Learning To Serve Others Series

Learning to Serve Others

Series: Building Better RELATIONSHIPS

October 17, 2021

Intro

Today... concluding our Fall series on building better relationships.

We began the series ....hearing the words of God ... in creating human life... the Scriptures depict God saying: that it is not good for us to be alone... a declaration that echoes through our lives.

This past week... two lives that have shown to be rather astute in assessing human lives....had a public conversation. [1]

Author Brooks, of the Atlantic publication, discussed the truth about happiness with

Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, a physician and now the U.S. surgeon general. Murthy recently wrote a book that has struck at the real issue that we have avoided as a culture... the book is titled: Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. (April 2020).

Murthy -“I’ve been often quite surprised that the people I thought were perfectly content, and seemed to be out at parties all the time and have a vibrant social life, were actually often quite alone. But they didn’t feel comfortable saying that, because in the United States of America—in Western society in the modern age—to say you’re lonely, feels like saying you’re a loser, so we don’t talk about this even though millions and millions of people are struggling with loneliness.

Brooks: There’s a very famous study at the University of Rochester where students were asked about what their goals in life were, and then it followed up a year later to see whether or not they hit their goals after graduation and to see how happy they were. And those who had extrinsic goals, which is money, power and fame—they wanted to get ahead; they wanted to do really well; they wanted to make more money—they got those things. They were doing better than average. But they were a lot less happy than those who had intrinsic goals. And those intrinsic goals were all about love and relationships.

Dr. Murthy: When we give love, when we receive love, we feel replenished, we feel empowered and we’re able to do more, to be more, for those around us. That is a consistent theme in the history of humanity and borne out often by our own life experiences. I actually think we know that when we’re born. If you watch small children interact, they don’t really care how famous they are. They don’t care how much money they have, or possessions. They can be happy in a small house or a big house. But, they derive so much in those moments of love ....They hone in to what really matters.

Murthy then says...

What I can tell you is about the conversations I’ve had with many patients at the end of their life, and what is remarkably consistent about those conversations... those last moments in someone’s life, those last hours, last days when I’ve been privileged to sit by their bedside and hold their hands and look into their eyes and just hear their final reflections on their wonderful life. What people talk about in those final moments is not how big their office was or the promotion they got or the prestigious job or how big their bank account was. What people talk about are relationships. They talk about the people they loved...the people who they wish they had spent more time with.

We don’t have to wait for that time to realize what matters.

We may measure things differently—we may measure success in part by the strength of the relationships that we create. We would live and look at life very differently if we truly built our life around people.

Learning to build life around people... that is what we have been engaging.

> And we began with the good news...

We were created in connection... to know connection.

This is what Jesus comes to restore... and teach us to join.

In the Message paraphrase, says it this way....

Ephesians 5:1-2 (MSG) ?Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents... Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

The final quality that we can learn from Jesus...is that love gives...

He didn’t love to GET... but to GIVE.”

Love will give of ourselves for the sake of others.

Love does not just give to get....but gets to give.

Matthew 20:25, 28?Jesus said, "... the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

As the apostle John in the Scriptures...