INTRODUCTION: "What I'm gonna be sharing is actually the ministry that launched my wife and I. It’s the ministry that took us to Great Britain. It's a ministry that got us an invitation to Malaysia. It's a ministry, that's revelation, that God birthed in me, in us, through our struggles, through our pain."

TEXT: (ASB) Ephesians Chapter 5, I want to begin in verse 11 (NASB), in which Paul is saying "and do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead, even expose them." Whoa! "for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. All things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason" it says "arise, sleeper, awake from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. So then, do not be foolish but, understand what the will of the Lord is." Wouldn't you like to understand what the will of the Lord is? Verse 18-"and do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives be subject to your own husbands, as unto the Lord. The husband is the head f the wife as Chris, also, is the head of the church, He, Himself, being the Savior of the body, but as the church is subject to Christ, so also, the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives just as Christ, also, loved the church and gave Himself up for her that He may sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of the water with the word, that He might present to Himself The Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless. So, husbands ought, also, to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself" Men? Husbands? "for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, and charishes it just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each individual among you, love his own wife even as himself and let the wife see to it that she respect her husband."
(Chapter 6) "Children obey your parents, in the Lord for this is right, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your hearts as to Christ. Not by the way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as slaves to Christ, doing the will of God from the heart for good will. Render service as unto the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing that each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with Him." Now, that's a lot, isn't it?

Turn with me to Colossions, Chapter 3, boy, I'd like to back up all the way, but, let me go to verse 9 and begin reading. "Do not lie to one another since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self, who is being renewed to a true knowledge , according to the image of the One who created him. A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free man, but Christ is all, and in all. And so, as those who have been chosen by God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you; and beyond all these things, put on love which is the perfect bond of unity and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you are called in one body and be thankful." I want to emphasize here, beginning with verse 16. "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord, Jesus, giving thanks to Him, through God, the Father." Now, notice the following. Verse 18 "Wives be subject to your husbands as it is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against them, children be obedient to your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children that they may not lose heart. Slaves in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as to the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord, Christ, whom you serve, and he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done and that without partiality."
(Chapter 4) "Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that, you too, have a master in heaven. Devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well that God may open to us a door for the Word that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned, in order that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak." Verse 5 "Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders," Why? "making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person."

BODY: We have a major dilemma confronting us in this life. The major dilemma is a simple one because, since the fall, no one naturally thinks that God is good. I have heard people repeatedly say, "Why, I've always loved God." Biblically, you can't support that position.

The truth of the matter is, if we live long enough, if our passions are noted long enough, what we discover is that God just doesn't play according to our rules. Behind the question, or behind the statement that you've heard people make, whether they ask, "how?", "could?", or whether they make it as a declaration and say, "A loving God couldn't...", what you find is, at the deepest level, the core of that person's being, the reality of the statement that I just made - NO ONE NATURALLY BELIEVES THAT GOD IS GOOD. God does not line up. He does not cooperate in any way, seemingly, with our program. Innocent children die. Hard-working, loyal, faithful employees get fired. Faithful pilgrims in the Lord suffer, and all too often, we are able to observe these things from a standpoint of a God who seems to be distant and uncaring about the whole matter. This only confirms, in our natural position, what we already believe, that God is not good.

We sing the songs, and they're fun to sing, "God Is Good, All the Time", but how often, when you're in the throes of the difficulties and struggles of life, does that song come to your mind? You know, when you've got a relational conflict that is tearing your heart out, "God Is Good, All the Time" is not a song that just naturally jumps up to the top, is it? So, we've got a dilemma. The dilemma is that WE DO NOT NATURALLY BELIEVE THAT GOD IS GOOD.

Now, if we do not naturally believe that God is good, then the text that we have read this morning is going to present us with a problem. If you noticed, as we read the text in Ephesians, it talked about being filled with the Holy Spirit, "be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit". In Colossians, it talked about "put on Christ", it talks about "all you do, do unto the Lord", and then it gave us relationships. What we know is this, that God designed us, He created us to be relational. We have talked about four basic types of churches: Institutional, Informational, Inspirational and Relational.

The bottom line for Institutional is statistics, nickels and noses. With Informational, the bottom line is knowledge; Bible knowledge? With Inspirational, the bottom line is experience. In other words, when you go to church, you're supposed to get goose-bumps. If you didn't get goose-bumps, you didn't have a good church service. But, with RELATIONAL, the bottom line is love - love through relationship.

I believe, and it is my conviction, that the Relational type church is the one that is diagrammed for us in scripture. There is no doubt that God created us to be relational beings. In Genesis 2, God said "Let Us..." a relational term, "Let Us make man in Our image". When God looked at all the creation, He said, "it is good", except when He looked at man and saw that he was alone, "there was not a help mete found for him", for the first time, God said, "It's not good...". What was He saying? "not good for man to be alone". So, there's no question, from the text we read today in Ephesians 5:18 and following and Colossians 3, God intends for us to be relational and, the center, the focal point of our relationship is to be in the Lord.

