Relational Reformation
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Intro
Relationships are vital to all of the areas of our lives. That’s why we are looking at the state of relationships. This is a key area that will impact every other area of your life for good or for bad.
We have to know how to build relationships God’s way and not the worlds way.
How many of you know that the world is really confused about relationships?
We have so many people that think they have friends, but they only have nameless faceless people on the other end of their phone. They don’t know anything about them but they think they are friends. don’t know what they really believe, don’t know what they look like because everything is filtered… but we call them our friends.
We are living in a time where so many people have fake friends and they have forgotten what real friends are. They don’t know what a foundational… real relationship is anymore. We have made relationships disposable when they are supposed to be foundational to our lives.
Our culture needs to know and see real relationships. We need a reformation in our relationships and it’s time for the the church to bring that reformation. Reformation means we take an area of life and lift it to a higher level and our world needs that with relationships. There is a reforming that needs to happen so people can experience real relationships the way God designed them.
God is the God of relationships. God sent Jesus, his only son, so that he could have a relationship with you and I. God says I don’t want to be a distant God, I want to be a connected God who is present and active in your life. That’s love and that’s the importance of relationships.
He is not a distant God, He is a personal God. He is not an uninvolved God, He is an involved God. God sent Jesus to restore relationships.
It is possible to have extra-ordinary relationships when we learn to do it God’s way.
When Jesus was questioned about relationships in Matt 22, …
37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
He said get your relationship right with the Father and then with each other. Once you get it right with God, you can work on your relationships with others. He then tells us to love each other in a sacrificial way that represents the kind of love that we received from heaven in Jesus.
Our world desperately needs to see that kind of love… that kind of relationship. We have a lot of work to do to transform our relationships into extraordinary relationships that God wants to see in us.
Here is why we need it.
8 This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, “Who am I working for? Why am I giving up so much pleasure now?” It is all so meaningless and depressing. 9 Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. 10 If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 11 Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
We need extraordinary relationships in our lives because we will at some point need someone to pick us up when we fall. We will need someone to stand back to back with us and fight when the attacks come from all over the place. We need extraordinary relationships.
Extraordinary Relationships are possible if we do it God’s way.
Extraordinary Relationships are possible if we do it God’s way.
The Bible is full of instructions on relationships.
20 Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.
It’s not rocket science. God is being straight forward here. He is saying that if you want to be wise don’t hang out with fools. That goes for your relationships too. Notice Solomon doesn’t say that if you hang out with fools you get stupid. He says that if you hang out with fools, you get into trouble.
You won’t have wise friends if you keep hanging out with foolish friends. You have to choose whether you want to have an extraordinary relationship of a poor relationship.
If you want a relationship that’s at a higher level, you are going to have to begin hanging out with some people who have extraordinary relationships.
26 The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
Choose your friends carefully, not causally… not I’ll follow you if you will follow me… not if we have the same hobbies …
We have to understand that if we want extraordinary relationships that the Bible is teaching us to choose carefully. Sometimes wise choices are not easy to make, but they are always easy to live out. The younger you make the choice to choose wisely, the better your life will be.
Write this down…
Wise choices are difficult to make, but easy to live out. Foolish choices are easy to make but difficult to live out.
Wise choices are difficult to make, but easy to live out. Foolish choices are easy to make but difficult to live out.
It’s not too soon nor is it too late to make the wise decisions in your relationships. Choose well. When we make the hard choice now, it’s easy to live out.
Look at what Solomon said here,
17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
We all “Amen” to that, but how many of us don’t like Iron in our relationships. We just want others to make us feel good and we will make them feel good. So we say to each other what we want to hear not what we need to hear. But that’s not iron.
Iron comes into your life to correct you, to challenge you, to get you in line with what God has for you. Good friends help each other rise up and be better not just feel better. Good friends don’t just say stuff that you want to hear. Good friends will tell you that what you are thinking about doing is stupid and don’t do it. Good friends will get someone help is is confused. It’s not always easy, but it’s necessary.
Most folks are iron deficient in their relationships because we choose relationships that are not iron sharpening iron. They don’t have friends that will help them not to post something they will regret… they don’t have a friend who will help them through a gender confusion crisis… a sexuality crisis… through a crisis with children or grand children… We need “Iron sharpens iron” friends who will tell us the truth even when it’s not what we think we want to hear. Our culture won’t do that.
Culture will tell you that if you think you are a girl, you can become a girl - you cannot.
Culture will tell you that homosexuality is ok and normal - it is not.
Culture will tell you that you do not have to obey the laws - you do.
Culture will tell you that you can do anything you want… that it’s your right to attack someone who disagrees with you - it is not.
