The Storms of Life
Relationship Storms
CCCAG July 14th, 2019
Scripture- Genesis 2:18
Intro:
One of the benefits of being a bivocational pastor is that I get to meet real people in real situations instead of sitting in a church office all day.
Over the years as a paramedic I've had dozens of different partners on the ambulance. A few of them have been Christians but most of them have not.
I once had a 19-year-old partner, we will call him Steve, who had just graduated from EMT school. He was young full of energy and willing to learn. He was also a nonstop talker which I found exhausting, but we got along pretty well.
One of the things he talked about the most was about his love life. He was a hopeless and frankly unrealistic romantic. His love life had a very predictable pattern-
1. He would meet a new girl, and they would go out on a first date. The next time I worked with him, he would talk about how she is “the one” and I’d hear all about the future he had planned for them.
2. Second date- again, she’s the perfect woman for me. I love her so much my heart is bursting and it’s almost a physical pain to have to come to work and be apart from her. He spent the entire shift texting her love notes.
Late into the second date, he says the magic words to her- “I love you”
3. Third date- he sees a flaw, and spend the next several hours exploring her flaws with me. About 50% of the woman never made it past this date.
4. Fourth Date- Man, this woman is a mess. I better break it off with her right now before it gets much more serious. You have to help me break it off.
Obviously, Steve was an example of a person who had difficulties in his relationships, and would often be tossed and turned in the waves of emotions that relationships can bring us.
Today we are going to be talking about some of the most gut-wrenching storms we can go through in life, and those have to do with our relationships.
The reason that a storm in our relationships can be so devastating is because the closer the relationship, the more your own emotional wellbeing is dependent upon that person.
As we all know, emotions can be messy things.
With all of that, our God is a God that is a relational being.
This attribute of God is seen throughout creation, in both in inanimate object such as the relationships between planets and their stars, even in the smallest unit of matter- the atom and the way the electrons are bound to the protons and neutrons.
We also see this in living creations between different animal species. Most animals on this earth live in some type of community.
Human beings being the highest level of creation on this earth were designed by our creator to live in community.
God is all about relationships.
In fact, when He created humanity, God created the male first, and had this to say about him.
Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him
Prayer
We are going to explore today is how to deal with relationship problems. To do that, let’s set a foundation and look at the different kinds of relationships we have.
First- The importance of Relationships
One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, is quoted as saying this about relationships-
“Be very slow in choosing your friends and be even slower about leaving them.” This is true no matter how superficial or how deep a relationship is.
The big idea today is this-
Our lives have never been meant to be lived alone. We are always called to live in community with others through varying levels of relationship.
I've said this over and over again but in case you missed it I am very much an introvert. So much so that when I was younger I had a dream of coming into a lot of money and buying a decent sized cabin with a ton of land and a good fishing pond somewhere in Montana where my nearest neighbor was at least 5 miles away.
I still carry a little bit of that dream with me today but I have also come to realize that if God gave me that dream I would never grow into the person that he wants and needs me to be to fulfill his Kingdom purpose.
God is all about relationships. Relationships are central to God’s nature.
You can see the importance of relationships just by looking at God Himself. God is three people in one Godhead.
I’ll tell you now, if you try to figure out the trinity, you won’t. Just accept it by faith.
One of the things I’m thinking about for the fall is to do a doctrine series on the 16 Fundamental beliefs of our fellowship, and this will be covered in depth, but for now let’s just accept it as bible truth.
You don’t get a more perfect relationship than you see in the trinity- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existing as one. Since God is a relational God, He imprinted on us humans His nature when he created us.
The bible says God created us in His image, and His image is that of a relational being. That’s why He said, “If it not good for man to be alone”
That’s why God says to you and me this morning- it’s not good for you to be alone.
I would illustrate why community and relationships are important like this- if you and I are plants, other people are the water that makes us grow.
Let me continue that illustration a little
Have any of you ever had that one neighbor that never takes care of their property? They're the ones that have bush is in front of their house that have never been trimmed. That bush that is scraggly and unkempt and just look horrible.
If you as a stranger were to walk up to the bush and ask it, ”Mister bush, do you mind if I take these shears and trim off some of your wild shoots and branches that are sticking out all over the place?” the bush would probably respond with, “No way, that’s going to hurt, and who are you to judge my appearance?”
