Growing Right Relationships

Introduction

Good evening. Got a great crowd tonight. Thank you for being here. I make absolutely no guarantees about how this is gonna go. Because we find ourselves once again the day after camp and I, once again up here preaching and sleep deprived. So if this is not coherent, just blame it on that. and I also went home and wrote this lesson this afternoon because Tony’s like, what are you doing? And I’m like, well, I had something, but he’s like, we want to hear about camp. I was like, oh, okay, here we go. So I obliged him and I have here some handwritten notes. I don’t think I’ve ever preached off of handwritten notes before, so hopefully I can read my own writing. But in kids that were at camp, I apologize, but you’re gonna get a refresher here today.

At camp we talked about growing right relationships. And we talked about on each day, we talked about a relationship with God, our relationship with our parents, our relationship with the opposite sex, with the world, and with our friends. And when we think about what relationships are, a relationship is simply something you have with someone that you relate to. It’s something you have in common. You have common ideas, common likes, common interests and experiences. You have a special bond with that person. And of course, for those of us in this room, we have a relationship with each other because of our relationship in Christ. Sunday, or rather Saturday after the camp was over, Bubba Garner gave kind of the last devotional talk, and he talked about during his devotional about the fact that camp is not about the place.

It’s not about the campground, it’s not about the things that you do, the sports that you play. It’s not about those wonderful camp eggs that we all love in the mornings.

Camp is special because it’s about the people. And those of you here, you maybe never been to camp, or maybe you’ve never sent your kid to camp. You might be thinking, well, what’s the big deal? Or maybe if you’re a parent who does send your kid to camp, what’s the big deal? I don’t understand. Why is it so special? Why should I even keep spending my money to send my kid to camp? I just kind of want to relate a few things to you this evening. You know, I want to first say the parents, by sending your kids to camp, you were doing the right thing. You are doing absolutely doing the right thing for their spiritual life and development. They’re there meeting Christians and developing relationships that will last a lifetime.

She’s here, and her eyes are wide because I’m talking about her.

And she was pretty scared. And she went, and Monday night and Monday night we had to call mom, and that’s okay. My brother had to call mom his first week there too. And that’s the same is true for so many other kids. And me as Uncle Jesse, it fell upon me to comfort her and talk her through it and try and make sure that she stayed there.

And what I kind of naturally got to as I was trying to encourage her to stay was that camp changed my life. And I wasn’t exaggerating. Camp literally changed the course of my life. And I told her about how all the opportunities that it gave me, all the friends that I made, the lifelong friendships that I made, the opportunities that I had for growth in terms of my song leading abilities, in terms of my speaking abilities, because it gave me opportunities to do devos and stuff like that. I, you know, told her about how if it hadn’t been for camp, my brother probably never would have gone to FC. And if my brother hadn’t ever gone to FC, then I probably wouldn’t have ever gone to FC.

I never would have been in the friends group. I never would have probably even become a preacher. And if I hadn’t become a preacher, I never would have moved to Germany and had that experience. It absolutely changed my life. I get to be in music class with Glinda Shales. I mean, how cool is that? I get to try her new songs as she writes them. I get to actually make inputs that she changes into her songs. Because I go to camp.

It’s not. Kids can be just perfectly fine without it. But it certainly helps. It certainly gives them good influences. It makes their life richer, their spiritual life stronger. It gives them something to look forward to as they go throughout the school year, and everything is dark and dreary, and their friends are awful, and they just can’t wait for school to be over so they can go to camp. It expands their base of Christian friends. It gave me people to go and do things with this high people from school. I didn’t have to do anything with friends to school when I was in high school because I had people from camp that I wanted to go hang out with. My mom was always like, why don’t you have people over?

Why don’t you do things with people from school? She thought like I didn’t have any friends or something. I don’t know. She doesn’t remember saying that. I’m looking at her face, but she did.

I didn’t care about those people, that’s why. Because they were they were gonna drag me down. I wanted to do things with people from camp. And I personally knew even long before we started coming here to Decca Prairie, people in this congregation because of camp. I knew the Purcells kids. I knew the Van Meter kids. I knew the Berkner kids. I knew the Irwin girls. I knew the Penningtons. I knew Jared Byers. I knew Dean Edwards. And on and on down the list I could go. I’m sure there are more. And so a word of advice here to parents in the audience. If your kids want to be involved in these kind of things, don’t discourage them, encourage them. Make those sacrifices. If they want to go and hang out with kids from camp, let them.

