What Is “The Right Relationship With Jesus”? by Grant S. Sisson
Yesterday was a long hard day for me. After the Board meeting yesterday morning, Ann and I went to White House, TX to visit my dad, who, as you know, is suffering with terminal cancer. The Hospice people had arranged all this in advance, and it had taken quite an effort to get all the family there at the same time, but we got there about three o’clock in the afternoon and spent better than two hours recording a session where we spoke of childhood memories, asked Dad about his childhood and early adult years, and just generally got an afternoon’s worth of laughing and crying in.
Have you ever felt the need to talk of the next life with someone who is dying? Someone you are very close to? I have been struggling for years really trying to figure a way to bring the subject up with Dad, but now there is no more time to figure. I know every time that I get a chance to see him that it may very well be the last. Now my father is a good man, very family oriented, has always worked hard to care for his family and been kind to strangers. But I just didn’t know what to expect when I asked him about his relationship with Jesus.
How do you know that your relationship with Jesus is right? We hear people use that term often – “right relationship with Jesus.” But what does it mean, and how do we know when we’ve got it?
Most world religions consist of a set of rules and commandments to obey. They say, “If you do theses things you will reach Nirvana, or get your seventy virgins, or go to heaven.” This leaves us in a bit of a quandary. Whose rules are right? Especially since the rules often directly contradict one another. How do we know that a good Jewish person is better off than a good Muslim, or a good Hindu – or vice versa? Especially since no one has ever obeyed all the rules – anyone’s rules – perfectly.
So the first thing we need to approach is the idea of reward. Hard to do – it makes such intuitive sense. It seems that if we do all the right good things that all will be well. And surely someone has come up with all the right rules somewhere – we come from the Judeo-Christian heritage, so the Ten Commandments would be our first bet, right?
Looks good. Exodus 20:1-17:
Basically says this:
God says “Don’t worship any other gods besides Me.”
Don’t make idols to bow down to.
And He says, “Don’t use My name in a flippant or vulgar way, especially to condemn your brothers.” Respect My Name.
Keep this one day every week holy. You are to worship me on that day, and cease from all your labors in order to focus your spiritual energies on remembering Me.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Well, that sounded like a good approach, but how many of us in this room right now are not guilty of violating any of these rules? (Note that your preacher is not raising his hand - nor is he asking for a show of hands! Enumerate –“How many have never used God’s name in vain? How many have ALWAYS honored their parents? How many have never committed adultery? How many have never stolen, nor coveted someone else’s possessions? If we could pick and choose, and say that not violating one of them was all that we needed, we might be OK. but that’s not what it says. Scripture tells us that if one is guilty of violating one of the rules, he is a lawbreaker.) And what is the penalty for violation of the rules? God’s punishment. And if there aren’t any people in this room that are perfect, I’ll bet that there are no other rooms this morning in which there are any perfect people. Well, strike one, nobody’s going to heaven because nobody can keep the rules.
But suppose that somebody could. Suppose that there was super-saint out there somewhere over the rainbow who had never violated any of these rules, nor any of the 613 ordinances that went with them. Who’s to say that this person even knows who God is? One could obey a set of laws without knowing who wrote them – do any of you here know who wrote the IRS regulations that you are commanded to obey each April 15th? And yet you (I suppose) obey them. It would be a distant God indeed who would be satisfied with that arrangement. Strike two.
And there is so much more to the spirit of man than just our behavior. What motivates us to do any specific thing? We have emotions, which have been called “energy in motion.” Emotions give us the physiological boost necessary to act. And how do we choose what to do, how to act when our emotions are driving us? We think (well, we have the capacity to think, anyway!) So we are made up of thinking, feeling AND acting, and these three are interconnected into a whole entity that we know as a “human being.” And God made us to be whole, complete people, and behavioral standards don’t work because they don’t approach what it is that motivates us to choose what to do – the thinking and feeling behind the acting. There are many times we are motivated to do things that are not according to these behavioral rules, and the law not only doesn’t, but CAN”T, help people. The only thing the law can do is condemn people who violate the rules, without giving them any help in controlling the deeper motivations within their hearts. How many in here NEVER violate, and HAVE NEVER VIOLATED, the speed limits? Why did you go faster than the law allows? You had your reasons, right? You were motivated to violate the law because: you were in a hurry; you were late for church; the guy ahead of you was driving in some nutzoid way that drives you crazy so you just had to pass him up; fast is fun; or maybe you were just in a foul mood and didn’t really care what the world thought about it. And having some yoyo whose not even here get all bent about it, well, they’ll just have to get over it!
And the law says, “I don’t care why. Why is irrelevant. Your behavior is all that matters. You broke the law, you pay the fine.” Religious laws are the same way. Have you ever coveted something that belongs to another? Have you ever committed adultery? Have you ever stolen from someone? Then you are guilty, and the law doesn’t care why.
