SPEAKER_00: So good.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we uh are starting a new series today.
SPEAKER_00: We finished the series The Door last week.
SPEAKER_00: The door about the synergy of the ages, eliminating generational gaps, releasing generational blessings.
SPEAKER_00: And what I want to tell you, if you didn't hear all three of those messages, you you definitely need to go and listen to them on our podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you don't know how to find that, let me know.
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll show you how to find that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's integral because it's it's a direction that we're headed as a church.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a ministry called The Door that we're going to start in the fall, and it won't make any sense to you if you haven't heard those messages.
SPEAKER_00: And so make sure you go back and listen to those.
SPEAKER_00: But probably one of my favorite subjects to speak about, to teach about, to preach about uh is what we are diving into today.
SPEAKER_00: And this will be uh probably a four to six part series that will carry us on uh into the fall, and I'm excited about that, and I'm excited about in the fall doing a series on spiritual reality, on spiritual reality, not just spiritual warfare, but spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm uh looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_00: So relational success.
SPEAKER_00: You see this title here.
SPEAKER_00: Underneath it is what the burden that I feel, and that is stewarding a relational revolution.
SPEAKER_00: We need a relational revolution in the church.
SPEAKER_00: We as Christians, as spirit-filled believers, should be the absolute best at relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We should be better at relationships than anybody on the planet as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Part of our vision is to be a place where people can build lives and families that flourish and thrive.
SPEAKER_00: And in our core values, our core values are humble, relational, professional, responsible, and fruitful.
SPEAKER_00: And so relational is a core value of our church.
SPEAKER_00: It's a core value of me as a person and as a leader.
SPEAKER_00: And so this message on relational success, or you could say relational health, is one of the most important messages that I can speak about.
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of the most important things that we can understand and most importantly have in our life is relational health.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Matthew 22, verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we pause to say, as we approach your word, and as we approach this subject, and as we look to learn and to grow and to develop and to change, we say, God, speak to us through your word.
SPEAKER_00: Open up the scriptures and open up our minds.
SPEAKER_00: Give us revelation, give us understanding, give us knowledge and wisdom, God, that we would conduct our life and our affairs in a way that would breed relational health.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Man came to Jesus and asked him in this text, teacher, which is the great commandment, which is the greatest commandment, the great commandment in the law?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating story, incredible answer from Jesus, as only Jesus could answer a question like that.
SPEAKER_00: A big, huge question.
SPEAKER_00: What's the most important commandment?
SPEAKER_00: And basically, what Jesus is saying here is love the Lord your God and love people.
SPEAKER_00: Love, love God, love people, and love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, that pretty much summarizes the entire Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: All the law and the prophets, he said, can be reduced down to this one thing, these two things.
SPEAKER_00: It's really one thing because he said the second isn't second in importance, it's only second in order.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's not less important, it's as important as the first one, but the first one has to be first, or it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind, as this translation says.
SPEAKER_00: And the second is love your neighbor as yourself, as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, if you break that down, it would say love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk to you today about the importance and the cost of relational health.
SPEAKER_00: The importance and the cost of relational health.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as a pastor and as a licensed clinical Christian counselor, I spend a lot of time dealing with people's problems, people's emotional health problems and mental health problems, spiritual problems.
SPEAKER_00: And what I can tell you is relational health is the top of the list.
SPEAKER_00: All the problems that people have are coming from a lack of relational health.
SPEAKER_00: At some level, all the issues that people have is something went wrong in a relationship somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: There was a relationship that wasn't healthy.
SPEAKER_00: There was abuse, there was abandonment, there was neglect, there was whatever there was, there was something that they needed that wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: There was some relational deficit, some relational issue that happened, and it caused all kinds of problems in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we're this includes our relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So when I say relational health, that's not just people to people.
SPEAKER_00: It first of all is just like Jesus said, it's your relationship with God first and foremost.
SPEAKER_00: Your relationship with God is the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00: The health of it, the quality of it, the connection that's there between you and God.
SPEAKER_00: That that is first and foremost.
SPEAKER_00: But then, right beside it, only second in order, not importance, is the quality of relationship that you have with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And so what I want to proclaim here today is this true success is relational success.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the title is relational success, not just relational health.
