Relationships Matter! Part 1

We gather to worship and exalt the name of Jesus Christ, our risen King. Today, provides us another opportunity to fall more in love with Jesus Christ as we seek to follow Him as His disciples.

If you are visiting with us this morning, we want you to who we are here at Ephesus...

We are all one family of faith: “giving our all to love God, love people, proclaim Jesus, and make disciples in our generation.”

That is our mission, our purpose, why we exist as a church.

We have a connect card in the pew in front of you. I invite you to take one and fill it out! If you have prayer needs, you can let us know about those as well.

I promise, our prayer team will lift you up your request confidentially. You can place those cards in the offering plate when it comes around.

Scripture Memory

Colossians 1:15–16 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Colossians 1:17–18 ESV

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Opening Scripture Reading

1 John 1:1–2:6 ESV

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Prayer of Confession and Invocation

Relationships Matter!

Introduction

Relationships Matter!

Relationships Matter! Today, In our society, three institutions, each ordained by God are under attack, and they are under attack at the point of personal relationships. Those three institutions are Marriage, Family, and the Church!

I don’t even need to offer proof that we are watching a deadly attack happen before our eyes. The signs are abundantly clear all around us. I could draw upon numerous statistical studies to prove the point, but would that really change the problem, No!

John MacArthur commented over 20 years ago that,

“We are all constantly looking at the parade in the media of divorce, sexual rebellion, abortion, sterilization, delinquency, infidelity, homosexuality, women’s liberation, children’s rights and so on. That has been continually paraded before us for the last ten or twelve years.”

So at least for the past 30-40 years, we have had modern culture gladly carving out the tombstone for marriage and family. In treating marriage and family so begrudgingly, this culture has turned sharply against the very instrument ordained by God to foster healthy relationships, healthy marriages, and healthy families.

In a book entitled, The Death of the Family, a leading British existentialist psychiatrist, David Graham suggests “doing away with the family completely … he says … because it is a primary conditioning device for a western imperialistic world view.” That book by the way was first published in 1971!

Before that, in 1969, Kate Millet, a very prominent bi-sexual feminist, wrote a book called Sexual Politics and in it she insisted that the family must go because it oppresses and enslaves women.

She attacked the very underpinning of marriage, family, and the church because she was waging war with the Biblical idea of patriarchy. The idea that men are ordained by God to lead their marriages, their families, and yes even the church!

Sadly, many have bought into these attacks and now hold the view that marriage is simply legalized servitude, that family relationships are the basis for all human oppression, and that the church insistent on an outdated model of patriarchy must be vastly altered or destroyed altogether.

Currently, we have debates going on in the church over these very issues. Our Methodist brethren are coming up on a potential vote over these issues that will have wide ranging ramifications for not only their denomination, but for all of modern day Christianity.

Within our own Southern Baptist Convention, these issues are being discussed and debated and in some cases sadly promoted by top leadership.

It all comes from a warped view of marriage, family, and the church. Really it is misunderstanding of the fact that relationships matter. Today we are going to focus on understanding the most important of all relationships. The relationship that undergirds all other relationships.

We are in our Sermon Series titled, Thrive 2020: We Were Created To Do More Than Survive!

We are discussing how you can thrive in your house and in God’s house.

Using the acronym THRIVE, we have already seen that the “T” represents our need to be a people intent on Trusting God in all Things!

We also looked at “H” our need to Heighten the Habits of Holiness in our lives!

Today, we are going to begin to look at “R.” “R” deals with our need to understand that Relationships Matter! Especially those relationships that define us as believers.

This morning we are going to peel the veil back a little and begin looking at five areas of life where we as the church must be leading and excelling in concerning our relationships because each of these relationships matters! We will not get through all five today!

1. Our relationship with our God matters! (1 John 2:28-3:3; Col 3:1-4; Eph 2:19-20; and Eph 5:1-2, 30)

1 John 2:28–3:3 ESV

28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. 1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Look especially at 1 John 3:1!

We are God’s family! Family matters to God! He calls those of us who have trusted in His Son, Jesus Christ, He calls us “Children of God!” That reveals His love for us! It also reveals the importance of the concept of family! Family matters!

Family includes those who are our family by birth, but God took it one step further to include as family those who are our family by the new birth found only in our Salvation relationship with Jesus!

The reason family is under attack by the world around us is because world doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus!

Colossians 3:1–4 ESV

1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Christian, do you understand the wholeness you have in Christ? Not only did we die with Christ, we get to live in Christ! That is in relationship to Him! Look back a verse 3,

Colossians 3:3 ESV

3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is the beauty that lies at the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus! We are in Christ and Christ is in us! Christ is our life now and will be our life forever! Our whole life is summed up in who Christ is!

Now, I want you to think about this with me. This is huge. The wholeness we have in Christ, if Christ is our lives, that wholeness affects the way we relate to other people.

Let’s be honest, all of us without exception, when it comes to human relationships, all of us have hurts and pain and wounds, we all do.

Whenever we come into a relationship with someone, we bring the hurts and wounds and pain of our past relationships. And it doesn’t mean that those relationships in the past were bad, maybe those relationships in the past were wonderful, and then they were taken away from us, whether through death or divorce, or whatever it might’ve been.

But the fact remains, we bring to the table of new relationships all kinds of hurts and pains and wounds from our past relationships.

