Being With Jesus – Relationships

Last week I started a series of messages called “Being With Jesus.” I asked you to think about how consciously being with Jesus makes a difference in your lives. We know in our heads that Jesus is always with us. But having a conscious awareness of His presence in our hearts is what makes a difference in our daily walk. We talked about the impact Jesus had on the lives of His first disciples, recalling when Peter and John healed a crippled man and the boldness of their witness (Acts 3-4). The Jewish leaders took note that these men had been with Jesus. As we continue to think about this today, I want you to consider the effect that all of our relationships have on our lives.

I know I’ve told this story before, but I remember leading chapel services at Concordia College in Austin during my sophomore year. It just so happened that the Board of Regents of the college was meeting on campus that day, so they attended chapel. That added to my anxiety when I walked in and saw all those leaders of our church in Texas sitting there with the professors and students. Carl Heckmann was our District President at that time. As he was walking out of the chapel after the service I heard him ask one of the professors, “Say, isn’t that Fred’s boy?” That is how I was known through college and seminary to many of my professors: “Fred’s boy.” Even when I got to my first parish in Oklahoma, many of the pastors there knew Dad, so I was still “Fred’s boy.” And of course, coming back to Texas, I lived with that legacy. It gave me a relationship with people who otherwise did not know me. They made a connection with me and I with them because of someone we both knew.

When my daughters went to Concordia, they experienced the same thing. They often groaned, “everywhere I go people ask me ‘are you Mike and Cheryl’s daughter?’” Our oldest daughter, Rachel, told me about a weekend while still in college that she went to worship in a Lutheran church in Houston. After the service, the pastor was greeting people at the door. When he asked her name, she said she purposely didn’t use her last name. The pastor kept telling her how familiar she looked. She finally admitted, “Well, my dad’s a pastor in Denison.” And he said, “Mike Mattil?” She was then mortified to hear the pastor call his wife over by saying, “Hey, this is Mike and Cheryl’s daughter.” I had gone to seminary with the guy.

A few years ago I was asked to preach at Homecoming when Rachel and Bethany were both students at Concordia. The bulletin announced that the preacher was “The father of Rachel and Bethany Mattil.” When I first started getting involved with the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League here in Texas, I was known as Cheryl’s husband.  

Relationships identify us. They help define who we are: spouse, parent, child, neighbor, friend, acquaintance, teacher, student. Most of the relationships we have in our lives are positive. They enrich our lives. When people have a connection with you, they will be more likely to help you, even going out of their way to do so. Our youngest daughter is finding out how true that is these days. Ten days ago her parents were willing to drive to Austin, spend seven hours moving her into her apartment and classroom and drive back home that night. Her mother went back down there Friday to spend some more time getting everything ready. Ed Dieterichs was going down there this weekend to visit his grandchildren, and he was willing to deliver a washer and dryer down there and install them in her apartment. You do these things because of relationships.

People around the world know this to be true. All of you could no doubt easily come up with multiple examples of how relationships with other people have enriched and improved your lives. And those of us here today share a deeper bond, greater than being acquainted and related. You are reminded of that bond, that relationship, when we begin our worship in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, echoing the words spoken when the waters of Baptism splashed over us. We share the bond of having been claimed by God as His dearly loved children. We share the bond of God’s grace that reached out to us in our sinful condition. We share the bond of having been led by the Holy Spirit to faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. We are in a relationship not just with each other, but also with Jesus Christ. 

You can never overstate the impact this has on your life. As important and powerful and meaningful as your relationships with other people are, your relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in your life. Without Him, you would be lost and condemned for eternity. That’s what each of us deserve because of the lives we live, because of the sinful people we are. Any kind of examination of your life reveals that to be true, whether you think about the things you have not done that you should have done or the things you have done that you should not have done.

Romans 3:23 (NIV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

We do it every day, time and time again.

• The harsh word.
• The lies and deception.
• The laziness
• The malicious thoughts
• The gossip

This and so much more is sin, and God tells us very plainly what these sins deserve:

Romans 6:23 (NIV) …the wages of sin is death…

However…the story is different if you have a relationship with Jesus.

Romans 6:23 (NIV) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That is yours because God established a relationship with you. When mankind fell into sin and went away from God, He went out of His way to do what needed doing. He was willing to lay aside the power and majesty and splendor of heaven in order to encounter us on our level, in flesh and blood, to be God with us and God for us.  Paul spoke of what the God/Man Jesus Christ did for us this way:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The relationship you have with Jesus means that He took your place in punishment, all the way to death, and puts on you His perfection. God sees you as being not guilty of sin for Jesus’ sake. It is because of the faith relationship you have with Jesus as your Savior.

1 John 5:12 (NIV) He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

If you have the Son, you are in a faith relationship with him. And that guarantees you life. You have the Son in your life. You are with Him and He is with you. We’ll talk about this again next week.