SPEAKER_00: True success is relational success.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important because success drives people.
SPEAKER_00: People have a desire to be successful.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is people go after success to the demise and the destruction of relationships in their life.
SPEAKER_00: And they will work so hard to be successful at something that on their way to accomplish that, they destroy the only thing that they really uh need to be successful in, and that's people relationships, not accomplishments.
SPEAKER_00: True success is relational success.
SPEAKER_00: So the truth is that we can have all the success that this life has to offer, but if we don't have relational success, we will have failed in life.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is more important in this life than the relationships that you have, and more importantly, the consistent quality of the relationships that you have.
SPEAKER_00: The overall quality of your life depends on the health of your relationship with God and the health of your relationship with people.
SPEAKER_00: It's the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard it said the cross is vertical and it's horizontal.
SPEAKER_00: It's relationship with God and relationship with people.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the cross fixes as well, is relationship with God and relationship with people.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's been amazing to me over the years to see how clear people's priorities come uh become when their lives are threatened or hang in the balance.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody on their deathbed ever requests to have their bank statements brought to them or their investment portfolio.
SPEAKER_00: So they can spend their last moments with their money.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter in those moments.
SPEAKER_00: In those clarifying moments, it's always people, isn't it, that matter most.
SPEAKER_00: In those clarifying moments, if there are any regrets, it's always people.
SPEAKER_00: It's always relationships.
SPEAKER_00: It's always what they wish they would have done, what they wish they wouldn't have done involving the people.
SPEAKER_00: If there are any successes, it's relationships.
SPEAKER_00: It's the people that are there that they love, that love them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says basically here, have a great quality of relationship with God, with people, and with yourself.
SPEAKER_00: If you do this, you will have accomplished the entire goal of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: If you'll have great quality of relationship with God and great quality of relationship with people and with yourself, you know we have to love ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the love of self, it's loving yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have that, you will accomplish the entire goal of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wants.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he desires.
SPEAKER_00: He wants relationship with us.
SPEAKER_00: And then from that place, he wants us to have great relationships with our family, with our friends, and of course with our faith family as well.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 6, verse 10 says, For God is not unjust.
SPEAKER_00: He will not forget how hard you have worked for him.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: How hard you have worked for him, and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers as you still do.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that remarkable?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's saying God's paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: God is paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: He's watching this, and he will not forget how you have shown your love to him by loving people.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_00: God's paying attention to how you love people.
SPEAKER_00: God's paying attention to how important relationships are to you.
SPEAKER_00: And he won't forget.
SPEAKER_00: By caring for other believers, as you still do.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, our great desire, Paul, this is Paul talking to the church, the Hebrew church, our great, well, we we don't know if it's Paul, sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Let me clarify that.
SPEAKER_00: The writer of Hebrews, I think it was either Paul or someone who was discipled by Paul.
SPEAKER_00: That's my professional opinion.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true.
SPEAKER_00: Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God's promises because of their faith and endurance.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing scripture, amazing passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Love, care, and help others.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me even back up and say it like this: love God by loving, caring, and helping others, or become spiritually dull and indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting to me that the Bible says that we work hard to show our love for Him by loving and caring for others.
SPEAKER_00: And that if we don't do that, what will the fruit be?
SPEAKER_00: We will become spiritually dull and indifferent.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been spiritually dull and indifferent?
SPEAKER_00: I have.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm honest with myself, the reason I was spiritually dull and indifferent is because I wasn't loving people very well.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't serving others very well.
SPEAKER_00: I was making it about something else.
SPEAKER_00: People matter to God, and people should matter to us.
SPEAKER_00: People matter to God, and people should be what is most important to us.
SPEAKER_00: We must decide, listen to me, in light of all of that, that's how, so I wanted to talk to you about how important relationships are, and I really don't have to convince you a lot of that.
SPEAKER_00: You know that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a reminder, and I'm putting an emphasis on that.
SPEAKER_00: We understand the most important thing in life, our relationship with God and our relationship with people, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so then the other side of that coin, then here's the importance of it, is the cost of it.
SPEAKER_00: If that's true, and it is, then how do we actually have that?