But what if you were the owner and planter of that bush? Your relationship with that bush would open up the doors of trust so that your trimming would be seen in a different light- something to make the bush more beautiful or healthy.
That’s the value of relationships to us.
Relationships are those shears that help us trim off the wild parts of our nature, and love is the glue that keeps us from wanting to run away whenever those shears come out.
That’s a major reason that God wants us to live lives that are relational with other people. People, particularly the people of likeminded faith, are the shears He uses to trim away the wild areas of our lives, and bring them under control so that the end product is a beautiful representation of God’s nature and character.
That the importance of relationships, but we are talking about the storms that come into our relationships, so what happens when they go south?
Let’s look at a few different kinds of relationships to answer that question.
I. Problems in Relationships
All of us have three levels of relationships.
1. Acquaintances.
This is the most superficial level of relationship that most of us have. These may be our neighbors that we wave at a few times a year, the waiter or waitress in a restaurant that we know by name, or the cashier at the local store that we have small conversations with whenever we go shopping. If one of these people were to suddenly disappear it would be a small topic of conversation before, we went on to more important things like the weather. There really isn’t much of an emotional investment, and that is why they are considered acquaintances. If they suddenly moved away, you really wouldn’t feel it like you would the next level, and that is -
2. Friends
The next level of relationship would be people we would call friends. There are probably a few different levels here but for the most part a friend would be the person you'd call on if you needed a favor. The main difference is that you make an emotional investment in your friends.
They're the ones who show up when things aren’t going well in your life and offer help. If people are close friends these are the ones that you share the deep things with. The deep things are your dreams your emotions what's going on in your life those kinds of things. Many times, friendships can last for an entire lifetime but sometimes life gets in the way and perhaps you or they move away and you lose touch with them, but when you think about them there is that part of you that misses them.
The next level is the deepest level
3. Family
The final level of relationship is that of your family. In our time and in our culture, the word family is a fairly fluid word in that it does not necessarily mean those who share common genetics with.
For some people who had a more traumatic upbringing, often their friends are more closer than those they share a bloodline with. Over the years many people have told me that they feel closer to their church family then they do their real family.
We see this in many of the studies that have been done about the draw of the gangster or gang affiliated lifestyle- young people needing that close connection even when it comes with a great deal of horrific consequences.
It all comes down to those people needing that kind of close relationship that we call family and so they are willing too often do very antisocial things to have that sense of belonging to a group that offers that kind of relationship.
Family is the level of greatest emotional investment. When you lose a member of your family this can cause the greatest emotional and even spiritual trauma to a person.
I have had quite a few friends and acquaintances over the years that have died and while I did mourn their passing, it didn’t stop my life like losing my mom or my grandparents.
Now that we’ve established that,
What happens when this storm of life hit you in your most vulnerable areas- that of your relationships?
So the first questions you have to ask when the relationship storms hit and there is a fight between you and a friend or loved one is this- is this an eternal issue, or a preference or opinion you are fighting over?
Let’s just start by saying that 99% of the time, the things we fight over are NOT salvation issues. I would define a salvation issue, or an eternal issue as one that not standing firm in a conviction would endanger my relationship with God.
Those are hills worth dying on or ending relationships over because no one is worth going to hell for.
But again if we are honest, most of the relationship storms we encouters are not about eternal issues.
So what do you do when the people you trust and love the most start saying hurtful things that really rock your world and damage your soul?
I was listening to a podcast from one of the pastors that I listen to and he gave this advice :
“When people are throwing rocks of accusation your way, even if these people are enemies , it's good to pick up the rock and look at it and ask yourself these two questions:
1. Is it true? If it’s not, throw the rock away. However, if there is some truth there, go to question 2-
2. Is it helpful? If I face this truth and apply it to my life, will it help me be a better person and/or help me exhibit he nature of God more fully? If this question is yes, keep the rock and be thankful that they pointed it out regardless of their intent.
When it comes to hurtful words and actions most people, particularly where we live, don’t go out of their ways to be a jerk to you. We live in a fairly friendly area.
Because I spent a lot of time in Hayward with my grandparents growing up, I thought I had a good handle on small town living when we moved up here from a city of over 100,000. However, my first year here was very eye opening in that I had a lot of problems at work because people thought that I was arrogant and a jerk. What I didn't realize initially is that the way you talk to people in a city is very different to the way you talk to people who come from small towns.
