If God has touched our hearts in any real way, it will show up in our relationships. What does it mean when I say ‘If God has touched our hearts’? That means we are aware that we are a mess, and we can’t do anything about it. We know we can’t live out who we want to be. We know there is sin in us, and we can’t do anything about it. We are stuck.
And yet, in spite of our mess, God accepts us, anyway. In our worst moments, God loves us. We know we don’t deserve God’s love. We know there is nothing we can do to make God love us more or less, He just loves us. Finally, we just surrender our lives to God’s love. And in that moment, we can take a deep breath and relax and know God has washed away our sin, guilt, and shame. We walk into each day with freedom from guilt and courage to know God loves us. That’s what it means to have God touch our hearts. That’s called God’s grace.
When we experience God’s grace, we can now give that grace to others. They may not deserve our forgiveness. They may not have earned our love. But because God forgave us, we can forgive them. Because God loved us, we can love them. That’s what it means to be a Christian, a disciple of Jesus. Because of what God has done for me, I now will do that for others. That’s why Paul taught, if God’s grace has impacted your heart in any real way, that means we make a choice to enter our relationships differently.
Now, if you don’t want to follow Christ, this doesn’t apply to you. You can continue to enter your relationships like you have always done before. You can withhold forgiveness because they don’t deserve it. You can try to make people earn your love. Maybe enter with envy, jealousy, or gossip. Maybe dropping guilt bombs on current relationships. Whatever you have always done, continue doing that. But if you claim to be a Christian, if you are going to slap a fish on it, then we make a choice.
Let’s read about it in Philippians 2.
1 Is there any such thing as Christians cheering each other up? Do you love me enough to want to help me? Does it mean anything to you that we are brothers in the Lord, sharing the same Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic at all? 2 Then make me truly happy by loving each other and agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, working together with one heart and mind and purpose. 3 Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. 4 Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing. TLB Philippians 2:1-4
Paul lays out a formula for healthy relationships. Almost like A+B+C = Healthy Relationships. He starts with, hey, if God has touched your heart in any real way, then I will show up in your relationships. You will be tender and sympathetic. You will agree with each other. You will work together. However, you need to make sure you do three things.
Verse 3 gives us the first part, part A, of the healthy relationship formula. Don’t be selfish. What does that mean? It means, don’t live in a way that says, ‘I will live a me first life even if it hurts you.’ I want to read for you how toxic selfishness is.
14 If you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. NLT James 3:14-16
Why should we not be selfish? It’s unspiritual. It’s demonic. And it leads to disorder and evil of every kind. Wow. Pretty clear.
Sam earlier gave us the second part, part B, of the healthy relationship formula. Be humble, think of others as better than you. What does that mean? Have the internal strength and courage to live in a way that not everything is about you.
Sam explained something earlier that was brilliant. He helped us see that in our relationships, we can add drama or we can end drama. When we live with pride and arrogance, it’s like adding gas to a fire. It always leads to extra drama. However, when we live with humility, it’s like throwing water on a fire. We don’t make relationships worse, we make them better. How? We have the internal strength to know our value and treat others like they matter.
This week we jump into part three, part C, of a healthy relationship. Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing.
Think about Paul’s formula for healthy relationships. If God’s grace has impacted you in any real way, it will change how you enter your relationships. We make three choices. First, you won’t be selfish. You won’t be a ‘me first even if it hurts you’ kinda of person. Secondly, you will be humble and value others. You won’t be the person who throws gas on a fire because you view others as valuable. And if you see others as valuable, you will naturally care about their needs and their concerns.
Stop and think about this. What relationship do you have that wouldn’t be transformed if you lived out those three verses? Your marriage. Your friendships. Your church. Your work. Your in-laws. Etc.
Now to be clear, very clear, I want to take a real quick time out and talk about what Paul didn’t say. Paul didn’t say don’t be happy. He said don’t be selfish. He did not say don’t be happy. No, it’s good to be happy. It’s good to search for happiness. Paul said, don’t be selfish. That’s different than happiness.
Paul didn’t say, live like you have no value, almost worthless. Paul said be humble. He didn’t say live like you have no worth. No, it’s good to see and know you are valuable. It’s good to know you are a son or a daughter of God. Paul said, have the internal strength to be humble. That’s different from being prideful or arrogant.
Paul didn’t say don’t think about yourself. Paul said, think of others too. He did not say, never think about yourself. He simply said, be interested in others too. It’s good to take care of your stuff but as you do that, don’t always think about yourself, be aware of what is happening in other people’s life.
Does that make sense? Can you see how unhealthy people could miss understand this and be weird about it? Okay, time back in.
Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing.
Couple of things to live this out. I want to share four things we know about every person you meet and the one thing we do to mess up our relationships.
First, every person you meet, has hurts, wounds, and insecurities. And I might add, they are trying to hide it.
Recently, Karen and I were in Walmart with our daughter. She talked about how awkward it can be to be in social settings. I asked her, do you want to know the secret to everyone everywhere in every social setting? Here is how you should view everyone you ever meet. In general, when you walk into a room everyone is focused on themselves. They walk in so much insecurity, they can only think about themselves. In social settings, you should pull out of thinking about yourself and have courage to simply be yourself.
Why do I say this? Because every person you meet, has hurts, wounds, and insecurities. And they are trying to hide it. No matter how confident they are, no matter the title in front of their name, everyone has hurts, wounds, and insecurities. How do I know? Because I have hurts, wounds and insecurities. You have hurts, wounds, and insecurities. And what do we tend to do in every social setting? We are very focused on ourselves, and we desperately try to hide our hurts, wounds, and insecurities.