SPEAKER_00: What do we have to do to actually have a life that says nothing is more important than God, the health of my relationship with Him, and nothing is more important than people, and my relationship with the people that I'm supposed to be in relationship with and do life with and uh worship Jesus with.
SPEAKER_00: So we here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: We must decide to make the necessary sacrifices needed to be relationally healthy, not just with those in our own family, but also God's family.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's an interesting thing as he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your what?
SPEAKER_00: Your neighbor as you love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Yourself, your family is not your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Your family is your family.
SPEAKER_00: Your family is really an extension of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So he actually says, someone outside your own household is your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have to decide to make the necessary sacrifices to be relationally healthy, not just with those in our own family, but also those in God's family.
SPEAKER_00: So let's decide then, in light of that, not to become a slave to anything that would hinder our ability to be relational.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot afford, if this is true, and it is, we can't afford to become a slave to anything that will hinder our relational capacity.
SPEAKER_00: We have to attack anything that tends to isolate us or cause us to miss opportunities to be around the people that we are supposed to be around.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the great truth.
SPEAKER_00: We are in 100% control of our priorities, and we must exercise our free will in order to show our love for God by working hard to love, care for, and help others.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We are the ones who decide what we give our lives to.
SPEAKER_00: We as Christians are the only ones on the planet that can know that our lives are not our own.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that's a revelation that you have to have?
SPEAKER_00: Our life doesn't belong to us, it belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to have and live by that truth.
SPEAKER_00: My life doesn't belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 6 19 says, Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you, was given to you by God?
SPEAKER_00: You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price, so you must honor God with your body.
SPEAKER_00: And he was actually speaking about uh sexual sin there, sin in general, and how you can't give yourself to that because your body's not yours to give to anything.
SPEAKER_00: But that truth resonates through all other kinds of principles and areas and behaviors of our life.
SPEAKER_00: Our life doesn't belong to us.
SPEAKER_00: So when it comes time to make a decision, any decision that involves your time, your effort, your energy, you have to go, Lord, if this is going to cause me to give my life to it, right?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about this?
SPEAKER_00: Should I do it?
SPEAKER_00: Should I not do it?
SPEAKER_00: Anything that's going to take time from you.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's your life.
SPEAKER_00: We trade our life with our time.
SPEAKER_00: Look at your life and how you're choosing to spend your time.
SPEAKER_00: Does it reflect that those two things are the most important things in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Your relationship with God and your relationship with others.
SPEAKER_00: Does how you spend your time actually reflect that that's important to you?
SPEAKER_00: That that is the most important thing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Every day you are trading your life for something, and you will never get that time or opportunity back.
SPEAKER_00: It's the currency of your life, your calendar, your the minutes, the hours that you have of every day of your life is you are taking that and you're trading it for something.
SPEAKER_00: Is what you're trading it for, proving that this is the priority of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not the only thing that we get to do.
SPEAKER_00: The good thing is if you seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, all these other things will get added unto you, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it's the first things first.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he said the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say the only thing.
SPEAKER_00: He said the most important thing is this, and second, like it, beside it is this.
SPEAKER_00: It's what has to happen first.
SPEAKER_00: It's the principle of first things.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you do with your time, your effort, your energy.
SPEAKER_00: So when you look at your life, when you look at your calendar, when you look at what you did yesterday or last week or the week before that, what did you trade your life for?
SPEAKER_00: What did you trade your time for?
SPEAKER_00: If we're not consciously aware, we could unintentionally be wasting a massive amount of our life on earthly temporary things that will not endure in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Perishing things, things that are worthless and meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: How are you spending your life?
SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm going here about relational success is because what happens is we tend to spend our life on meaningless things, and then when it comes to relationships, we don't have any time left.
SPEAKER_00: I can't say yes to the most important things because I already said yes to other things that are less important, and there's nothing left for my marriage, there's nothing left for my family, there's nothing left for my relationship with God, for reading the Bible in prayer and spending time in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing left.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's a word that I love, that you love as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very spiritual concept.
SPEAKER_00: And it's called temporary carnal gratification.
SPEAKER_00: Temporary carnal gratification.
SPEAKER_00: That is the struggle of our life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you right now.
