is worth noting that they are included in the list of how we live as a family. The slaves of that time were not what we think of as the human chattel of the African Slave Trade within our history. I would say that today, it would be more like saying “Bosses, treat your employees as you would treat Christ… and employees, work as though you were working for the Lord, regardless of how sorry your boss is. Who knows, you may make a difference in their life, just like Jesus changed your life… because Jesus changes everything!”

So, Jesus changes our relationship with our family, but Jesus also changes our relationship with the community of faith.

Jesus Changes our Relationship with our Church

I know, this seems to be a give-me. Of course Jesus changes our relationship with our church… right?

Well, think back to your interactions with others… there’s a reason there is a saying “The church is the only organization that regularly shoots it’s wounded.” When we think of the organization of the church, we think of the politics of the church… we think of the committees and the groups… we think of the classes that meet in various places… We think of the liberal and the conservative… we think of the progressive and orthodox.

Well, I think it needs to be more than that. Because if that’s all it is, then there will be times that we don’t get along and decide to just quit. To stop coming to church, stop associating with “those people” and find some other social club to interact with. We have to be more than a gathering of people doing good things for others. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to do good for others… but we exist for more than that. The author of Hebrews reminds us:

Hebrews 10:23-25

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Jesus has to change our relationship to one another in the Body of Christ. John tells us to love one another, and that is how others will know we are Christians, by our love for one another.

There are those in our community who could not in their consciousness continue here after we became a Global Methodist Church… How do you love them? Do you Pray for them? Hoe did you feel about the news that the UMC is considering a new church in the area? Did you rejoice for them, or did you lament?

I hope you are praying for them… I hope you are encouraging them… I hope you are celebrating that God is doing a new thing in the community. They are our brothers and sisters, they deserve our love and support.

John reminded us, they shall know we are Christians by our Love!

I hope and I pray that as the community looks at FMC, they see a body that loves one another… and the work we then do sharing the love and grace of God to the community is drawn from our relationship with Christ and our love for one another. And, that moves us into our third point,

Jesus Changes our Relationship with our Community

Turn back to the passage we started with…

Matthew 25:31-40

“But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

If Jesus hasn’t change how you live in your community, you need to go back to the beginning… let Jesus change your heart and your mind. We have great ministries in this community and we have many more!

Yes, we have Good Samaritan, we have St. Johns Food Pantry, we have ministries, outreaches, and activities all over this community and we have members involved in most, if not all of them, but look at what else we have the opportunity to do!

Kid’s First Mentoring – You want to talk about making a difference in the life of the next generation… pour your love into a kid in need… once a week, for less than an hour a day… build a relationship with a child that needs your love and the hope only you can offer in Christ. We have schools looking for mentors for these kids… and we have only 4 mentors!

Diakoneo Ministry – yes, this is a ministry within the walls of the church, but it has already made impacts beyond the walls as members have carried communion to the lonely in our community – those who are shut-in, or live in the nursing homes. There is more than just taking communion, Priscilla is organizing teams that can just go for a visit to sit and talk, ways to partner these wonderful saints with our young people, teams that can go and do light labor, phone ministries, card ministries.

Look in your pew backs… there is a long list of areas you might want to get involved in.

We do feed the hungry, we do give a drink to the thirsty, we do visit the lonely, we do visit those in prison, we do pray for and care for the sick, we do welcome the stranger… We do, but the question is, do you?

Have you let Jesus Change Everything?

JCE

It all comes back to Jesus

John 10:7-11

So he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.

Jesus came to give us life… Jesus came to give us abundant, full, complete life – in life, in death, and in life beyond death.

After all, Jesus does change everything, even our relationships! But it starts with our relationship with Jesus!

The world isn’t needing a new definition of Christianity. The world needs a new demonstration of Christianity. (Leonard Ravenhill)

Has Jesus changed your? Has Jesus changed everything? Are you willing to be a part of the new demonstration of Christianity?