A Gateway Sermon
Gateway Church's Podcast
The Risk and Rewards of Relationships
You're a lady boy and part of the team here all right turn your Bible of Genesis chapter 2 while you're doing that I don't want to ask you a question how many of you have raised boys successfully alright Well, I was a boy one time I have a seven-year-old. I had a brother that was close to my age I've got this email from a mother in Austin, Texas She says some things that she learned raising boys now for those of you that have grown children You're gonna think this is funny for those of you that want children. This might be birth control These says she says these are things I learned from my boys I'm being honest and she said I'm not kidding a king-sized waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2,000 square foot house four inches deep If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear in a Superman cave It is strong enough. However, if tied to a paint can to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 by 20 foot room Break fluid mixed with Clorox make smoke and lots of it a Six-year-old boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year-old man says they can only do it in the movies No matter how much jello you put in a swimming pool. You still can't walk on water The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy It will however make cats dizzy Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy You know 80% of the women in the room you're gonna want a copy of that Can you think that's funny 80% of the men in the room are going to want to mix the Clorox and the brake fluid when you get home To see if it does make smoke, right You can't take the boy out of the man the toys just get real expensive as you get older, right? All right, jettison chapter 2 I'm gonna speak to you for a few minutes today on the risk and rewards of relationships now I don't get to speak every week So I have a lot of time in between messages to do a lot of research You know just kind of sit around do a lot of research actually do more than that But you want to hear some of my latest research? Well, you got to anyway the here's what I've discovered that the entire Compilation of the world with one minor exception is made up of other people I've come to that conclusion which brings me to Matthew 22 in a great commandment You know Jesus was supposed to make it simpler. He said I'm gonna sum up the whole law of all five You know the first five book. I'm gonna sum up the whole law with two new commandments Okay, what's the first one the first one is the love the Lord your God with all your heart your soul in your mind, right? The second one was to love your neighbor as Yourself and here's the problem I like myself a lot Now don't look at me like you never had that thought in fact Let me make a deal with you if you don't give me some empathetic look back like I understand your struggle Brady Then I'm gonna preach for like an hour and a half this morning But if it went if I confess something to you this morning and you give me that look back like yeah I'm there with you. I feel the same thing. We'll get through in like 25 minutes. Okay, all right So let me repeat that I'm discovering that part two of the new commandment is hard for me Because I like myself a lot and that come. Thank you and the end it You're saying yeah, you kind of do that's not what I'm asking for. Okay? Empathy means I feel the same as you. That's what empathy means. All right. Let's get the definitions, right? So here's the problem. I'm having part two of that commandment's really hard Because the Bible says that not only am I supposed to spend a lot of my time trying to love God more It says I'm supposed to spend a lot of my time loving people as much as I love myself That's a problem. So in Genesis chapter two now God has placed Adam in the garden Right he created Adam first and then the first time in the Bible that we see God intervening in the affairs of man You know what he did he added another human to the mix Genesis 2 18 says and the Lord God said it's not good that man should be alone Do you know that God's interested in your emotional makeup and how you connect with other people God is? Very interested right now today and how you are relating to other people And he says I will make him a helper comparable to him and the word comparable is the problem there You know what happened in heaven that day? God the father said hey, Jesus. Holy Spirit watched this Adam thinks he's got it made He's a little lonely and I'm going to put another human on the earth and I'm going to engineer this one completely different This part this other humans not going to think like he does not going to emote the way he does They're going to see things from opposite ends of the spectrum And then I'm going to tell both of them that they've got to get along and this is going to be fun to watch This is going to be great You want to watch this? Okay, well he put Adam in the garden and you know what's happened for the last 5,000 years We haven't gotten along I mean honestly, that's what's happened You know even minor doctrinal differences causes the new denomination to split up I mean to form up and then they split into another denomination over a minor doctrinal difference, right? It's hard for people to get along Is that right? Yeah, God is very interested more than we think and how we relate to each other for example By the way, I have my Bible turned upside down that'll help I turned it that way, right? Psalm 68 verse 5 says father To the fatherless the fender of widows This is God now think about this God has given us a definition of himself. I'm a father to the fatherless Fender of widows. This is God and then look at verse 6 what it says. He says and Verse 6 God places the lonely in families in other words God is in heaven orchestrating Relationships orchestrating a person here to relate to a person here. God is up in heaven Continually orchestrating relationships on New York Do you agree with that and he's especially interested in the fatherless and in the widows and those who are lonely? That's what God said. That's what the scripture says now I lost my dad in December and my mom is now