SPEAKER_00: That's the struggle of our life.
SPEAKER_00: Temporary carnal gratification.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever heard that before.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of an old school word, but I heard that a lot when I was a new Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing it back.
SPEAKER_00: It's Esau.
SPEAKER_00: He traded his birthright for temporary carnal gratification.
SPEAKER_00: You know the story?
SPEAKER_00: A bowl of soup for a human appetite.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'll give you something eternal.
SPEAKER_00: I'll trade it for something that is temporary, that is carnal.
SPEAKER_00: It's literally this it's following earthly, fleshly desires and appetites.
SPEAKER_00: That's what temporary carnal gratification is.
SPEAKER_00: Following earthly, fleshly desires and appetites.
SPEAKER_00: And then the opposite of that would be eternal spiritual fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: You could say eternal spiritual gratification as well, but I just wanted to switch it up because gratification is fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: It's in other words, it's fulfilling the earthly fleshly desires, right?
SPEAKER_00: Or fulfilling the The eternal spiritual desires and appetites.
SPEAKER_00: It's at the end of the day, it's what is leading your life.
SPEAKER_00: What are you following to make decisions about how you spend your life and how you spend your time?
SPEAKER_00: Which remember doesn't belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not yours to do with whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: So when you approach Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday night and Friday morning and Saturday night, you need to go.
SPEAKER_00: That's my life.
SPEAKER_00: That's how I trade my life in daytight compartments.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to hold that before the Lord and say, Lord, my life doesn't belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: It belongs to you.
SPEAKER_00: You get to tell me what I do with my time.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know it's the spirit and the flesh?
SPEAKER_00: It's the spirit and the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 19 says, Don't store up treasures here on earth where moth eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal, store your treasures in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus teaching on the kingdom of heaven versus the kingdom of this earth.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus saying, Be careful what you're doing with your time.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful what you're trading your days for.
SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians 3, verse 1 says, Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn't talk to you as I would to spiritual people.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen to this language.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul talking here.
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
SPEAKER_00: Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn't talk to you as I would spiritual people.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying?
SPEAKER_00: You were carnal.
SPEAKER_00: You're being led by your flesh and your human appetites and desires.
SPEAKER_00: What makes sense to your human self, your emotions and all of that, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're making decisions from an emotional place, from a human appetite place.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, so I couldn't even talk to you like I would spiritual people.
SPEAKER_00: I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: I had to feed you with milk and not solid food because you weren't ready for anything stronger, and you're still not ready, for you are, listen, here's the root, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature.
SPEAKER_00: You're jealous of one another, you quarrel with each other.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that prove that you are controlled by your sinful nature?
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you living like people of the world?
SPEAKER_00: You know what people of the world do?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they want.
SPEAKER_00: You know how they spend their time on whatever they want to spend their time on.
SPEAKER_00: You know what they do with their money?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they want to do with their money.
SPEAKER_00: You know what they buy?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever they want to buy, whatever helps them emotionally and mentally and physically, that's their whole life.
SPEAKER_00: It's temporary, carnal gratifications.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what the primary consequence of that is?
SPEAKER_00: Terrible quality of relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Isolation, broken relationships, broken families, divorce, dysfunction, disunity.
SPEAKER_00: That is the results of living your life according to your flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Or there's another way, and that's what Paul's saying, there's another way we can choose to live according to the Spirit and get the results that we can get by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 3 9.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, We are both God's workers, and aren't you God's field?
SPEAKER_00: You are God's building.
SPEAKER_00: Because of God's grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder.
SPEAKER_00: Now others are building on it.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, when he's talking about others, he's even talking about the own the person themselves building on the spiritual foundation that Paul and Barnabas laid by preaching the gospel and making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying here is we came and preached the gospel, we got you started, and now you and other people are going to build your life on the foundation that we laid.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, but whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful.
SPEAKER_00: Must be very careful.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, be careful what you do with your life as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is powerful here.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying you can do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: You can build with whatever materials you want to.
SPEAKER_00: You are free to decide.
SPEAKER_00: You can decide whatever you're gonna build your life on as a Christian, whatever you're gonna do with your life as a Christian, he says it's up to you.