Funny how the law is so good at pointing out sin and executing judgment, but is absolutely and totally powerless to help anyone recover from the error of their ways and live a better life. In fact, that’s why the Apostle Paul called it, “The Law of sin and death.” All it can do is point out flaws, make you feel like it would have been better if you’d never been born, and then send you to perdition.
Dad of course understood the idea of punishment for wrongdoing. Even though he should be rewarded for many things, and as much as I admire him, he is human, and thus would fall under the same condemnation that everyone else does if law was all there was. I wish it weren’t so, but Rom 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God,” and Rom 6:23 “The wages of sin is death.”
So where do you go from there? How do you instill hope when your loved one is staring the Grim Reaper right square in the face?
So here is where it gets serious. Do you believe in God? Most people will answer that they do. Look at the world around us – the incredible complexity of life, the very motion of the planets that must be exactly so or life would be impossible. We all know that the world was created; Rom 1:20 “For since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…” In other words, we know of God because there is a creation whose intricacy and elegance reflect the glory of God – His invisible attributes. Now if God created life itself, it is not much of a stretch to say that God could take on human form and live among His creation; nor is it far-fetched to say that He could take someone who dies and make them alive again – after all, He made them alive in the first place. Then what is to keep Him from dying, then coming back to life again, to lead us through the process of dying spiritually – to sin – in order to live a new life? Any good leader will do what he asks his followers to do, will lead them where he wants them to go. And he wants us to be born again; not the physical birth over again, as Nicodemus thought, but a birth of a different sort, a different mode. A birth of the spirit. A birth into a new life. A birth into life with God forever.
And that life is much more than simply having a set of rules to follow – the Ten Commandments or any other laws. God is love, as we have been studying in class, and if we love, we have no need of rules that say “Thou shalt not kill”, or “Thou shalt not steal”, for how can we harm those we love? Therefore, just as Jesus pointed out and as even the Old Testament itself insists, love is the fulfillment of the Law
(Matt 22:35-39)
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’
38 This is the first and great commandment.’
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
And here he’s not talking about the warm fuzzy, feel-good love, for it is impossible to force an emotion. Emotions occur spontaneously, and the emotion itself simply is what it is. But agape love is the kind that Jesus had for us when He died for our sins on the cross. It is a choice to behave in a manner that is in the other’s best interests even when I don’t feel like it. It is a choice to be kind and gracious, like God was to me when He took my place on that cross. So I can choose to love – that is, choose to behave in the other’s best interests – even my enemies. And if I love like that, there is no reason to impose a set of rules that say “do no harm.”
And if I love like that, I will choose to wait upon the Lord. I will choose to behave in a way that shines God’s light into the world. And I will have that right relationship with Jesus; I will walk with Him because of what he has done for me. I will see his love for me every day in the things that happen in my life, and I will be filled with an overwhelming desire to behave in a way that glorifies the One I love so very much. I will add to my faith virtue, not because that’s the kind of person I am, but because that’s the kind of person Jesus wants me to be, and it is no longer I who live, but Jesus lives in me. I will add to my virtue knowledge, because I want to be close to Him, and studying about his life, his teachings, the prophecies that foretold his coming, and all the other things about him are so fascinating to me now. I will add to my knowledge self-control, because Jesus controlled his own desires to call down the legion of angels to save him from the cross, when that was completely within his power to do. I will add to my self-control perseverance, because nothing matters anymore but sharing Jesus with a sin sick and dying world, and I don’t care about what happens to me anymore, only glorifying Jesus. I will add to my perseverance godliness, because Jesus is my hero, and I want to be just like Him. I will add to my godliness brotherly kindness, not just to those who are my brothers and sisters in Christ but to all, because Jesus loved us all. And I will add to my brotherly kindness, love, the capstone of the Christian life, the very foundation of everything, because God is love.
Our sins were pointed out by the law, and the punishment was executed, but Jesus took the blow, Jesus died in our place. Jesus led us through the grave into a new life, and those who follow him into his death shall never die.
I shared much of this with my dad yesterday, and I hope he heard what I meant. I think he did. I told him that even if the cancer somehow left him and he lived another twenty years, as I hope does happen, still dust we are, and to dust we shall someday return. Some day we will all pass through to the other side, and I am doing everything I know to do – I am being all I know to be – to be in heaven with my Jesus, to see what kind of mansion he has prepared for me, to enjoy the bliss that awaits. I told my father that I want him to be there too.
And I am telling you that I want you to be there too. Are you ready? Have you been washed in Jesus’ blood, born again into the new life? Are you a child of the Father?
If not, make it right, right now. Come forward and be baptized, and wash away your sin, as we stand and sing.
