Keys to Healthy Relationships
Luke 6:27-36
Main Point: To love at Christ’s commands on how we can have healthy and strong relationships with others.
Late one summer evening in Broken Bow, Nebraska, a weary truck driver pulled his rig into an all-night truck stop. The waitress had just served him when three tough looking, leather jacketed motorcyclist- of the Hell’s Angels type- decided to give him a hard time. Not only did they verbally abuse him, one grabbed the hamburger off his plate, another took a handful of his french fries, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it.
How do you think he responded? He calmly brose, picked up the check, walked to the front of the room, put the check and his money on the cash register, and went out the door. The waitress followed him to put the money in the till and stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night.
When she returned, one of the bikers said to her, “Well, he’s not much of a man, is he?” She replied, “I don’t know abou that, but he sure ain’t much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot.”
(Illustration from a sermon by Erik Estep, "Am I Really Supposed to Love My Enemies)
Many of us may understand how this truck driver feels. It is hard to be nice to some people. The gospel teaches us that I have a obligation to every person, not just to the people who are nice. We will look at today a passage where Jesus instructs his disciples on how to have a healthy relationship God’s way. (Read Scripture)
I. Principle One: We have a responsibility to love one another. This isn’t a wish, but it is a command from Christ Himself. He tells us in John 15:12 “Love each other as I have loved you.” Unfortunately, this doesn’t just mean that we love those we like. We will all have people we naturally get along with better. Christ’s command is that we love our enemies. We are to follow the example of our Lord who was loving to those who were unkind and hateful to him.
I want to say that it is impossible for you to obey this command apart from Christ’s power in you. If you remember the first and most important commandment in scripture is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. It is this love relationship with the Lord that empowers us to love other people. The equipping comes from making the Lord the Lord of your life. Your power to obey the Lord comes from your love relationship with the Lord. When I begin to love the Lord completely, then I will begin to see people the way that God sees them.
There is a battle that goes on with each Christian between the old sinful nature and the Holy Spirit residing in you. The old nature doesn’t understand the kind of love that these verses call upon. The world knows about a selfish or eros love. It knows about love is a superficial way. But, when I begin to experience God, I begin to experience a agape love. I begin to realize that God loves people who don’t love him. As I submit my life and heart to the Lord, He can grow this kind of agape love in your heart for other people.
In one of my seminary classes, a professor once said, “We have a responsiblity to treat others redemptively.” This means I am to treat others with the same kind of grace that God treats me with. If you remember we defined grace as “undeserved or unmerited favor”. The rule that should guide all of my behavior to others is here in vs.31 “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Do you want people to gossip about you? No. Do you want people to be rude to you? No. Then don’t treat others that way.
This can be especially hard when we feel like we have been cheated or hurt by someone else. I remember when I stopped at a brake repair place two hours before a job interview. I told the man that I was in a hurry and had a interview in two hours. We talked about where the job was and how long it would take me to get there. Two hours later the pickup was just coming down from having new brakes put on. I felt like that man deliberately went slow to keep me from getting there on time. It was all I could do to be civil to the man. I felt like it was a deliberate cruelty to me. But, we should be careful here about the words we use when we are mad. This guy at the brake shop was most likely lost. He knew I was a Christian. I had my Bible and a commentary with me in the waiting room. What kind of witness would I have been if I had just gone off on the guy? He is someone who Christ died for also. God loves him also.
We would sometimes like to seek revenge, but that isn’t what we are called to do. Anger words and actions often lead to more anger and more strife. A knight and his men returned to their castle after a long hard day of fighting.
“How are we faring?” asked the king.
“Sire” replies the knight, “I have been robbing and pillaging on your behalf all day, burning the towns of your enemies in the west.”
“What?!” shrieks the king. “I don’t have any enemies to the west!”
“Oh,” says the knight. “Well, you do now.”
(from a sermon by Erick Snyder, "Peace With My Enemies")
2. Principle Two: Jesus says to bless those who curse you. There are 3 verbs in the greek for bless or blessed. The word here is Eulogeo, where we get our word eulogy. Literally, it means to speak well of a person or to invoke a blessing. Jesus isn’t saying that we should lie about a person or their character. It does mean that we should try and use our words to encourage and built up other people. We should try to find something good to say about others. Everyone enjoys hearing a good word about themselves. It makes us feel appreciated and cared for.
We aren’t suppose to do this for people we like only. The command here is to do this for people who “curse” us. The word “curse” means to pray against, to wish evil against a person. This is not just a person who doesn’t care for you, but someone who hates you.
Romans 12:17-18 also have some important points about this issue as well. We are told that we should love people sincerely, not to repay evil for evil and then to live as much as possible at peace with all people. Sometimes it might not be possible to live at peace with someone who doesn’t like you or you don’t have a good relationship with. But, we are responsible to try and do our part to heal the relationship. I really think that if you do your part that is really all God expects of you. Some people may just not like you for some reason. Some people may even hate you. Just don’t add any fuel to their fire. Try to do what you can to reconcile and then lift them up to the Lord in prayer.
3. Principle Three: Pray for those who mistreat you. (Matthew 5:44)
If you remember that Jesus did this when he asked for forgiveness for the soliders who nailed him to the cross. Luke 23:34. It has been said by someone that the first step toward healing a relationship is to pray for the offender.
These are some steps that we should take to build some healthy relationships with others. Some people may not naturally like us or get along with us as well as others. But, I have a obligation to you to love you, to bless those who curse me and to pray for those who mistreat me. Whether a person likes me or not, God loves them. I am to reflect that love from God to others.