SPEAKER_00: But know this that on the judgment day, fire will reveal the kind of work that each builder has done.
SPEAKER_00: The fire will show if a person's work has any value.
SPEAKER_00: If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward.
SPEAKER_00: But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss.
SPEAKER_00: The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, why would Paul say, don't you realize?
SPEAKER_00: He said that in the other text.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize that your body is the temple of God?
SPEAKER_00: You don't belong to yourself, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why would he have to say, don't you realize?
SPEAKER_00: He says this a lot in his writings.
SPEAKER_00: I have a message I preached years ago, and I took all the times that Paul said, Don't you realize, and I preached a message called don't you realize.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he have to say, don't you realize?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's possible that you don't realize.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible that something is happening that's important, that has consequence, and you don't realize that it's happening.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul's like knocking, going, like, you gotta open your eyes and see what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and the Spirit of God lives in you?
SPEAKER_00: God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
SPEAKER_00: Stop deceiving yourselves if you think you are wise by this world standard.
SPEAKER_00: You need to become a fool to be truly wise.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's a different way to live this life in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: So what we understand is we have we have to know that God's given us our Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: The foundation of it is Christ, and we and other people are going to build our life on that foundation.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to decide what our life consists of.
SPEAKER_00: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every day, daytight compartments, what you do, what you trade for that day is what you're building your life with.
SPEAKER_00: If you take the amount of time that you sleep, this is great evaluation.
SPEAKER_00: I do this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I do this for people who are overwhelmed and feel like they're burned out and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I go, let's write your life out on a piece of paper.
SPEAKER_00: Every day, every hour, write it out.
SPEAKER_00: Write it out.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Get it out of your head where the enemy can stress you out and make you feel like you're overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: You're not overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00: You have all the time you need to do what this book says you can do, to be who God created you to be and do what he called you to do.
SPEAKER_00: You have all the time that you need to do that.
SPEAKER_00: If you take the amount of time that you sleep, the amount of time that you work, and you subtract it from everything else, and you look at the waking hours that you have in a day, that is what you have to trade for the life that is building with either gold, silver, jewels, or wood, hay, and stubble.
SPEAKER_00: It's not much time.
SPEAKER_00: If you sleep eight hours, you got 16 left.
SPEAKER_00: If you work eight of those, you got eight left.
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_00: That's how many hours a day you have to take this life that doesn't belong to you and trade it for something.
SPEAKER_00: Or even just take the whole time that you have awake.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's work.
SPEAKER_00: We all have to work, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have to do those things.
SPEAKER_00: That's a biblical thing to work.
SPEAKER_00: Part of God's plan, part of God's purpose for you is what you do for work.
SPEAKER_00: However, you have to understand that even that doesn't belong to you because you're trading part of your life for that.
SPEAKER_00: So that has to be submitted to God, has to be done his way.
SPEAKER_00: So you look at the time that you spent your time and resources on last week or last month or whatever, and how much of it was on things that don't involve investing in your spiritual health or your relational health.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about sinful things.
SPEAKER_00: Wood, hay, and stubble isn't sinful things.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess it could be, but it's technically it's not.
SPEAKER_00: It's just meaningless things.
SPEAKER_00: It's worldly things, it's earthly things, it's temporary carnal gratification.
SPEAKER_00: And we have to be aware of how much of our life we're trading for those things, and we have to be a good steward of that.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6, God says, Don't be misled.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, don't be misled.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot mock the justice of God.
SPEAKER_00: You will always harvest what you plant.
SPEAKER_00: Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.
SPEAKER_00: But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So listen, so let's not get tired of doing what is good at just the right time.
SPEAKER_00: There, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, especially to those in the family of faith.
SPEAKER_00: I love this statement.
SPEAKER_00: We say it a lot.
SPEAKER_00: We want to do life together.
SPEAKER_00: At River Life Church, we believe this is God ordaining a part of his family, a faith family, and saying you're going to exist as a family, as one of the governing families of God in the earth, in an area.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've called you to be, the church, the ecclesia.
SPEAKER_00: We're a faith family.
SPEAKER_00: And we're called to do life together.
SPEAKER_00: Not just to worship on Sunday together, but to do life together.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: God's called you to abundant life.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the opposite of abundant life is?