But the beauty of Colossians 3:1-4 is that when you trust in Christ and you die with Christ and now you live in Christ then He makes us whole and He frees us, He frees us from finding our sufficiency in relationships with others. He frees us to find our sufficiency in a relationship with Him.

We have entered into the beauty of a relationship with Christ where He is literally our everything. He frees us from the wounds of the past and even the wounds of the future. He is our everything. He is our total sufficiency.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all we need is Christ, it doesn’t mean that we don’t need each other. Scripture clearly calls us together as family and tells us that God has designed us to rely on each other and depend on each other.

At the same time, when we come to a relationship with each other, we have to bring with us this picture of being whole, completely whole in Christ. That picture says, “I don’t need you to make me whole and you don’t need me to make you whole, the beauty of it is Christ makes us whole.”

I hope that’s good news to some of you sitting across this room, who even today are sitting here with some deep wounds and deep hurts and deep pain from opening yourselves up to relationships.

I want to remind you that Christ makes you whole. Christ makes you whole. It doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but the beauty of Colossians 3 is that Christ makes us whole in Himself.

Not only does Christ make us whole, he wholly accepts us into relationship with Himself. All that is His, He freely gives to us!

Ephesians 2:19–20 ESV

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

Little children of God, made whole in Christ, do you realize that you are now part of something much bigger than yourself? You are now citizens of God’s household!

What being a citizen of God’s household looks like is spelled out for us in the remainder of Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5.

Our relationship with God matters because it calls us to a higher responsibility concerning how we live our lives as His children!

Colossians 3:5–11 ESV

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

In our new relationship, certain things are put to death! Things that destroy us, things that are a part of our earthly nature, our sin nature!

The language of verses 9-10 is literally, “you’ve changed clothes.” You’ve taken off this old set of clothes, and put on a whole new set of clothing! The old self is gone, you have put on a new self when Christ becomes your all in all!

We are not to live out our relationships the way we once did! Now we can develop new relationship practices that come straight from the image of our creator. Because of our new life in Christ, we can walk in new ways, the past no longer has hold of us unless we let it!

There is a better, more excellent way!

Colossians 3:12–13 ESV

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Colossians 3:14–17 ESV

14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Part of our problem in past relationships is that we give them too much leverage! Turn them over to Christ this morning and do what Paul says in this passage!

Paul says it all again in a remarkably consistent fashion in his letter to the church of Ephesus!

So Ephesus, listen to your letter this morning!

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

So as beloved children, we are to imitate our Heavenly Father and walk in love! Not only in our Father’s love, but also in the sacrificial love of Jesus!

Ephesians 5:8–11 ESV

8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Flee the darkness of the sinful past, and run into the light of the Lord as Children of the light! Seek to please the Lord!

How do we please the Lord?

Ephesians 5:15–17 ESV

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Too many of us look at the will of the Lord as some kind of road map for life. If we do this, we get this. If we go there, we will find this. etc. etc.

We should never look at the will of the Lord like a road map. The will of the Lord is not a road map, it is a relationship!

It is a relationship that God desires. He wants you to give Him your cares and your worries and your anxieties. He wants you to share with Him your troubles.

As that relationship deepens each and every day, He wants to fill us with His Spirit. He wants us to learn to live in Him! To experience true love and joy! A joy that overflows into a lifestyle of melodious gratitude that spills over into the lives of others who need to experience a relationship with the Creator of all things!

Ephesians 5:18–20 ESV

18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

It is in that spirit of Gratitude that we can all live together in harmony as we learn to humbly submit ourselves into a relationship with each other out of reverence for Christ!

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

In the great marriage passage of Ephesians 5, we see what this is to look like in the body of marriage and family. We will look more into this next week, suffice it say that even in the marriage covenant, we see the vestige of God’s desire for a relationship with His people.

Ephesians 5:30 ESV

30 because we are members of his body.

Family matters! Marriage matters! Church matters! Relationships matter!

Why? Because!

Our relationship with our God matters!

His creation,

His pursuit,

His redemption,

His gospel!

This should cause us to examine our relationship with our God!

We should regularly ask ourselves questions like:

Is my body consecrated to God? Are we living pure lives physically, sexually?

Is my mind clean before God? Are my thoughts pure and holy and righteous?

Are my desires controlled by God? Am I running after God in all things or am I controlled by my lust for the things of this world?

Is my heart content in God? Do I find my satisfaction and joy in my worship of God and God alone? Or am I wanting things that God has not designed for me? Have I established idols that I am worshiping in place of Jesus Christ?

Do I harbor bitterness?

Am I quick to become angry?

Is there anyone I have hostility toward?

Do I ever speak negatively about anyone?

Are my words offensive to others?

Do I Gossip or misrepresent the truth?

Do I extend God’s grace to others?

Does my kindness spur others towards a relationship with Christ?

Am I patient with others?

Am I willing to endure hardship with others?

Do I forgive others completely?

2. Our relationship with our spouse matters! (Col 3:18-19; Eph 5:21-33)

3. Our relationship with our family matters! (Col 3:20-21; Eph 6:1-4)

4. Our relationship with our co-workers matters! (Col 3:22-4:1; Eph 6 5-9)

5. Our relationship with our church family matters! (Eph 2:19-22; Eph 5 21-33; Col 3:12-17)

Related Media

Related Sermons