In the city you are very blunt, short, and to the point. That manner of talking to people is considered to be very rude where we live in central Wisconsin. Sitting down with my boss for my yearly review, he told me that some of the staff couldn’t stand working with me. I was really surprised and hurt because I thought I got along great with everyone.
He told me this- “If a critical patient were to come in right now, there is no one I’d want in that room more than you. However, at the same time, there is no one I’d rather have not be in the room than you. You are great at your job, but not so great at communicating or being a team member and it’s disruptive to the team”
I really didn’t know what to think until one of our social workers pulled me aside after a critical patient and counseled me a little.
During the patient care, I had told the truth to a family member in the middle of doing a critical procedure where I was extremely focused on accomplishing the task. The task was inserting a breathing tube into the trachea so we could breath for the patient, but the task is very time sensitive and very apt to go wrong unless you do exactly it right. There is no room for error- if you get it wrong and don’t catch that it’s wrong, the patient dies.
However, I spoke in what I now call my “city speak” to the patient’s family, and the patient and the rest of the staff had, well, not so flattering things to say about me even though I helped save the patient’s life.
The social worker told me that she knew I moved up here from Kenosha, which from a behavioral and sociological perspective is more closely related to Chicago than it is Wisconsin, so my manor of speaking is considered to be very rude to people here in central Wisconsin as people here place a premium on being nice over being blunt.
I tell you all of this to illustrate this-
I finally understood the rocks being thrown at me from everyone.
It made me start really thinking before I spoke and since then I get along with everyone, and when I can’t think of a nice way of putting something that needs to be said, I predicate what I’m about to say with, “This might be my city side coming out” so they know I’m not intentionally being rude.
I use that as an example of taking a storm in a relationship and using it to allow God to shape part of His character inside of us.
We have to remember that often these relationship storms are temporary and usually over dumb things. That’s why we have to follow old Ben’s advice in being slow to enter into friendships and being even slower in leaving them.
Another rule I’ve learned to follow is this-
Relationships storms can often make us do stupid things or make foolish decisions that can be life altering.
Never made a decision in the heat of the moment, especially when it comes to relationships.
We really do ourselves and those around us a disservice when we make a rash decision about a relationship.
And we do that so easily today-
I’ve known people that end a friendship over one disagreement on social media.
Can I ask a question? This might be a city-speak way of asking but it needs to be said-
When did we, as a society, become so thinned skinned that we would jeopardize months or years of friendship over something that in the end has no eternal value?
Even those things that have eternal significance should be dealt with in love and charity. We should do everything we can to preserve the relationship, unless it comes to the point of messing up our relationship with God, which always takes priority.
That takes us to our next point-
II. Remember to preserve the most important relationship
This doesn’t need a lot of explanation, but we should talk about it-
God is our most important relationship. Period.
I had a friend at my last job who was into Wicca. I know, a weird friendship for a pastor to have. We would have very interesting discussions about faith and belief. I invited her to church, she would invite me to come to one of their ceremonies, but neither of us took the other ones offer. She kept trying to get me to come, and I kept refusing.
I didn’t feel it would be appropriate for me as a Christian to attend a Wicca ceremony, and felt strongly enough about it to risk the friendship over that belief. But when I spoke to her about it, I gently told her my reasons, and she accepted that with grace. I still talk to her occasionally on Facebook today.
God is your primary relationship above all others. Guard that with everything in your being and the rest of your relationships will thrive.
I had to say that before our final point today-
III. The cross shows us how far we should be willing to go to save a relationship
I often quote this scripture while taking communion, because it encompasses the whole of what Jesus did for us-
2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This verse is the conclusion of a truth that the Apostle Paul was teaching us about God reconciling Himself with His rebellious creation.
There is a final point I want to make as we close about the storms in our relationships and how it applies to us today-
Think about everything God did to save the relationship with us. Jesus, the most Holy man ever to live on this earth became sin. Think of the worst thing you have ever done, or think throughout history the worst evils and atrocities that have ever been done.
Jesus became that for you. It’s like all the evil in the world was tossed into a sea, and Jesus dove into it so you didn’t have to.
He is our example, and He went and died on a Roman Cross to save the relationship between us and HIM.
Perhaps we should be willing to do the same with each other this morning.
Some of us might have to die a little to ourselves today, and ask , “Did we go as far as Jesus in trying to save a friendship, a family relationship, or even a marriage?” If there is any question in that, look to the cross.
Conclusion
Altar Call