I have a widow in my family my mother's a widow and You know what happens when you become a widow the greatest thing you suffer with is loneliness So my mom lives in Louisiana. She's six hours away and I call her every day. I talk to her a lot She's been up here. I go see her every time I can but she's still lonely and I was praying Lord I want my mom to be set in place. I mean I wanted to find friends You know I was asking my mom when my dad passed away in 42 years of marriage How many days or how many nights did you and dad spend a part in 42 years of marriage? And so we were talking about it and we were adding it up You know what she said we think somewhere around 18 to 20 nights total and 42 years of marriage now. I've been away from Pam 20 nights this year The porch is cold - by the way I pick it I got a great marriage Just checking to make sure you're listening So the point is my mom and dad were very close friends. I mean obviously she was his world and he was her world And so when he left he left a big boy in her life And so I was praying for my mom and the Lord took me to Psalms and said Brady listen. This is what I do This is who I am We're worrying about your mom I'm gonna make sure I'm a defender of widows and I make sure the lonelier said in families It made me start thinking about how much God how interested God was in our relationship But you know what there's a risk and reward to relationships You know what the first risk is? the risk is rejection The first risk that we face when we choose to love another human being in fact the greatest Risk that we take when we choose a lot of another human is rejection, right? Now, no, we just had baby dedication that I want to put a down or on it But all of us I've heard stories lots of stories of how we raise our kids We bring them up to do the best we can with them and then our kids abandoned us kids walk away from our values Maybe choose to walk another path I've met with hundreds of couples who tell me great stories of how they fell in love How they had a great wedding in a church like this only to discover years later that one of them Decided to find someone younger and prettier and walk away from them and the kids abandoned hurt Rejected that pain is that's a terrible pain All of us have heard stories about people who have chosen to go into business with people who say they are Christians only to discover Maybe a few years later that the other partner has in bezel all the funds Walked away from the company Let's you abandon hurt rejected That pain is real. That's a real pain in fact all of us. I'm about to turn 40 and I'm so I'm evaluating the first part of my life and you know that all of my successes and failures I can tie back to relationships All of my successes and failures so far in my life I can tie back to relationships and how Relationships have either caused me great joy or caused me great harm Do you agree with that? I mean it hurts people can hurt you People are can be mean people can intentionally cause you great pain and yet The Bible says the second part of the great commandment is that I'm supposed to love my neighbor even as I love myself So there's no plan be God didn't give us an out. Well, God You don't realize the set of relationships. I've had for 40 years Don't I get an out here? Can I choose to kind of disengage from people God? Can I choose to live on an island by myself? The Lord says no Brady you can't In fact when I was a young pastor I actually had a pastor tell me this Brady don't ever trust church people That made me want to sign up for the job right away What is God calling me to I mean I've heard of being a martyr, but I didn't think the church people were ones that kills you So I mean I can't be a pastor that way I knew right away that was bad advice I can't I can't come into this job and take this job and do this if I'm gonna be afraid of People hurting me. You know what? That's the risk. I have to take and all of us have to take right? Now Jesus took the same risk in John chapter 6 verse 66 Jesus has just made a really compelling statement He said you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood if you're gonna have eternal life, right? Well, I was a hard saying now here. Here's what I think happened Jesus is standing there with his 12 disciples And literally hundreds of people are walking away from him at that point The Bible said that many of them left him so he's watching literally the backs of people that were just a few minutes before his friends He's watching them walk away, and he turns to his 12 closest friends and he asked him a great question Here's what he says verse 67 then Jesus turned to the 12 and asked are you going to leave to? Are you leaving as well? Now let me ask you a question. We know how Simon Peter answered Lord, you know, he said no We're not gonna leave where else will we find the words of life? He answered right, but let's just ask let's pretend just for a minute that We know the answer God knew the answer Jesus knew the answer when he asked him, but let's just pretend that They answered differently Let's just pretend for a moment that the 12 looked at Jesus and said we're out of here Jesus that was a hard saying for us to we didn't want to leave with the rest of them because we knew we're close to you But listen, we're out to What do you think Jesus would have done if? They would have walked away What do you think he would have done I? Think he would have started over. I Think you would have found another 12. I Think he would have re-engaged with another group of people and you know why? Because Jesus could not accomplish his mission on the earth without relationships And you know what you and I cannot accomplish our mission on the earth without relationships God was called Jesus was called to the earth to establish a set of relationships and out of those relationships the gospel would be taken to all the ends of the earth and he knew that if those men Walked away from him. He would probably have to start all over from scratch and build another set of relationships Because his success depended on people Jesus chose to take a risk of rejection Here are here are some beliefs I wrote down some beliefs of people