Culture will tell you that it’s ok to lie as long as it gets you what you want.
We want you to move from the zone of ordinary into the zone of extra ordinary in every area of your life, especially in your relationships. You cannot do that while at the same time holding onto the wrong relationships. God designed us for iron type of relationships and when we have those, we can change the world.
The Bible is clear that relationships have power. The enemy knows this too. Look at what Paul said about it.
33 Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.”
Bad company corrupts good character every time. I have seen it over and over again.
I have seen girls and guys character change when they went into relationships with guys or girls who were not believers.
I have seen people with good biblical world views change when hanging out with those who didn’t have that same world view.
You might think that you will be the exception, like thousands of others before you, but you won’t be. The Bible is clear, bad company corrupts good character.
Three areas to move relationships from ordinary to extraordinary: Purpose, Problem, Productivity.
Three areas to move relationships from ordinary to extraordinary: Purpose, Problem, Productivity.
Relationships hold power and the enemy knows it … that’s why he always is attacking marriages. Together in relationships we can make a difference in the world. From the very beginning, the enemy tried to bring discord into relationships… Adam and Eve… Cain and Able… Jacob and Esau… Joseph and his brothers… The list goes on and on.
The enemy sows discord where he knows that if unity happens, breakthrough would take place.
The enemy sows discord where he knows that if unity happens, breakthrough would take place.
He is hoping that you have no clue about the power and potential of the relationships that God has for you. He is hoping that the person whom God has given you… that you become so causal with each other that you miss what God put you together for.
example of charlotte and Natalie Grant… God puts people together for a purpose… He wants to to great things through you.
Billy Graham team…
God doesn’t do ordinary, God does extraordinary. God has put you here in this culture to have relationships His way… something that will change the world around you.
Take a fresh look at who God has in your life and why there are in your life. If your life was a bank account, ask yourself, how healthy is your account? Would you be broke or rich. Are the relationships in your life all making withdrawals, or do you have relationships that are making deposits. Are you over invested? Do you need to balance your accounts? How is my relational health? Are things out of balance? Does God want me to balance them?
God wants you relationally healthy and resourced.
We are going to look at an extraordinary relationship in the book of Ruth. Ruth’s mother in law Naomi had lost everything… her husband and both of her sons. She lost everything of value to her. In this story we will see the keys of extraordinary relationships.
If you are here and you miss a relationship that maybe you lost or seem to have lost, God is waiting with his pen to write into your life extraordinary relationships.
The 1st key to Extraordinary relationships is…
1. Purpose
1. Purpose
Purpose is the game changer. Without purpose your relationships will be based on looks… on personality… on what you bring or what they bring into it.
But purpose is a game changer. Purpose will begin to locate people in the right spaces and places in your life.
If you don’t have those kind of relationships be courageous and and go on the journey with God and to find those who are aligned with the purpose God has your life aligned too.
14 Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?
You cannot be equal partners with someone with different purposes than you. You cannot hold hands with someone going in a different direction.
3 Do two people walk hand in hand if they aren’t going to the same place?
This seems obvious, but too many people are confused.
So before you put your hands in someone else’s hand, ask… where are you going?
Before I do this, where are you headed… before I go out with you… where are you headed… what’s your purpose?
Before I invest in you… before I start a business with you? where are you going? What do you believe about following Jesus? about tithing? about legacy? If the purpose is just to get rich, I may not want to be part of that…
When we don’t ask these questions first, we don’t put purpose first. We put our hobbies, charisma, looks first, but they will not hold you up when you need them too.
Long term friendships don’t happen because we tell each other what we want to hear, they happen because we care enough to be honest.
Learn the purposes in friendships. Find people with similar purposes in your relationships. That’s why we want you to participate in teams, groups and around the table on Wednesdays. It’s way too much trouble to just feed people. We want you to build relationships. When you do, you can build extraordinary relationships.
This is why when they drift, maybe leave the church, or fall away from God and want to leave and they want you to come with them, you can say when we joined hands, I told you my purpose was to follow God, to love God to believe and be planted in His family. And if you are leaving, I want you to know, I’ll be here when you want to come back, but I am staying with Jesus.
Maybe you are trying to keep a relationship at a level it used to be at, but you know deep down that the purpose has changed and it you need to release it.
Look at Ruth and Naomi. Naomi has lost everyone - husband, sons…
11 But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? 12 No, my daughters, return to your parents’ homes, for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? 13 Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has raised his fist against me.” 14 And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.
Oprah said, OK… it’s been fun see you later… Her response was the ordinary response.
Imagine what that must have been like. Ruth let her know that she was aligned with Naomi. she wasn’t going anywhere. Ruth’s response was the extraordinary response.
16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” 18 When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.
