The Reality of Your Relationship - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September 24th. Serving God is extremely important, but doing things for Him should never replace our relationship with Him. Continue listening to the series pointing you to some practical helps to holiness. It may be, am I doing this on the basis of my human resources or am I doing this on the basis of a heavenly relationship? Now, I do not mean simply what you do at church. I mean in your home life, in your social life, in your business, whatever your business may be. Are you operating that on the basis of an intimate relationship you have with God or are you operating that on the basis of your human resources?

What you can come up with, what you can do, what you can manipulate, what you can manage, what you can finagle, upon which of these two bases are we living our life and laboring every day? Now, let's look at two or three things. Look in John chapter 17 for a moment. I want you to notice he prayed this prayer about his apostles. Then he comes to verse 21 and he begins to talk about unity and oneness and harmony of believers. His prayer was that we might build a relationship with each other and relationship with Him.

Verse 21, that they may all be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou has sent me. Now, listen, what does he say? He's praying for oneness. He's praying that we might have a relationship, watch this now, a horizontal relationship with each other. Now, I want you to notice what he said. A horizontal relationship with each other, a vertical relationship with Him, and if you'll notice what he said, he said that the world may believe that thou has sent me. Listen, all the working for God in the world minus relationship with Him will not impress the world one bit. Now, watch this.

Don't miss this. In order for the world to be impressed and influenced by the church of Jesus Christ, those two relationships must be right. My horizontal relationship with my brother must be right.

My vertical relationship with my father must be right. If those two are not right, the world's not going to be impressed. He says in order that the world may believe that thou has sent me. If the world is going to believe in Jesus Christ, the world has got to see Jesus Christ in us, and they cannot see Him in us unless we're building a relationship with Him and with each other. Now, what is the objective of God's building a relationship with us? There are three things. Now, write these down. Number one, it is oneness, oneness with Christ, oneness with Christ.

That's His objective. Number two, likeness to Christ, likeness to Christ. And number three, fullness of Christ. You see, He says abide in me, oneness with Him, likeness to Him, fullness of Him.

He wants a relationship whereby you and the Lord Jesus Christ might be one with each other, harmony, unity, oneness of mind, and that there might be the fullness and the likeness of Jesus Christ. Then the outside world looks into the heart of the believer and sees an intimate relationship with the living Christ. Are you impressed with the dead God of some other religion?

No. And the unbelieving world, until they see the living Christ within us, they're not going to be impressed by Jesus Christ. Listen, the unbelieving world is not impressed by crosses on top of church steeples. They're not impressed by crosses around your neck.

They're not even impressed by religious books or television programs. They are impressed and influenced when they see the living relationship of Jesus Christ having changed a man's life. That they cannot deny. That bocks them and stalks them and that confronts them and frustrates them and confuses them until their hearts are enlightened and they say, there's something about that lady, something about that fellow that's different. What is it?

It isn't how much work you do. It's the relationship. And what is he saying? He's saying that he wants us to build a personal relationship with him whereby we might be one in Christ. One in Christ, likened to Christ, and what? Just filled up with him.

And I want to tell you something as sweetly as I know how. The churches today are filled with men and women and mostly men who are church men who are committed to an institution called a church. Many of whom are committed to a church building. Many of whom are committed to an institutional philosophy but who have no personal relationship with a person Jesus Christ.

And that's the reason churches have trouble. That people within the fellowship, if they were building a relationship with each other and with God, any way you look at that, it's love both ways. Oneness with him, fullness of him, likeness to him, that's going to be evident not only in my heart but it's going to be evident in my conduct with my brother. And you see, his objective is to bring us to a sense of oneness and fullness and likeness to himself and when that happens and as it happens the unbelieving world will be drawn like a magnet to loving believers.

And it's all based not on my work but my relationship. And that's why some of God's greatest saints don't stand behind pulpits, don't stand before classes, don't stand in choirs, they are quiet believers whose life is wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ. And moment by moment, day by day, in their growth in him, there is a likeness and a reflection of him within their face that cannot be denied.

Now let me ask you this. What is the supreme desire of your heart this morning? What is the one thing that goads you, the one thing that prods you, the one thing that motivates you, the one thing that pushes you, the one thing that keeps driving you? I believe that it is the will of God that our relationship with him be the number one objective of our life.

Because you know what? When that's right, everything else gets right. And when that's wrong, nothing else can be right. Now, let's look at two or three things. Let's look at two or three scriptures for quickly. Let's just think about some things Jesus said. Number one, he said, come unto me. Matthew 11, the last couple of verses there.

Come unto me. Then he said in John 15, abide in me. Then he said in Matthew 4, follow after me. And he said in Matthew 26, watch with me. Then he said in Matthew 28, go with me.

Now watch this. He says, come unto me, personal relationship. Abide in me, personal relationship. Follow after me, personal relationship. Watch with me, personal relationship.

Go with me, personal relationship. You see, he was interested in building men, building women, building a relationship with him. You see, he came to reveal the Father. And one of the reasons we know so little about God is because we know so little about Jesus. And the reason we know so little about him, we don't take the time to learn to fellowship and to be built up by him. You see, God's objective in everything he does in our life is to do what? To strengthen, deepen, and make more meaningful that relationship with him.

Now he prayed in the 17th chapter and all the rest of those verses there. The last verse says that the love wherewith thou has loved me may be in them and I in them. The love wherewith thou has loved me may be in them and I in them. Now, let's look at that relationship for just a moment.