Things that I hear from people who are living their life out of rejection who who have allowed rejection to define who they are Here's some of the things that I've heard people say and here's some of the things that I said men never cry You know why men say that because one time they cried and they were rejected and they made a bow in their heart I'll never cry again. I'm gonna teach my son never to cry again because when men cry and make themselves vulnerable They could get rejected I'm never going to let my guard down again. I've been hurt by others in the past and I'll never let others hurt me again Dragging up the past serves no purpose. You ever heard someone say that? Yes, it does serve a purpose because I'm having to live with you right now In pastor Jimmy just said it on the promotional video. He said that our future is sabotage when we don't reconcile our past Because our past and sabotage our future It's nobody's business how I feel Nothing can help me overcome the pain that I feel Here's a great one. I mind my own business and I expect others to mine their own business When people say that they're speaking out of a wound of rejection Here's what you're really saying never ever ever trust another person You see when people have been hurt when people have been wounded when people have been abused you just make those choices you say Lord I'm just never gonna trust another person and here's what you're saying Lord. I don't want all of my destiny to be fulfilled then That's what you're really saying when you tell people. I'm not gonna drag up my past I'm not gonna deal with the wounds of my past what you're saying to God is I don't care about my future then I'm I'm content to live here and I'm not moving forward Jesus knew by the way Jesus was ultimately abandoned his closest friend Peter Peter James and John were his three closest friends, right? They were nowhere to be seen at the end when he needed them the most when Jesus was arrested his closest friend Peter denied him three times Which brings us to Psalms 118 Verse 22 says that the stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone You see the choice that we have to make by the way that was repeated six times in the New Testament six different times They refer back to Jesus when they talk about Jesus. This was the prophecy about Christ The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone So the choice that we have to make today is not whether or not we're gonna engage in relationships because that's not an option You know what choice you have to make today Here you building your life upon the stone that the builders rejected Are you gonna build your life upon past hurts and past disappointment? You see I choose today to believe what God has already said about me He told me in his word that I'm an heir according to Christ that I've been placed in the palm of his hand and nothing can snatch me out of his palm The Bible tells me that I can lay hands on the sick and see them recovered that I can tread on snakes and scorpions and they won't harm me So that I can cast out devils if I need to Bible tells me that I've been sentenced to heaven and can't get out of it That's who I am. I'm not a victim. I'm not a victim of people. I'm not a victim of how people have treated me in the past I'm not a victim My life is built on something more than that My life and my future is built on something much more powerful than that My life is built on the stone that the builders rejected who is now by the way the cornerstone of my life And so the choice you have to make today is where are you building your life from this point forward listen? I've got good news and bad news. Which one you want first the bad news. Thank you the bad news is You will most likely be disappointed and hurt by future relationships Even those people sitting close to your right now family and friends most likely in the years that you have left upon the earth Close personal relationships will cause you great pain in the future Here's the good news You don't have to be identified by that anymore It's probably gonna happen But I choose the day to live my life differently I choose the day to forgive and I choose the day to position myself differently I'm not a victim. I'm putting my life back on the cornerstone Jesus was rejected it did not identify Christ and it does not identify who I am I cannot live my life void of people anyway God's not gonna let me off the hook So I have to make a choice, right? It's as simple as that. It's real black and white to me. I Have to love people. I'm required to love people. I cannot live in unforgiveness I cannot live with pain identifying me any longer. It's not who I am. I'm not a victim The rewards by the way are greater than the risk anyway You know what the first reward of relationships is the reward is open doors Now I want you to remember something I'm about to say if you don't remember anything else I say this morning, please remember this God uses human hands to open human doors and Sometimes we pray to God Lord God open a door for me Lord I want your will and God says we tell you how that my will is going to be accomplished in your life by using Human hands on the earth to open those human doors for you. I Want to show you a story in Acts chapter 9? This is a story about a young Saul. He was a young zealot He thought he was actually doing God a favor by bringing Christians and putting them in jail Putting some of them to death and it says in Acts chapter 9 verse 26 that when Saul arrived in Jerusalem He tried to come the gateway tried to come to catch the vision tried to join the church and They didn't want anything to do with him and rightfully so right many of these people in Jerusalem had lost family members because of Saul So they had a reason to reject him But they were all afraid of him They thought he was only pretending to be a believer verse 27 then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Saul Had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus Barnabas also told them what the Lord had said to Saul and how he boldly preached in the name of Jesus in Damascus Then the apostles accepted Saul after that and he was constantly with them in