Knowing Jesus Impacts Others
August 10, 2002
I hope you had a better week, this one just ending, than some have been, and that you were able to bask in the light of God’s view of yourself, because of understanding, more fully, how He views you. What we considered last week is very important- that your relationship with Jesus has a tremendous impact on the relationship you have with yourself.
We’re told something significant in Romans 12.3- we’re told there that we’re not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think seriously/soberly, as God gives each of us faith. This is very significant. When you think you’re junk, you’re thinking differently about yourself than God wants. If you think you’re ‘God’s gift to humanity’ and are "strutting your stuff" because of that, then you’re thinking inaccurately and incorrectly, too. So, it’s vital for us to think as God thinks, and to realize that God sees Jesus in you, and that is what he focuses on. Part of thinking properly about ourselves IS understanding what we considered last week. You are an incredibly valuable member of God’s eternal family, and you need to know that. It is a false humility to be thinking about you as being nothing, or as being too much. Without question, it CAN be heady stuff to realize how it is that God sees you. You ARE special- no question- but you’re just every bit as special as God wants you to be, AND you’re just every bit as special as each other individual around you and on God’s green earth! This is important to understand. All of God’s children are very special. IF you understand how God sees you, what is the next step?
It is to understand how God sees each other person with whom you have contact at any time in your life. Thinking soberly and not too highly doesn’t mean thinking highly about you and then ramming other people to the ground. From a Godly view of yourself, which comes from understanding something of God’s mind, comes a Godly view of the others with whom you get to share this earth for some short period of time. And it’s important not to get arrogant about yourself and about your place- but to understand that as you are and the place you have here is how God sees all- and it’s a very, very lofty view- and the place you have here, in the centre of God’s attention, is the same place He has in mind for each other person. He wants Jesus to be in each other person, and to have a very lofty place here. (Sometimes it’s hard to imagine this about some others. This week, I read ‘Zoya’s Story’- a book about Afghanistan from the perspective of a woman who was quietly fighting for women’s rights during the reigns of terror of the Mujahadeen and the Taliban- the former, by the way, are essentially in charge again, so things are not necessarily as better as they should be there, yet. But to read of some of the atrocities committed by people in just the past 5 years can make you want to send everyone to burn forever- but that’s NOT God’s perspective on those who ‘cut the hands’ or who decapitated or who gang raped. God desires for each of these people, without any proper concept of their place in God’s eyes, to think ‘soberly…as God would give them faith’.)
Understanding yourself, with Jesus alive in you, is liberating and very freeing when it comes to others.
So, let’s think about those others who are around you.
Who shares life with you? Who are some of the people? Let’s make a list.
Galatians 5. 13-15- think about the liberty that comes knowing how God views you. Think about how you don’t have to grovel in the dirt and try to twist God’s arms in order to have forgiveness. Think about how free you are to live before God knowing that He doesn’t focus on the mistakes you make but on Jesus in you (the mistakes you repent of when you recognize them, of course, but there’s no question what God will do with them- or has done with them). But you’re not to use this freedom just to promote yourself and to have your way. You’re not to use it to become libertine and to indulge the flesh because you know God sees Jesus in you and stands ready to forgive the sins. But there’s something you have to do with regard to those around you, and it is ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.
This doesn’t call on us to focus a lot on ourselves in order to love ourselves. Certainly, in the age in which this was originally written, there is no question that it is assumed that everyone loves themselves. Today, that may be a bit different- maybe- but there is a strong case to be made for the idea that we all inherently love ourselves and anything we do, we do from that measure of love. At any rate, we’re not going to focus on self-love beyond this matter of perspective that we’ve been considering, because it forms the basis- the proper basis- for looking out at others and working with them.
IF you understand how God views you, then you understand how God views, or wants to view, each person you have contact with. Each other person is lofty in God’s sight, too. IF Jesus is alive in that person, God sees Jesus, just as in you. IF Jesus is not alive in that person, yet, God wants that person to accept Jesus so He can see Jesus in that person, just as in you. Here’s the bottom line for evangelism, when you get down to it- wanting others to live in the freedom of God’s view of them as a believer just like you and I get to live! IF we have something so good, why wouldn’t we want others to have it? We’re not in some family with limited resources, where if you have something, it means someone else can’t have the same. We must not operate in life as if we believed that.
v. 15- but…. Is this how you operate? Is this how you are toward others?
Think about it. You have people around you. Relationships are part of life. But are you any good at them? Relationships are what life is all about. But how are you in relationships? Are you any good at them?
OK, say you answer, ‘no, I’m not good at relationships.’ Is that the end? Does that mean that you can just stop there and live the rest of your life not good at relationships, and content there? NO! Again, ‘just as I am’ is a wonderful starting point, but Christians are called to change, and here’s another area in which we must change- no choice- we MUST change and develop in our ability to have good relationships with people around us.
But, do you bite and devour those who are around you? And do they do the same to you? Sometimes, they do it to you as a reaction to your doing it to them first. So, here’s where, as I mentioned last week, ’the buck stops here’. Responsibility starts and ends with those of us living in the freedom of understanding how God views us.
OK, you live with others around you, and we’ve listed who some of those others are. And you’ve had to consider how your relationships are with some of those others- in some cases not very good. Those who share your life with you might not get a very good deal out of it. Your love might have quite a ‘bite’ to it, according to Galatians 5.15, and this is not right.
Think about how you might ‘bite and devour’ someone else. What are some of the ways you can ‘trash’ someone? Let’s make another list, and think about these as we go on.
Here’s an interesting way we can hurt others: Prov. 26. 18- 19- ‘just joking?’