The character of it. First of all, it is a positional relationship. That is, we were placed into Jesus Christ. That is, the relationship was executed by God.

That was the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a positional relationship. Secondly, it is a personal relationship. That is that you and I have the privilege of personally talking to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We build our relationship with the Son and with the Father.

We have the right to talk to them personally and intimately about anything and everything, anytime and every time. That means not only is it a positional relationship, we've been placed into it. It is a personal relationship. It is a practical relationship.

That is, anytime, anywhere, in any circumstance, I have the privilege of talking to my Father. And he's going to listen. Again, it is a productive relationship because what does it do? He says, as you abide in me, he says you're going to bear fruit. That makes it productive. And apart from that relationship, there is no productivity. We are bearing what he produces.

It is a very productive relationship. It is a protective relationship because he says in the first part of that chapter, he says the husbandman, the father, that is the husbandman who is the Heavenly Father, is the keeper of the vineyard. And he watches over the trees, the vines in the vineyard. He watches over the relationship of the branch to the vine.

He watches the productivity. It is a protected relationship. And then, I think you could say it is a powerful relationship.

Now let me tell you why. Because a man in Jesus Christ has within him the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. That means there are no limitations in the life of the believer within the will of God.

Not one single limitation. Whatever it is the will of God for you to become, to do, to be, there is the potential resting within you available for release and liberating within your life to make you the sum total of everything God wants you to be. You see, that kind of relationship has to be of God. For he has placed within us a potential that is beyond anything you and I could ever create or manipulate. His cry to us is what? Come unto me, abide in me, follow me, watch with me, and then go with me. But here is what we do.

We say, all right, let's go with God. He is not impressed with that. He is not impressed with going until first of all there has been the coming and abiding and following. Now watch this.

Because here is what happens. In coming to him, I am trusting him. In abiding in him, I am triumphing with him. In following him, I am being trained by him. In watching with him, I am going through trials with him.

And then in going with him, I am telling for him. And you see, God has worked out his total relationship with us that everything he requires of us is built on a heaven relationship and not on a human resource. That's why a man whose relationship with Jesus Christ is intimate and growing and productive knows, now watch this, that the limitations of his capacity are continuously being pushed further and further and further and further back. You see, if we're going to be a Christian, why not be the sum total of all we are potentially able to become? Now, how do you build a relationship with God?

And I can tell you very quickly, and if I spent all day on it, it wouldn't make any difference. If I spent two minutes or 20 minutes, you're going to have to commit yourself to do it or not do it. Number one, if you're going to build any kind of relationship with God that's going to be worth anything at all, you've got to decide you're willing to be quiet. And in that quiet time, you ought to do three things. You ought to listen, you ought to pray, and you ought to read the Bible. Now, when you read the Bible, remember this, I want you to write this down now. Read it through, number two, pray it in. Pray over what you read. Read it through, pray it in. Number three, write it down. You see, if you'll write something down, you'll keep it an awful lot longer.

And number four, work it out. That is, in your daily life of that day, just work it out. What you've read, what He said to your heart, you begin to look for ways to put that in practice. And then, watch this now, read it through.

What's the next one? Pray it in, write it down, work it out, and pass it on. You see, as you are reading the Word in the morning, what are you doing? You're building a relationship with Jesus Christ. You're building a relationship that's going to do what?

That's going to bear fruit for the day. If you're going to build a relationship, there must be a quiet time. Secondly, if you're going to build a relationship, there must be worship. When you learn to build a relationship, you'll worship God seven days a week, not one morning on Sunday. Now let me just say one or two things about worship. Worship demands submission. If I'm going to build a relationship with Jesus Christ, I must submit to Him what He is, who He is, and what He requires of me.

And thirdly, if I'm going to build a relationship, I must be willing to share. When you share with somebody else what God is doing in your life, what that's doing is giving you a better understanding of your relationship to God, because as you share it with somebody else, they'll challenge you sometime, and you have to rethink the whole thing. It sends you back to reexamine your fellowship and your relationship with Him, so that as you have a quiet time, and as you submit worship to Him, and as you share that with someone else, all of that is part of building up a relationship.

And remember what He said? He said, Abide in me, and I in you. What is He doing? He's doing something in us in order to do something through us, in order to do something for someone else.

All right? Not only a quiet time, not only a worship time, not only a sharing time, but one of God's choicest ways to build a relationship is to send difficulty into our life. Now why does that build a relationship? It sifts me, it polishes me, it prunes me, it burns the dross out of me, and you see, difficulties and trials force us into a new dimension in our relationship.

Now watch this. At this point in your life, all of us are on some spiritual level right now. Now what we'd like to do is for God to say, we'd like to say, now God, I'd like to take a giant step forward in my spiritual life, just like this, Lord, with ease, comfort, and pleasure. Whoopee, here I go. All right?

God says, yes, I heard what you prayed. You want to take a giant step. So He comes down upon us with some great difficulty, and we feel like we're going to be crushed under it all.

What happens? When it's all over, we've taken ten giant leaps in our spiritual life. You see, oftentimes the very thing we resist is the very thing that builds depth of relationship. You see, trials and heartaches are part of the building process of a relationship with Him.

Well, I could mention a lot of other things about that, but just let me say this. I don't know what your primary objective in life is, but you can't name one higher than this. To build an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ whereby I will become one in Him, I will grow in delightness to Him, I will be fulfilled by Him, and in the process, all those who know you will want who you've got. The most important thing in your life this morning is your personal relationship with Jesus Christ.