SPEAKER_00: Isolation.
SPEAKER_00: Isolation is the opposite of abundant life.
SPEAKER_00: You want to waste your life?
SPEAKER_00: Spend it by yourself at home.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you waste your life.
SPEAKER_00: You isolate yourself for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_00: We all have justified, we all can justify our isolation.
SPEAKER_00: But at the end of it all, we're going to account for what we built our life with.
SPEAKER_00: Communion will cost you, and community will cost you.
SPEAKER_00: Communion with God and community with his people are the most fulfilling, satisfying, peace-producing things in this life.
SPEAKER_00: In this life.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're looking for, that's how you find it.
SPEAKER_00: Communion with God and community with God's people.
SPEAKER_00: If you can die to self enough to sow into them, listen, don't be deceived.
SPEAKER_00: God is not mock.
SPEAKER_00: What is he saying?
SPEAKER_00: You cannot sow to the flesh and reap the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot sow temporary, carnal gratification and reap anything good.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to reap decay from that.
SPEAKER_00: But if you sow to the spirit, you will reap what?
SPEAKER_00: Life.
SPEAKER_00: Everlasting life.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same language Jesus said: life and life to the fullest, abundant life.
SPEAKER_00: If you can die to self enough to sow into them, the harvest will be the greatest reward you can reap in this life.
SPEAKER_00: A true harvest of abundant life, heaven on earth, and flourishing life that is resilient.
SPEAKER_00: Community and relational health isn't something you receive or consume.
SPEAKER_00: Community is an output.
SPEAKER_00: It's something you build and work hard to create.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard someone teach about passion?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta have passion.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the most important things you gotta have.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta have passion.
SPEAKER_00: Passion, passion, passion.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta figure out how to become passionate.
SPEAKER_00: Passion is an output, it's not an input.
SPEAKER_00: Passion is something you generate and you release it from your life, regardless of your circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: That's how community is.
SPEAKER_00: Community isn't something you consume, it's something you build.
SPEAKER_00: It's something you sow into, you invest into, you sacrifice for, you give, you love, you serve, and you build one of the greatest things you can ever build in this earthly life, and that is relationships.
SPEAKER_00: It's family.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's family.
SPEAKER_00: Did you receive your marriage?
SPEAKER_00: For those of you that are married, did you receive your marriage?
SPEAKER_00: Is your marriage something that's like, I just want to find marriage?
SPEAKER_00: You don't receive marriage, you build a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You sacrifice to have a marriage, you serve to have a marriage, you submit to authority to have a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just receive a marriage.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just receive a family, you build a family.
SPEAKER_00: You tracking with me?
SPEAKER_00: It's an output.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an input.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't receive kids.
SPEAKER_00: You procreated them, you birthed them, you nurtured them, you trained them, and you sacrificed for them.
SPEAKER_00: They are an output.
SPEAKER_00: They're not an input.
SPEAKER_00: Community is no different, it's the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: They're not something you consume, they are something you give up your life in order to build.
SPEAKER_00: And a community of deep, meaningful relationships works the same exact way.
SPEAKER_00: I read this post actually last night.
SPEAKER_00: I read this post from Pastor James Bell.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read this to you.
SPEAKER_00: He talks a lot about consumer Christianity, the error of consumer Christianity, and how we need to, I believe this is something God's called us to do at River Life, is to get rid of consumer Christianity and to build contributing Christianity, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so he said this.
SPEAKER_00: As a pastor, I hear this all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We're just looking for community.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for this, we're looking for that.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that people mean it.
SPEAKER_00: He said they want a church where people know their name.
SPEAKER_00: They want relationships that feel real.
SPEAKER_00: They want something smaller, warmer, more personal, more rooted.
SPEAKER_00: But over time, I've realized something.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't actually want community.
SPEAKER_00: They want the feeling of community without the cost of community.
SPEAKER_00: They want people to pursue them, but they do not want to pursue people.
SPEAKER_00: They want to be known but not inconvenienced.
SPEAKER_00: They want deep relationships but not challenging conversations.
SPEAKER_00: They want a church that feels like family, but they don't want to carry any of the burdens that come with family.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the tension begins, because real community is not created by finding the perfect church.