If they want to go to these functions, let them. And don’t just let them. Make the sacrifices that are going to be necessary for that to happen. Your kids will notice it. And they will appreciate it. And it will make a difference in their lives. I remember my dad taking me all over Houston before I could drive and picking me up late at night in places. Because they knew it was important for me to be around those people. And I’m sure that wasn’t easy on them. And once I could drive, I’m sure they stayed up nights late when I was out places wondering if I was safe, but at least knowing that I was with the right people. And so I want to just make a few points here tonight about the things that we talked about this week at camping and just show you what it is that gets talked about that enriches these kids’ lives.

1. Our Relationship With Our Parents

And the first thing we talked about was well, number one, our relationship with God, but I’ll get to that. I’m actually going to get to that last. But first, because we’re talking about parents, I want to tell you a few things that I told your kids, and that all counselors told your kids this week. Number one. We told our kids that they didn’t come with an instruction manual. As parents, we’re all just trying to do the best we can. And you come out, those kids come out, and you’re just as clueless as you could ever be.

So help us out. We’re just doing our best. We have a responsibility for your soul. And we take that very seriously. So when we try and do things and discipline you, and all of that goes along with that, it’s because we love you. And so respect your parents because of the job that they have been given to do. They have a great responsibility over your soul. We told them if you honor your parents, it is more likely that you are going to honor God later in your life. Because who you are going to be is being developed right now. Told them they need to obey their parents. See, aren’t you glad you sent your kids to camp? Of course, Ephesians chapter 6. Verses 1 through 3, one of the most important verses in that regard.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, for this is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land. So we parents we tell your kids that they need to submit to you because you have the authority in the household. You know what? That goes both ways. Parents, don’t forget that. You have the authority in your household. You are responsible for their souls. Children should not be the rulers of the house. And I said so is a perfectly acceptable reason for them to do what you said. And that children disobeying their parents is rebellion, not only against their parents, but it is sin against God.

Respect, obey, and honor your parents. And appreciate them. Appreciate what they do for you. Appreciate the sacrifices they make for you. Tell them that you appreciate them, kids. Appreciate why they do what they do. They do it because they love you. They do it because they’ve been there. Use their experience, their wisdom, their guidance, lean on them. Kids, don’t. I know it’s it’s hard to relate to your parents sometimes because you think that they just don’t know what I’m going through. They don’t know what it’s like. Yeah, they do. They’ve been there. Open up to them. And that again goes both ways. Parents, talk to your children. Drag it out of them if you have to. I know my parents had to drag it out of me.

I was a big fan of one-word answers.

Talk to them about their struggles. Find out what’s going on in their life. It’s your responsibility. We talked about the fact that most every relationship in life, you get to choose. You get to choose who your friends are. You get to choose who you marry. You get to choose what groups you participate in, what sports you do. But you don’t get to choose your family. And that’s a little bit difficult sometimes, isn’t it? It means we have to work at it a little bit harder, doesn’t it? And it’s hard sometimes when we have to discipline our children. And yet, Proverbs 13 and verse 24 tells us that if we spare the rod, we hate our children.

If you do not discipline your child, the Bible says you hate your child. If you let your child rule the house and run over you are not their friend. And guess what? I’m not talking about being their best friend. Because that’s not your job either. Parents, your job is not to be your child’s best friend. Your job is to discipline them and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And oftentimes that means discipline and rebuke. But discipline, if done correctly, the child will learn to appreciate. And we talked about the fact that the relationship between parents and children mirrors our relationship with God. And the love that is there, and the confidence that we place in one another. And we’ll get to that a little bit more when we talk about a relationship with God.

2. Our Friends Are Who We Will Become

But secondly, I think, again, one of the hugest reasons that camp has such an impact on our children is because of the friends that they find when they’re there. So I asked the question why is it important to make the sacrifices to get your kids around the right people? And it’s because, number one, their friends are who they will become. And the same thing is true about all of us. Our friends are who we will become. One of the morning devotionals, one of the guys speaking, said something to the effect of you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time around. And that may be true. It may not. But it sounds good. I think it is a general truth. The people that we’re around the most, they rub off on us.