Jerusalem preaching boldly in the name of the Lord You see there are times in our life that like Saul we need a human advocate We need someone to defend us we need someone to come alongside us into to open a door for us And by the way, you know what doors were open to Barnabas because he connected with Saul who later became Paul who Later took some pretty cool trips who later wrote two-thirds of the New Testament was the greatest apostle who ever lived on the earth Guess who got to walk alongside that guy for years and years and years. Who was it? It was Barnabas Barnabas made a choice. He said look I see something in him that no one else sees I'm gonna be as advocate I See something in Saul I'll be his friend and Saul said look I need someone who has heard my story and believes my story They need we need someone to defend us from time to time Now you know there's a saying in the world It's not what you know. It's who you know, right? I believe that's a godly principle that the world has taken and distorted You see what the world tells us what that saying is is to find relationships that are that are that can help you find people That can provide a benefit to you use them up and throw them away and then find another relationship that can benefit you Use them up and throw them away. It's okay to do that. It's what the world teaches us, right? See, I believe that that's a godly principle though It all depends on your motive Now listen, I've got some money in my pocket and you know we've heard some great Teachings on stewarding our money, right? This is your great teachings here at Gateway about stewarding finances You know what the difference between this money and people you know what the difference is this money does what I tell it to do And it doesn't argue back if I give this money I get back in return what I want from it. I Believe that we have learned how to steward our finances. Well, but I don't know if we've learned how to steward relationships very well You know that I don't give my money For what I can get back from God. That's the wrong motive, right? If you give to get God does not reward that motive the reason pam and I've put our ties in the box The reason we commit to one life is because it's a joy to give Because I don't own it anyway All my resources all my funds all the things that God's given me are things that he's put in my lap to be a steward And you know what I believe that God's put relationships in my life, too And then I'm supposed to steward them and my motive for giving money is pure Then why is not my motive for people as pure as that? In other words if you if you want to manipulate people and control people and use people God's not going to reward that with open doors But if you're only motive and relating to people to love them and bless them and encourage them and not what you can get out of it God will open all the doors. Do you know what will happen when you start praying for open doors? You'll have so many doors open in front of you. Your prayer will not be God open doors It'll say Lord which of these open doors am I supposed to walk through? And by the way every door that God opens for you will always be big enough for more than one person to walk through God does not open doors for you to walk through by yourself anyway Every door that God opens for you and you and I in our lives Is for us to walk through with other people. It's always a double wide door Plenty for you and other people God doesn't call us to do things by ourselves. God calls us to do thing with people and By the way when we choose to love people like that We're pleasing God. You know why because we're loving the things that God loves God loves people and when we choose to love people without manipulation with the right motives. That's pleasing to God Here's the second reward and that's the reward of courage The reward for walking in relationships with people is courage now in 1 Samuel 14 There's a great story of a 20 year old guy named Jonathan. He's growing up The Bible said there were only two swords that the entire army of Israel had they only had two swords and guess who had one of the swords The 20 year old who had never been in a battle So he has one of the swords is dad has the other the rest of the army fighting with sticks and plows and stuff They can find there were no blacksmiths and Israel's they had two swords So Jonathan's sitting there and they're the Philistines are attacking as dad doesn't want to fight everyone else is hiding in the caves and the hills And Jonathan is going we've got to do something. I've got a sword The 20 year old who's never been in a battle has a great plan They've got an armor bear and this armor bears probably about 15 or 16 years old now What's the chances of a 20 year old and a 15 or 16 year old making a real key military decision? It's got a scary, right? So here they are now There's two big cliffs and in between these cliffs is a passageway and these two cliffs have been taken over by the Philistines Nobody can come in and out of that valley because the Philistines have taken over the two cliffs all right now Get this money in your in your mind on one of these cliffs. They're 20 Philistines soldiers well armed Philistines soldiers and they are guarding the cliff and you know what Jonathan's great idea was hey I've got this sword. I've got one of the two swords in the whole army Let's you and I walk out there to that cliff and if those men say come on up. Let's fight then we'll know that's God Let me ask you a question. What are the chances of 20 well armed Philistines soldiers on the top of the cliff saying we don't want any part of you Please go away Yeah, yeah climb up 30 or 40 feet and when you get here you're gonna be exhausted and tired We're gonna take that sword from you and spank you with it and send you back home We're gonna have half your swords so So here listen to what the armor bear says now this is verse verse 11 verse Samuel 14 Verse 7 says the armor bear looked at him and says do whatever you think is best. I am with you hard and soul Do what you think is best? verse 4 verse 11 when the Philistines saw them coming they shouted look the Hebrews are crawling out of their holes and