Is there anything wrong with statistics? No. There is nothing wrong with being Informational or with being Inspirational. My concern is, when you go home and you close the door, in the midnight hour, how is your life? That's my concern. Numbers, knowledge or experience won't make one ounce of difference, for you personally, in that hour, but our relationship with the Lord, and, in the Lord, our relationship with everyone else is the only soil through which you and I will be nurtured so we can come to maturity and wholeness. The fear that we have is alone-ness.

I like what **Larry Crabb said, "What characterizes everybody is terror and determination." The terror is my fear of alone-ness. What makes this valid is, that in the natural, when I consider God, my greatest fear is that God is not good. And if I have concluded that God is not good then what hope have I with others? So, whether it's a conscience terror or a subconscious terror, there is a terror about our alone-ness. So, the best way that one can handle that is to become determined; determined that I will pursue and find my satisfaction in life through other means.

The relational approach is a difficult approach. Let me read to you from **Larry Crabb, "No one naturally thinks God is good. The strong suspicion, that He is not worth trusting, is the disease with which Adam infected the entire human race. As children of Adam, each of us have turned away from God to find life. We have depended on ourselves and others for the satisfaction in Him that we were created to enjoy, and we turn away with angry passion, determined to make it on our own, without God. But to admit that no one, in our lives, is giving us what we need nudges us closer to the fear that we are committed to never facing, we really are alone. And worse, to admit fully, our disappointment in others might even tempt us to reconsider our attitude toward God. He may be our only hope."

That's our dilemma, and, it's a relational dilemma. Yet, that's exactly what God has created and designed us for. The very thing that is a deep yearning in my heart is the very thing that scares me to death. The deep yearning in my heart is to have relationship with God and with you. But, God disappoints me, and with that disappointment, I may turn my attention more heartily toward people, but then, I find out that people also disappoint me.

The primary people in our lives don’t come through for us, whether its our parents, our spouses, or our children. Realtionally, the very people that you look to are the people who cause you the greatest pain. So what we have done, in our own determination, we have devised our own systems of self protection. And in that, we have created Relational Nightmares that the best psychologists in the world are trying their best to figure out how to unravel and then solve. Whether it’s in the field of psychology, through councilors, or, whether its, in the church, the dilemma that we have not adequately and properly addressed, is this whole dilemma of relationships, and one of the reasons, I think, is because we have not pointed people in the proper direction.

We’ve been greatly influenced by "Pop-psychology" in which the thrust is to do everything we can to make You feel better about You. "Self" has become the center focus of the whole thing. Preaching has fallen to that trap; "If you preach a message that doesn’t make us leave here feeling better, then we won’t come back." But, you see, the reality of scripture is this, you are not the center, its not about your worth, its not about your value. And yet, there is that cry within every heart, "Tell me that I’m worth something. Tell me that I’m valuable." My problem is that goodness is all about making me feel better about me. My self-image. My self-worth. But, I’ve discovered that God’s not playing this thing by my rules, the primary people in my life aren’t playing this thing by my rules. The harsh truth of it all, is the reality, it’s not about you. You are not the center. It’s not about how valuable you are. And when that begins to hit home every ounce of the depravity in you starts coming up, the fear of alone-ness.

The simple truth of the scripture, is this, the fall was so effective that man can no longer be redeemed in his natural state. There’s only one hope for man, it’s called death, burial, and resurrection to newness of life.

See, Jesus said it this way, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains alone." Maybe we could learn something from that. As long as our interest is focused on “self-interests”, as long as we are seeking to find “our” life, through our determination, to do it our way, we’re gonna remain...alone.

We’re having to deal with the issue of our relationship with God first and foremost. "Be not drunk with wine, wherein it is excess, but be filled with the Spirit of God." And then, notice what it says, "speaking to one another."

Now, let’s look at having this relationship with one another, verse 19, "Speaking to one another", ...how? "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing", the next one. We had speaking, now we have "singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." Everyone of our relationships are to be centered and focused in the Lord. Fellowship does not really happened if it does not happen "in the Lord".

A couple of us might become the best fishing buddies there are, but, it’s not true fellowship as long as that fellowship is only in fishing. We might become good Sunday-afternoon, big-screen, NFL buddies. But, if that time of fellowship is not ":in the Lord", it’s really not fellowship. The only thing that’s gonna draw us together, into closer community and relationship with each other, is "in the Lord". Because, ultimately, here’s what I know, you will never respond to me properly if you’re responding to me "for me". My saving knowledge, and my encouragement, and my confidence about you is what I’ve come to know about you in your relationship with God and God’s relationship with you.