They change us. For the better or for the worse. And it’s true in the as simple things as when Amber goes home to Bider and her accent changes like that. She knows it’s true. Mine does too a little bit. But it’s true in the bigger things as well. And so who we are influenced by extremely important in our spiritual life. Because the one is much more likely to be influenced by the many than vice versa. Kids think, oh, I can go around and I can hang out with all these kids and they’re not going to affect me. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they are.

I hope you can. I’m not saying it doesn’t ever happen. But generally. The one is more likely to be influenced by the many. Their friends are important because number three, these are the formative years of their lives. This is when they are becoming who they will be for the rest of their lives. And I can tell you story after story after story of kids who have come up to counselors and said, you know what, I really appreciate what you said to me. It really changed, you know, my attitude. It changed the way I was acting. I mean, I had, I can think of two in particular. Just for me. And for me, for everyone for me, I’m sure there’s ten for every other counselor. But I mean, I had one kid this year that graduated, he just told me, you know, you pulled me aside four years ago and told me I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t taking advantage of the time that I had here.

And ever since then I’ve made the most of every moment. And I had another kid who was in my cabin two years ago, and he said, Man, back then I was just I was an awful kid. And you put me in line because I wasn’t putting up with this mess. We have an opportunity to change them. Who they are now, who they’re becoming now is who they will be. So what kind of people do you want to surround yourself or your kids with? Proverbs chapter 22, verse 24 and 25 says not to go around with an angry man or lest you learn his ways. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 33, of course. Evil command companions corrupt good morals.

You want to surround them with godly influences. Or people who are sons of the devil. You know, in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 1 through 4. The people of Israel were told not to marry into the nations around them. Because inevitably, if they did that, those people would lead them away into idolatry. And of course, we all know they failed to drive those people out, and they married into all the people that lived around exactly what God said wasn’t they ought not to do, and yet what happened? Exactly what God said would happen. They were led away into captivity because of their idolatry. Influence is a powerful thing. We need to have the right influences in our lives. And we need to be the right influences for others.

And this relates to our kids’ dating lives as well. It’s not just about their friends, but about their friends with the opposite sex, their relationships with the opposite sex. It’s very important. Who they date, because the kind of people that they date. It’s going to be the kind of people that they marry. And our friends help us to be better friends of God. The right friend helps you to be a better friend of God. Proverbs 27, 17 says that iron sharpens iron. We want friends that are going to make us better. And they’re going to work on each other. They’re going to work off the rough edges.

And make us sharp.

3. Our Relationship With the World

And that’s why camp helps me. That’s why all the counselors go back just as much as all the kids go back. Any counselor tell you they get more out of it than the kids do. Those kids help me. And they help each other. Thirdly, we talked about the relationship with the world.

When I was a kid, I just used to think, man, it would be great if we could just stay at camp all summer and just never leave. And man, it ought to be at least two weeks long. After one week, I was not ready to go home. And now as a counselor, I know why it ends on Saturday. Well, Friday afternoon. I’m like, alright. Time to go. Tired. But one of the reasons I wanted to stay there was because, man, it was just, it was, everything was just so wonderful. It was just all positive influences. All these Christian people, and I didn’t, you know, I didn’t hear any cursing. I didn’t hear any, you know, wasn’t tempted to watch bad movies or whatever else the temptation might have been.

It was just this utopia. And I wanted to stay there. And the Bible tells us that we’re not to be friends with the world. But that does that mean that we completely separate ourselves from the world.

But it doesn’t work that way.

That salt loses its flavor. We’re the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. And so I told the kids, you know, what is your purpose in life? Why are you here? Why did God put you here?

According to this verse, my purpose in life is to glorify God with my body, with my life, with my every action. And to bring others to Him. To expose the darkness. Because that’s what light does. It exposes evil. It exposes darkness. And it dispels it. We are to be salt and light. That means we cannot remove ourselves from the world. We have to be lights to the world. We have to go into all the world preaching the gospel, Mark 16, 15. We have to have a heart that brings people to Christ. How selfish we would be if we just took this good news that we know about and kept it all to ourselves. We have to go into the world.

And yet we’re told we cannot love the world. 1 John 2 15 through 17, we cannot love the world or things in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. We have to put those things away. We cannot love both the world and God. Matthew 6, 24. I think there are some signs that we need to look at. When we look at ourselves that tell us if I love the world more than I ought to love the world, number one.