There are seasons in our lives when we have to let go. Naomi let go of Ruth and Orpah. Orpah left but Ruth stayed. Ruth was aligned with her and stayed with her.
We need to let go of the ordinary and go for the extra-ordinary. And the extra ordinary will come from where you least expect it. It will come from a mouth you never imagined. It will be a clinging that you didn’t even know you needed. When it happens, you will know God is in it.
You will find relationships with purpose and when you find purpose in your relationships and those purposes are aligned, they will stand through problems.
You need purpose because what often happens in life is that problems arise and if you don’t have purpose you won’t make it through the problems.
2. Problem
2. Problem
Naomi was so distraught that she wanted to be called Mara… Naomi’s name meant pleasant. That was her name when Ruth met her. But now Naomi wanted to be called Mara because God had made her life bitter.
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she responded. “Instead, call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me home empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy upon me?”
Everyone wants to be pleasant’s friend but no one wants to be bitter’s friend. This was not Naomi talking it was Mara talking and she was having a pity party. Her life as she had before was gone.
We need to find our purpose so that when the problems come our relationships will stand the test. When you come through to the other side you find what God always intended for you to produce. Ruth had inside of her the lineage of David and Jesus, but she had to stick to her purpose for Naomi so she could find that purpose and produce what God intended for her to produce.
We would like to remodel this room and get rid of these columns. The problem is tha they are load bearing. Building has to have walls to have a ceiling. They are load bearing walls…
In your season or problems, you will find out which relationships are load bearing relationships and which ones are not. The Load bearing walls are in the furnace with you… they are with you in the storm… they are the ones who carry you to Jesus and cut a hole in the roof to get you there. Stop putting up a front that says You are ok.
We need load bearing friends like…
Aaron and Hur for Moses…
Caleb and the Joshua
Mordecai and Esther
Load bearing friends are extraordinary relationships.
2 One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.”
17 A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.
The reason it’s vital to get this right is that relationships produce…
3. Productivity
3. Productivity
Jigsaw puzzle. There are lots of pieces but not every piece touches every other piece. There are certain pieces that touch your piece and the other pieces touch other pieces. Now the ones that are closest to you have a different proximity to you than the others. Thats why the Bible says to choose wisely because … Proximity produces intimacy. Intimacy causes fertility. If you put the wrong people in the wrong proximity it’s not if you will produce, it’s what you will produce.
Intimacy produced Ishmael and Isaac. Wrong proximity produce Ishmael. Wrong productivity…
You can’t be casual with your relationships. You have a call and a purpose and you need to know what that is before you put your hands in the hands of someone. God wants you to have extraordinary relationships but they don’t hang out where the ordinary ones do, they don’t act like eveyrone else.
You need the Ruth’s to the Naomi’s.
When Naomi thought she was down and out forever, Ruth went to work… And God sent Boaz to her…
11 “Yes, I know,” Boaz replied. “But I also know about everything you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband. I have heard how you left your father and mother and your own land to live here among complete strangers.
Boaz marries Ruth and has Obed, and Obed is in the genealogy of Jesus.
Ruth gave Naomi legacy. Look…
11 Then the elders and all the people standing in the gate replied, “We are witnesses! May the Lord make this woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nation of Israel descended! May you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. 12 And may the Lord give you descendants by this young woman who will be like those of our ancestor Perez, the son of Tamar and Judah.”
Extraordinary relationships enters your lif when you feel hopeless and takes you into your purpose. An extraordinary relationship stands with you in your problems. An extraordinary relationship gives you the gift of legacy because their win becomes your win and your win becomes their win.
The whole town said to Naomi … see the extraordinary relationship gave you a son that you didn’t have.
There are extraordinary things that God wants to birth in you but he won’t if we are in proximity of the wrong people. We need to make sure that we are basing our relationships on purpose.
Conclusion
I don’t know what your relationships are… if you are disaapointed…
Maybe you feel a little Mara…
The same God that did this for Ruth, is the same God we call n today.
Put your eyes on the one who loves you with an extra ordinary love and offers you and extraordinary relationship. It’s amazing to think that we can have a relationship with divinity.
We are children of the King of Kings and heirs of the kingdom, we cannot be casual about our relationships… about who we cling too. We are the heirs of the giants of the faith who have gone before us, so we need to stop living life the worlds way and begin to say God, on purpose for purpose lead us to the extraordinary.
Prayer
God lead us into extraordinary relationships.
Help us to live lives of extraordinary relationships in front of a world that’s used to disposable relationships.
Salvation - the most extraordinary relationship begins with your relationship with God through Jesus. Put him first.
If you will tell God, I want that relationship with you, he will meet you right where you are.