As we’ve seen, there are many, many ways to trash those who are around us in life. These are ways we ‘bite and devour’. Yet, what is the mandate? It is to love our neighbour as ourselves. So, the call is high to us, isn’t it? The press is on for us to change our perspective. Doesn’t it make a difference just knowing how God wants to view each person, and that He wants to have each in His family? Sometimes we simply don’t know how to behave in families and have some very bad habits. Here’s some clear instruction about family life. We’re not to bite and devour. We’re not to ‘trash’ one another, but we’re to treat each person as we know God is treating us. (Don’t treat others as you’ve been treated by people because people don’t always reflect God- they are guilty of ‘biting and devouring’ you- don’t go there. This is Golden Rule stuff- and what is the Golden Rule? And where do you find that in scripture? Anyone know? Matt. 7.12.)
Maybe you’ve been hurt- even very deeply hurt- by some of this trashing that has gone on around you. Maybe you really have lots of bite marks and slashes where people have been trying to cut you up so they could devour you. Maybe you’re quite a ‘wreck’ because of how things have gone for you in the past. BUT you are to love these people as yourself. You know how God views you, and how God wants to view these people, and you may be the tool God will use to help these people into that perspective and love. So, where does that leave you?
Eph. 4. 31, 32- here are some behaviours to become good at. They’re not easy behaviours, without question. Let’s think about them for a little while. There are behaviours to put away. There are ways of being that you are to take and set on a shelf, in a high and locked cabinet for all eternity. These behaviours keep you biting and devouring, and we’ve seen that those have to be stopped. You’re making a decision- a great decision- to see others as Jesus sees them. You’re cutting them some slack so Jesus can work with them. You’re getting out of the way so Jesus can get in the way more! This is incredible work of God you’re doing, my friends. And it requires something of you. Leaders always have lots required of them- scripture is clear on that, and that’s another subject- remember how true that is (Jas. 3.1, for instance- greater judgment).
So, do you have bitterness? Wrath? Anger? Clamour? Evil speaking? Malice? Put these away. Maybe you have every reason to have them, humanly speaking, because of what has happened to you. But they’re not doing you any good, and they’re standing in the way of the Work of God. Which is more important? For you to harbour these, or for the work of God to get done? I think there’s no question, don’t you?
The next part is even harder, sometimes. First, you have to put away some behaviour, that might have been with you a long time, and which you maybe use a lot to keep people at bay in your life. Maybe you do things to make sure people are pushed away and you have your own ‘space’. Well, you have to stop that. But just stopping something is the easy part. (OK, you’re saying, ‘you’ve indicated this is hard, but now are saying this is the easy part. Sounds like you’re contradicting yourself.’ I’m not.)
Now comes the really hard part- not just stopping something and having people notice, eventually, that you’re not bitter anymore, and angry so often, and the like. But now you have to begin some new behaviour and make some new habits. And, may I say, here is where the rubber meets the road, and where it’s good to have someone close to you to help you. Look what you have to be doing- v. 32. You might not be good at these right now, but you can become very good at these- Jesus is! Remember that. The One who is seen in you is very good at these- kindness (woman at the well), tenderheartedness (healing Peter’s mother-in-law), forgiveness (Father, forgive them for they don’t have a clue what they’re doing.)
You might need some help in these. Here’s what you need to do. Get a good friend- someone you trust, and start to become accountable to one another. Get together and share what you want to change, and ask that friend to hold you accountable. Then plan to have coffee once a week to talk over how it’s going, and expect your friend to ask you pointedly how it’s been going- and be honest- don’t hide! If you find yourself falling into a wrong pattern, you need to be able to get on the phone and call out for help and to get it. Christianity is not to be lived lonely, but in community and here’s another way for us to help each other in community. We’re dealing with matters of eternity, here- with matters of helping others into eternity now, as we’ve been helped into eternity now and don’t have to wait for later. We’re blessed because of this. There’s some big work to be done here and we need to be onto it- stop thinking you can fix everything just by yourself- in most cases, you can’t. But it’s important to get to the work, so God can really get the work done.
If you don’t like yourself, you’ll be critical of others- you’ll transfer that self-loathing to others, because you are self-absorbed. That’s the way it works. If you don’t ‘like’ yourself, you criticize others- just watch this week, and recognize that those who criticize constantly need a lot of help- maybe you recognize this in you- maybe you need a lot of help- GET IT!
“Every traumatic rejection untouched by the vital kind of forgiveness the cross has won for us, whether at a conscious or unconscious level, will be acted out in some negative fashion. WE may reject others- before the feared rejection can come our way.” (Restoring the Christian Soul, by Leanne Payne, p. 95.)
“Professional counselors reveal that a large percentage of those being counseled today are angry, embittered, and resentful. Bottled0-up feelings eat away until some become emotional cripples and physically ill. Their ability to function is impaired, diminishing their effectiveness. They often have difficulty sleeping; and their personal relationships, both within and without the family, erode… The individual who has deep-seated, unresolved anger is not a whole person.” (Billy Graham Christian Worker’ Handbook, p. 66).
You need to decide to see others as Jesus sees them, and to consider what He would say or do, and do that, as hard as it is, and you might not be able to do that just on your own. You need an accountability partner to help you to make space in your universe for others! That’s what it’s all about.
The essence of the gospel is: there’s a relationship you need to have. There’s a relationship you don’t have right now. There’s a relationship you can have right now. Here’s how to begin that relationship now.
It’s not all that hard. Yet, if you’re not good at relationships, it will be harder for you to help others into that most important relationship.
Knowing Jesus will have an incredible impact on your relationships with others. Knowing Jesus will enable you to love your neighbour as yourself. Seeing yourself soberly, according to the faith God gives you, will help you to see others as He does, and will help you to be right in the centre of the most important work on earth- the work of taking the gospel of Jesus to people desperately in need!