Then they shouted to Jonathan. Come on up here and we'll teach you a lesson come on climb right behind me Jonathan said This is God For the Lord will help us to feed them so they climbed up and get the picture They're climbing a cliff using both hands and those climbing walls. That's what they're doing They're climbing up 30 or 40 feet and there's 20 well armed men waiting farm at the top They climbed up using both hands and feet and the Philistines fell back as Jonathan and His armor bear killed them right and left they killed about 20 men in all and their bodies were scattered over about a half an acre Suddenly panic broke out in the Philistine army both in the camp and in the field including even the outpost and raiding parties and just Then an earthquake struck and everyone was terrified. Listen. It was God and You know why Jonathan had the courage to do something bold because someone agreed with him His armor bear said listen Jonathan If that's God, I'm with you You know that I believe that most of us take the dreams that God gives us and we incubate them, but we never hatched them We just sit on them all the time because we don't have the courage number one to even tell people what we think God's told us Because it seems too far-fetched. It seems too bold. It seems like it would not happen anyway So why should even bring up what I feel God God's saying to me? But I believe that God wants to bring around you a group of people that you can tell some of those things too And they'll tell you by the way if it's right or wrong But when it's right and when it's God You'll have courage to do it You will never have courage to do the bold things that God's called you to do And let someone else comes alongside and agrees with you You need someone to say that's right. That's God. Let's do it together And if you choose to isolate yourself if you choose to walk away from relationships God can never use you to do the bold things that he wants you to do because you simply won't do it for a lack of courage God doesn't call us to do the practical God doesn't call us to do the things that we can do in our own natural abilities anyway God calls us to do the supernatural God calls us to do things that we can never do by ourselves God calls us to do things that are so out of the realm of possibilities By 190 acres of land Put 1.2 million square feet of property and plan part as if you could afford it Listen pastor Robert didn't come to us with that idea one day and none of us had the courage to speak up So we just kind of went ahead with it. That's not how that happened That's the honest truth pastor Robert came into the elders meeting We begin to talk about it weeks and months and months and months of praying and talking and saying it's not God It is God. This is not God that is God But I'll remember the night for the rest of my life that we arrived at the conclusion together. That's God and Then we we told you about it None of us in that room would have had the courage by ourselves to stand up in front of you and tell you Look at what God's call us to do. I Felt like Benjamin Franklin, you know when they were signing the Declaration of Independence They were making a bold declaration to Britain that we're not going to have taxation without representation We're we're forming our own country. You know what Benjamin Franklin said. He says we must all hang together Our most assuredly we will hang separately That's the truth, let me ask you a question today who you hanging with If you're not if you don't have people around you you will never do anything bold and daring and courageous for God You will lose courage in the end But if you choose to take the risk of rejection if you choose today to re-engage with people God might possibly use you to do something bold and daring and Courageous like charging a cliff and killing 20 men He might ask you to do something in your business or in your family or with your children or with your finances that you would never do by yourself That you'll do it with someone else The risk is rejection in fact, it's a promise It's not a risk. It's a promise. You will be hurt and you will be rejected by people But the reward that you'll get is open doors and the reward you'll have is courage Can I pray for you today? We close your eyes, and I'm going to ask you the same question we ask every week What is the Holy Spirit saying to you today? See I believe that there are many of you here including myself that we must choose today to forgive those who have hurt us and move past that Quit letting it identify who we are No longer will we allow the past hurts of people to identify us Now listen, I cannot promise you that when I pray for you in a minute that all the pain of your past is going to go away What I can promise you though is that if you will choose today to change your beliefs If you'll choose today to believe something different about people and about yourself That your feelings one day will catch up with your beliefs. That's what I'm promising your feelings Will catch up with your beliefs, but you have to change your beliefs first And I'm I'm also promising today That God will open the doors for you that you've been praying for If you'll choose to engage with people because God will not open doors on the earth and any other way except for people He will always use people And I can promise you today that you'll have more courage than you've ever had in your life to do what God's put on your heart If you'll reconnect with people Lord, I thank you today for your Holy Spirit Lord we choose today to walk in forgiveness We choose today to turn our eyes toward you the the stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone Lord, thank you that you're the cornerstone of our lives today and Lord you understand rejection you understand hurt you understand pain Well, Lord, you are also the cornerstone nothing can move the cornerstone and we choose today to build our lives upon the solid rock Or we choose today to be free from unforgiveness We choose the day to believe that you've not called us to walk in pain. You've called us to walk in victory We thank you for your Holy Spirit that makes all of that possible in Jesus name Amen