DB Clips: How Do I Have Healthy Relationships
Today we want to look at the question, “How do I have healthy relationships?”
Let me give you two caveats before we dive in. This is a topic that really requires far more time than we can devote here, so I’m hoping to give you principles and building blocks to create these relationships. The other is that you can only control your behavior. Romans 12:18 says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” These are ways for you to create a place for those healthy relationships.
We are going to primarily look at this from the perspective of our relationship with other Christians. Let me briefly explain why that is. When we talk about our relationship with other Christians there is an expectation that we’re all on the same page and all striving towards the same purpose.
When it comes to a non-believer we can’t put an expectation of certain behaviors on them when they don’t have a belief system or reason to behave that way. I can’t say to a non-believer, “Hey, Jesus tells us to treat each other in this way.” Their response is likely to be, “So what? Who is Jesus to me?”
How we interact with non-Christians is a completely separate matter.
In any relationship, we can only control our own actions, so that will be our starting point. Each of us as Christians should behave in this way. For this we are going to look at Colossians 3. First let’s look at verses 12-15.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
This is quite, the list, so let’s go through these characteristics we’re called to have.
Compassionate hearts is to have not just sympathy, but empathy for where someone is at, knowing they are likely struggling.
Kindness will flow from our compassion for others, that we would treat them well and not with contempt.
A great way I’ve heard used to describe humility is not simply thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. It’s not putting yourself down, or think you’re lesser, but fighting the selfishness that wants to put us first.
Meekness is a tough one for a lot of people, because we see meekness many times as weakness. Meekness is more to do with our approach to people. Not lording over them, but walking in that humility that says I’m not better or more important than you.
Patience is something we all struggle with in one form or another, but it can be especially difficult when dealing with others who are struggling with something you are not.
Bearing with one another is literally to bear one another’s burdens. I am accepting the weight of your difficulties and helping you through them.
Forgiving one another is something we can only do with the knowledge of what has been forgiven on our behalf. When it comes to sin, someone bears the cost of it. When someone sins against me, in my forgiving them, I am bearing the cost of that sin.
Finally we are called to love one another through which all of these are bound together.
We can look at this list and on one hand think, how am I ever supposed to live up to this, and on the other think, this is certainly now how other Christians always treat me.
On both counts, you would be right. There has only ever been one man to ever fulfill this list, and that’s Jesus. It’s fitting then that this list of characteristics is couched between these two statements. The beginning of verse 12 says we are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved. Then in verse 15 we are told to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. Every one of these characteristics can only be fulfilled when we know how and in what way we are called. Holy and beloved. This holiness is from the death that Jesus died to make us clean and able to come before God. Beloved so much that He was willing to pay the ultimate price to bring us to Him. And finally, walking in the peace that comes from that knowledge. Knowing that no sin or hurt leveled against us is greater than the love that brought us to God.
Knowing that we will struggle to meet this requirement on us, we are told what to do in times of disagreement.
Verse 16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you rightly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
We build each other up with the word. We admonish, not to tear down, but to lift back up and restore. We devote our hearts to worship God, and in this, every wrong fades away in the overwhelming love that He has laid on us.
If you’d like to learn more about this topic, go to our website at dbcc.com. Click on Grow, then Sermons. Look for the teaching series on Colossians and find the sermon titled Living the New Life.