In John 21:15 and following, that discourse where Jesus is confronting Peter, who denied Him three times, so three times Jesus asked Peter "Do you love Me?", because that was Peter’s confession, "I love you more than all these, I’ll never deny You." So now, Jesus is confronting him on the sea shore. And Jesus says, "Do you love Me?" and the words, for the first two times, Jesus says, "Do you agapao me?", and Peter said, "Lord, You know I phileo You." in the Greek. See, you don’t get that in the English. But, Jesus said, "Do you agapao me?", Peter says, "Lord, I phileo You." And Jesus says, "Tend My sheep." So, He says a second time, "Do you agapao me?", Peter says, "Lord, I phileo You.”, and Jesus says, "Shepherd My sheep." So, the third time Jesus says, "Do you phileo Me?", and then the scripture says that "Peter was grieved because He asked him the third time". See, it’s not about the number, it’s about what Jesus is asking him. The third time He asked him, "Do you phileo Me, Peter?", and now Peter is grieved that He would ask him, "Lord, You know all things. You know I phileo You." And Jesus says to him, "Tend My sheep." But notice Peter’s relationship to the Lord, and then Peter’s relationship to people, and the Lord never, once, asked Peter, "Peter, how do you like people?" He said, "How do you love Me? Do you love Me?" That’s why in a marriage relationship, if my wife has a consuming, ultimate, life-giving love for the Lord, I’m safe. If she ever loses that, I’m in trouble.

Whether we are reading in Ephesians or in Colossians, it’s the same thing. Everything is to be "as unto the Lord". You don’t like your job? You don’t like your boss? The Lord, in the word says, and through the word we know this, you are to do that job "as unto the Lord", serving Him. If you’re a slave, and you work for your master, then you do so "as unto the Lord" pleasing God, not man. And, if you work to please God, I assure you, what man has to say, will not distract you. The same thing is true in every relationship, but the first relationship that we have to come back to is our relationship with God. And folks, everything about that is terrifying, because, everything in me does not believe, naturally, that God is good. So, I am called to come, facing my fear, facing my terror. When I have a perceived need in my life, whether it is real or imagined, the question is whether I will trust God for it, or if I will become determined to meet that need on my own through others.

There’s a standard that is set by God and that standard will not be adjusted to make you feel better about you. If in my experiences or my perceived needs, whether real or imagined, I dare to wait on God, all too often, here’s what I find out - God doesn’t come through according to how I think He ought to and then I must experience what is called “dying to self” and knowing the centrality of who is valuable, and that who we are involved with, is valuable in the Lord, Jesus Christ. That’s central. It’s His worth. It’s His value. And, it’s our being so consumed with His worth, and His value, that we gladly give up everything we have for Him. If that’s the way you’re living, and if that’s the way I’m living, then we become a safe community. We really do become a sanctuary, a safe place. As long as there’s any of us who have our own agendas that we’re living by, there’s gonna be all the relational problems that exist, that the scripture tells us about.

Being a Relational Church is the hardest way for church to go. It’s a lot easier to do a "horse and pony" show. But, you know what happens? There comes a time when the "horse and pony" show will close down. What endures, and what lasts, is the eternal principles that God has given us. These principles transcend time, race, culture. They transcend everything that we know in the natural, because they’re not natural, they’re spiritual. And it is that reality that will transform our community, where we live.

Jesus didn’t say, "Peter, do you like the sheep?" He said, "Do you love Me?""you work for them as unto Me", not only for the good one’s but for the bad ones. A husband might say to the Lord, "Lord, my wife is not being a wife to me. She’s not even relating to me the way You told her to relate to me." And here’s the word that comes back from the Lord, "You love her as I have loved the church and gave myself for it." Whoa!! "But Lord, she’s disloyal." And the Lord says, "So is my church but I gave myself for her".

We all have perceptions of God, we have perceptions of others, and we have perceptions of ourselves and, most likely, the majority of those perceptions are wrong. So, we need to look at those perceptions, we need to look at God’s answer to our wrong perceptions and trust that God will impart to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. We need God to open the eyes of our understanding, so that we will know what is the hope of His calling. We hope that, because He is the life-giver and He’s the heart-changer, God will begin to let us see Him more accurately, to begin to see others more accurately, as He sees them, and then let us begin to see ourselves more accurately.

This is the dilemma for mankind. It’s a relational dilemma. That is what we must address if we’re gonna have a sense of community, if we’re gonna have a sense of family, if we’re going to be able to fulfill God’s call and destiny on our live, individually and corporately. We want to be a community of believers, in which it’s safe to be exposed, "Awake, thou that sleepest. Arise." We need to expose the works of darkness. It would be wonderful, if we were in such relationship with each another, "in the Lord", that I would feel safe enough to expose areas of darkness in my life, have you know that about me, knowing that it would not change your perception of my place in this church. And the same thing for you, that you could feel safe enough to expose areas of darkness in your life, because you would know that it would not change our, the people’s, perception of your place in this church.

Even the best relationships lack something. We become aware of our disappointments gradually until the terror re-awakens within us that, perhaps, we really are alone and without hope. This is the dilemma for mankind. It’s a relational dilemma.

PRAYER: Let us pray. Father, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, I pray, that You will give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You, that the eyes of our understanding will be opened so that we may know what is the hope of Your calling, that we may know what is the greatness of the richness of Your inheritance of the saints. I ask, Father, that we'll hear Your heart, Your mind, Your will, and, Father, that by the power of Your Spirit, You will infuse the reality of the truth, by Your Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth, that we will be lead in all truth. Father, I thank You for Your presence here with us. In Jesus' name, Amen.


**Quotes taken from the book "Inside Out" © 1988
by Larry Crabb

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