The Gospel And Relationships

I am learning that in every situation in life we must always come back to the gospel, and that this is especially true in interpersonal relationships. Most of our lives are spent in relationship with other people, and since no two people on earth are going to be able to agree on absolutely every issue conflict is a natural part of every relationship. I want to look at some practical ways that the gospel should change how we as believers interact with other people, but first we need to consider a few foundational principles.

We are all creatures of habit. Some fight against this more than others, but to some degree we all have our little routines that we can't live without. Perhaps some would try to argue that this is not the case for them because they intentionally avoid routine, but avoidance would still be classified as a routine. Since we are creatures of habit, for the most part, we are going to continue to resort to many of the same thought and action patterns that we have established over the years. An example that I have used often is that each of us as children were punished for bad behavior, and rewarded for good behavior.  Though some more or less than others, almost everyone has had similar experiences for at least their early childhood years. These thought patterns have stuck with us and they were even bolstered in our years at school when we learned that if we did well on the test we got a good grade, but if we did poorly we got a bad grade. This also has continued, for the most part, into adulthood and the workplace. If we work hard and do better than everyone else we will be the first up for promotions and raises, but if we are absent, tardy and/or are unsuccessful we will receive warnings or even termination.

By this point I hope we can all agree that each of us have grown up in a world that tells us that we need to work harder, do more, and be better than others if we want to succeed. We have been programmed with a competitive and success oriented mindset. However, Jesus said the first shall be last and the last shall be first so how are we to reconcile how our world functions practically with the gospel?

A key aspect to understanding the gospel or the Good News is that we must first understand the bad news. The bad news is that we are all related to Adam and have been stained by the fall. Not only are we affected by the fall in a global way, just like our ancestor, we each have personally sinned against God by not living up to His perfect standard. Our sinfulness has so stained us that even at our very best we still fall desperately short, or as Isaiah put it so well, "All of us have become unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags..."

To use an illustration of how we all fall short of God's perfect standard, picture yourself driving on an Interstate, you notice the speed limit sign and then look down at your speedometer. Instantly your guilt is confirmed, you have broke the law. I am able to say with a fair amount of confidence that everyone reading this is perfectly aware of their guilt when it comes to the speed limit, but this illustration does not actually paint us an accurate picture. You see, though most of us would claim that it is a physical impossibility to abide by the speed limit, we cannot say so with a clean conscience. So let's alter the illustration a bit, lets say that you pull onto the Interstate and you look for the speed limit sign because you are in no hurry and really want to live up to the standard. You look over and see the sign which says "Speed Limit -5 MPH" and you slam on your brakes coming to a complete stop. As you sit there your speedometer reads 0 MPH, yet you are still in violation of the law.

You see in the first illustration there is an assumption that if God's standard was like the speed limit, though it is a challenge for us to achieve it, it is possible. However, that is certainly not the case. Instead God's standard is perfection, and sin has so stained us that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much better than everyone else we do, we are still unable to measure up. Just as is it physically impossible to go -5 MPH on the Interstate, so too is it an impossibility that we could ever hope to measure up to God's standard of perfection.

Jesus also illustrated this principle for us in the Gospel of Mark when He said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. The disciples responded by asking, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus' response is amazing, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." Jesus' claims truly are as extensive as they appear to be. He is unequivocally claiming that men (and women) will NEVER be able to live up to God's standard of perfection. Men can never save themselves.

This is the bad news, that we are infinitely incapable of measuring up to the standard, and this truly is bad news. In fact, this is devastating news! Also notice that this news goes completely against everything that we have grown up learning about how to succeed in this life.

However, it is precisely because this bad news is so bad, that the Good News is so incredibly good. The Good News is that because God knew that we could never attain to His standard, He became a man and attained to that standard in our place. God, in Jesus Christ, lived the perfect life and met the impossible standard so that those who were related to sinful Adam can now, by faith, become related to Christ. Paul explains how this is possible for us in Galatians 3:25-26 saying, "But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith." We who were once far off and stained by sin, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. By faith in Christ, God sees us in our sinful state as having died with Christ on the cross, and then God takes the record of Jesus' perfect life and accredits it to us.

This is the up-side-down kingdom. Those who appear to be first in this world because of there successes will, apart from Christ, be last. Yet those who appear to be last in this world because of Christ, will be first.

Now that we have laid the groundwork I want to look at how the gospel should change our relationships. However, since most of our relating to others happens by speaking there is a warning that we must consider. In chapter 3 of his epistle James writes about how the tongues lead us into all sorts of evil, he says, "...no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God." His words are clear and powerful, our tongues are what we are supposed to use to glorify God, yet so often we use them to attack people who have been made in God's image. He continues on saying, "...these things ought not to be so." Certainly we could draw countless applications of how the gospel changes us but based on the warning from James, we will focus on two.

First, our communication with and attitude towards other believers. If we truly believe what the gospel says, that we were saved by nothing but Christ's perfect work, that we have absolutely nothing in us that was worthy of or contributed to our Salvation, then the natural outworking of that should be humility towards others. This is especially true when dealing with conflicts among Christians, because we should both recognize that we are saved by sheer grace there is no superiority among believers, we are all one in Christ (Gal 3; Eph 4). Grace completely levels the playing field because salvation by grace alone means that none of us deserved it. Because we are still being sanctified there WILL be conflicts, and there will certainly be times when one party is wrong (or more so) and the other party is right (or more so). However, since both are ultimately just recipients of grace there should be an air of humility that helps both parties to resolve their issues. Prayerfully both parties should bring the gospel truth of salvation by grace alone to their approach to resolving the issue, and if that means being willing to continue the conversation at a later time, then that is what should happen.

The second implication that I want to look at is our attitude and behavior towards unbelievers. Just as the gospel should make us incredibly humble towards believers, this should also be the case with unbelievers. For a believer to look at an unbeliever judgmentally we assume superiority, but James tells us, "There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?" In context this verse is speaking specifically to judging other believers or "brothers." However, Jesus makes it clear that our neighbors are all those around us (Luke 10:25-37).

Sadly for far too long there has been an attitude among many Christians that we are better because our superior moral standards. This is a filthy lie and a seed of self-righteousness that must be stopped. This is why it is so important that we also consider the bad news that EVERYONE is guilty before a holy God. The only difference between the believer and the unbeliever is that the believer's sins have been covered by God's grace. The importance of understanding that salvation comes by grace alone is that it teaches us that our salvation has absolutely nothing to do with anything good or superior in us. The gospel of grace clearly shows us that we are just as guilty and so we dare not act as though we were even just a little bit better.

To borrow a phrase that I have heard Mark Driscoll use, "Christians are not the good guys while sinners are the bad guys. The only good guy was/is Jesus, the rest of mankind are the bad guys."  This is the very heart of the gospel, that only Jesus is good, only Jesus met the standard, only by Jesus working perfection in our place could we ever stand before a holy God. Again, the gospel should make us incredibly humble, and that should in turn change the way that we relate and converse with others. Our relationships with others must always take into account the fact that we have ALL failed to measure up and that we are all in desperate need of His grace every day.

But the truth is that we will never be able to manufacture better behavior, and even if we could we would attempt to take credit for being better. Humility, especially in relationships, is not something we can strive for, rather it comes from seeing Jesus as our only hope. The more we look to Him and marvel at all He accomplished for us, the more our pride will be melted away. Just as the old song says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace." May the gospel of grace humble us by melting away our pride, and may it truly shape and reshape our relationships with our neighbors.