SPEAKER_00: It's created by imperfect people staying long enough to love one another through ordinary frustrations.
SPEAKER_00: Community requires patience.
SPEAKER_00: It requires forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It requires showing up when you don't feel like it.
SPEAKER_00: It requires assuming the best when you're tempted to assume the worst.
SPEAKER_00: It requires serving people who may never fully understand what it costs you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why many people keep searching for community but never find it.
SPEAKER_00: Not because no church has it, but because community is not something you consume, it's something you have to help build.
SPEAKER_00: The community we say we want will always require a version of us we may not yet be willing to become.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that good?
SPEAKER_00: And so as we are diving into this series of messages, and uh Pastor Jamie, you guys can come come on back up.
SPEAKER_00: I want to focus on this exactly what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: The the importance and the cost of, but what we're gonna get into is really the practicals of.
SPEAKER_00: What is it really going to take to have healthy, flourishing, thriving relationships?
SPEAKER_00: So one of our one of our vision statements here is that we want to be a place where people build lives and families that flourish and thrive.
SPEAKER_00: It's this concept of making sure people have what they need to thrive personally, right?
SPEAKER_00: In all the seven domains of personal health spiritual, relational, mental, emotional, physical, financial, and professional.
SPEAKER_00: Want to thrive personally and flourish relationally.
SPEAKER_00: And so flourishing relationally just looks like healthy relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And you guys can start playing whenever y'all are ready to.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have this statement that says this.
SPEAKER_00: It says, River Life Church, we want to see as many people, as many people's lives as possible, overflowing with the presence of God and healthily connected to the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: As many people's lives as possible, overflowing with the presence of God and healthily connecting to people of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00: It's about God's presence and it's about God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why there's nowhere else I'd rather be than River Life Church in this room with these people because we're in the presence of God with the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, I can't be relational with 400 people.
SPEAKER_00: But I can be relational with you.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't be relational with 4,000 people, but you can be relational with the people that are in this room.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know who God's calling you to be in relationship with?
SPEAKER_00: If He's called you to be at Riverlife Church, it's the people of River Life Church.
SPEAKER_00: I have this vision of just circles of life, circles of life everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about that as we get into some of the nuts and bolts of relationships, but we need to build circles of life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: He had circles of life.
SPEAKER_00: He embraced other people, he related to other people, he had acquaintances, he had different different people that were important and he, you know, had to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: He was a carpenter, he did business, he did ministry, he dealt with religious people all the time, but then he had his circle, right?
SPEAKER_00: Had his circle, and he goes, these are the ones I'm I'm gonna give the goods to.
SPEAKER_00: These are the ones that get the the special conversations, they get the deeper parts.
SPEAKER_00: If uh if one of our deacons could pull those lights down a little bit, let's stand as we go back into a moment of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And the the point of it is just to look, God said a lot of different things today.
SPEAKER_00: Might have hit different places in your heart, different things.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe there's some healing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I uh the question is what's the Holy Spirit saying to you in these truths, in these biblical truths that we unpack today?
SPEAKER_00: The importance and the cost of relational health.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying to you?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe well done, good and faithful servant, because you're living this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's hey, we got some work to do.
SPEAKER_00: There's some denying of the self that needs to happen, there's some reprioritization, some redistribution of time and resources that needs to happen so that you have enough to prioritize your relationship with God and building kingdom relationships with your faith family.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's your marriage, maybe it's your kids, grandkids, and then your faith family.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's God, the quality of our relationship with God, the quality of our relationship with our family, the quality of relationship with our friends, our faith family.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we go back into just a time of reflection and worship, just ask yourself that question, Lord, show me what do I need to do, what do I need to see, what do I need to know?
SPEAKER_00: Open my mind, open my eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be like the people Paul was writing to in Galatians saying, Don't you realize I don't want to not realize, I don't want to waste my life on earthly things, on fleshly desires.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's just pray, let's just pray that right now, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Help, help me, help me have relational health, relational success.
SPEAKER_00: Help me, let expose anything that is keeping me, hindering me from this relational health revolution that you're calling me to steward.
SPEAKER_00: God, have your way.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.