As Paul taught, the way you build a healthy relationship with people, take the initiative and take the focus off of yourself and focus on them. How are they feeling? How are they doing? What is happening in their life? Pull out of your world, your hurts, wounds, and insecurities, and focus on others.
If you want healthy relationships, you will need to take the focus off of you and think about them. So before you make an assumption about someone, get to know them first.
Second, every person you meet is living out what they have been told or experienced.
This is huge. Ever wonder why someone is the way they are? Why, maybe, is your husband so angry? Why, maybe, is your wife so controlling? Why is your boss so mean? Why is it no one seems to step up and help lead? Why do so many of us believe God isn’t with us?
People live out as adults, what they were told or experienced as kids. The angry husband can be from a dad who never took the time to build a relationship with him. The controlling wife can be from struggling to sense God’s security and His love for her. The mean boss can be from being raised from a parent and they could never be good enough. No one seems to take leadership roles because that wasn’t modeled for them. They grew up and learned to play it safe. Don’t believe God is with you? Chances are you grew up in a rules-based religion and you learned you were never good enough.
When dealing with people, every person you meet is living out what they have been told or what they experienced.
Maybe before you assume things about them, you should get to know them first. That means take the focus off of you and think about them.
Third, every person you meet needs to hear kind words.
There is no one I know who wants you to say awful things to them. What do you think when I say, every person needs to hear kind words? Do you think it is a children’s ministry lesson? Kinda simple? Maybe you are above this simple principle? It’s probably one of the hardest things you will ever live out.
Scripture has a lot to say about the words that come out of our mouths.
Kind words are like honey – sweet to the soul and healthy for the body. NLT Proverbs 16:24
So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark. TLB James 3:5
Did you know it takes 5 kind comments to offset 1 mean comment? Do you realize what this means? Every critical word out of your mouth has five times the impact that a compliment has. Your mean words, cuts, put downs, criticisms are like a wrecking ball to relationships. Take the negative things you say, multiply it five times, and that is your impact on others.
Every criticism of your spouse privately or in front of others, you are doing five times the damage, a wrecking ball. Every mean comment to your boss, pastor, friend, teacher, you are doing five times the damage, a wrecking ball. Every put down of your children in the middle of your frustration, you are doing five times the damage, a wrecking ball. Do you see what I am saying? People are walking around destroyed because of what comes out of our mouths. And worst of all, we think one compliment will make up for all the exponential bad comments. And if you think that, you couldn’t be more wrong. Reality is, you will need to take one positive comment and do it five times, and that’s just to break even.
Every human soul you meet, needs kind words. This isn’t a children’s ministry lesson. Words have the power to transform people around you.
Maybe before you allow words to come flopping out of your mouth, you should get to know them first and build them up.
Before we move on, let’s ask a few questions. What words come out of your mouth in the relationships you are in? Your mother-in-law. Your children. Your spouse. Those you go to school with. Your leaders at work, at church, in the community.
Lastly, every person you meet needs, or will need, your forgiveness.
Every person you meet, will at some point, disappoint you. And I might add, that includes you. You probably won’t meet your own standards. So, get ready to forgive others and yourself.
How do most people live? We are so naïve. We aren’t ready to forgive people, are we? We don’t even think about it. We walk into relationships. We have expectations of others and ourselves. Then others disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves. How do we react? We act surprised and shocked. We are hurt. We are angry and confused. We talk about how hard it is to forgive. Truth is, you should expect to be disappointed or hurt at some point, it shouldn’t be a shock. How do we know this? Because people are imperfect. And that includes you.
Every person you meet needs, or will need, your forgiveness. And that includes you.
How do we live out the third part of the healthy relationship formula, the part C part?
Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing.
Before we enter into relationships, we must understand those key principles. Every person you meet, has hurts, wounds, and insecurities. Every person you meet, is living out what they have been told or experienced. Every person you meet needs kind words. Every person you meet needs, or will need, your forgiveness.
Maybe the greatest thing you can do is before you make assumptions, get to know them.
What is the one thing we do to mess it all up? Instead of getting to know people, we make quick assumptions about them, don’t we? Assumptions ruin relationships. Why? Because you don’t know if what you assumed is real. And because it’s not real, you leave reality and live in a fake world that you made up. Almost like creating your own world of lollipops, unicorns and fairies.
Real quickly let me ask you; do you make assumptions about people without confirming the truth? Is that normal for you? Then do you talk to others about the assumptions you made?
How much time have you wasted making the assumption, “I am alone.” Or, “I should just give up, this will never work out.” Or, “They don’t talk to me because of something I did or said.”
How much energy have you wasted trying to make people like you more because you assumed you aren’t enough?
How many times did you compare yourself to others and make the assumption, “Their life is easy, my life is harder.”
How many times did you share your assumptions with friends? We call it gossip.
Evil people relish malicious conversation; the ears of liars itch for dirty gossip. MSG Proverbs 17:4
Do you see how assumptions ruin relationships? When we make assumptions, we can’t love others well. We need to pull out of our fake world of lollipops, unicorns and fairies, and live in reality.
To love well means, I spend time with people, get to know them before I flop junk out of my mouth.
Paul wrote this.
1 Is there any such thing as Christians cheering each other up? Do you love me enough to want to help me? Does it mean anything to you that we are brothers in the Lord, sharing the same Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic at all? 2 Then make me truly happy by loving each other and agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, working together with one heart and mind and purpose. 3 Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. 4 Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing. TLB Philippians 2:1-4
As disciples of Jesus, we make a decision. We enter relationships differently.
Every person you meet, has hurts, wounds, and insecurities. Every person you meet, is living out what they have been told or experienced. Every person you meet needs kind words. Every person you meet needs, or will need, your forgiveness.
The greatest thing you can do is before you make assumptions, get to know them.