Where are my relationships? Who am I spending my time with? Who do I value the most? Who are my friends? What do they look like? What do they act like? And there were some kids in my cabin. They were telling me about some of the people they were hanging around, and some of the girls they were hanging around. I said, You need to cut that relationship off right now and run away as fast as you can. Because they are not looking out for your soul. And that’s easier said than done. I think number two, it’s our attachment to our possessions. All too often we show our love for the world not by blatant sin. But just by the fact that we love our stuff. And sometimes it is that sin in our life.

It tells us we love the passing pleasures. We love what Satan has to offer more than we love God. And yet we’re told that God is the one who should be our first love. Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5 in Matthew 22, 37. It says that we ought to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That means that he is everything. It means that he comes first. He’s the all of my heart, the all of my life, the all that I pursue. Another one of my Linda favorites, a passion for my God.

We read about the church in Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, verses 4 and 5. And how they left their first love. Their heart was no longer truly loyal to God. They were, yeah, they were maybe doing the right things, saying the right things, but he was no longer first in their hearts. They had left Jesus as their first love. It’s easy to love the world. Paul wrote about Demas, who had been a fellow worker with him, and yet he forsook Paul and he left. And Paul writes a very clear reason for why he left. He says, for he loved this present world. It’s easy to just say, hmm. It’s not worth it. This struggle. All this spiritual stuff. This fighting sin. It’s not worth it. All this stuff that’s right in front of me, that’s where it’s at.

That is a lie that Satan tells us. It’s a lie that Satan is telling our kids. It’s a lie that Satan is telling our government. It’s a lie that Satan is trying to get into each and every one of our heads. That heaven’s not worth it. But he’s the father of lies. We cannot listen to him, brothers. Cannot listen to him. We cannot throw our lot in with the world. And I think that’s what Paul’s trying to say when he wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14 through 18, when he says that we cannot be unequally yoked with unbelievers. He’s saying, don’t share their burden. They’re pulling a burden that is hard to bear. Don’t throw your lot in with them. You don’t share, they don’t share in your portion.

When he writes there, what is he talking about when he says their portion? I think he’s saying what portion has a believer with an unbeliever. He’s saying what eternal reward. What is their eternal inheritance? It has nothing to do with yours. Your eternal initance is in heaven. And theirs is in hell. The two are polar opposites. What relationship has light with darkness, he says, or righteousness with lawlessness. There is nothing in common there. There is no relationship. We cannot love the things of the world. We have to live for the next. And you cannot do that unless the relationships that you have are right. A relationship with our stuff, with the world, with our friends, with our parents, and with God. And that’s hard. It’s hard because we have distractions.

We have all these things in front of us, vying for our time and our attention and our money. And we lose our focus. We stop living with a view of heaven and the fact that will be worth it all. We forget about what we’re doing here.

4. Our Relationship With God

We forget that it’s temporary, that life is short, that nothing is going to go with us, and that it’s all going to be burned up. I’ve been a counselor now for 11 years. It’s longer than some of those kids who were there this year have been alive. And it’s gone by just like that. You cannot take anything with you except your relationships. So build the right ones. And that starts with God. I want us to think for a moment and ask yourself. How would you describe your relationship with God? Is it’s great, it’s excellent. I love God.

He’s everything to me. Is it, or is it just meh? It’s alright. Or is it bad? Is it not even there at all? And secondly, how can we develop a better relationship with God? If it’s not what it should be.

Brother, we need to be reading and studying his word. We need to be praying to him without ceasing. We need to be worshiping him at every opportunity with all our hearts. We need to develop the right relationships with others who are seeking to be more like him. Because God wants a relationship with us. And he wants a relationship with us that is nurturing, that is supporting, that is that of a parent and a child, one that is loving and caring, and not overbearing, but sometimes disciplining. And one that yearns for his presence. Why is it important that we have this relationship with God? It’s important because if we want to have a home in heaven with him, we need his wisdom. We need his guidance. We need his love and his constant support and his prodding and his calling and his comfort.

And of all the relationships we talked about, our relationship with God is the most important. And I’ll tell you, we told the kids, at least I told mine. Here’s why. Because God is going to be the only constant in your life. Think about that. God is going to be the only constant in your life. He is the only one who’s there from start to finish. Things are going to change. People are going to come into your life and they’re going to come and they’re going to go. Even your spouse, you may be married for 60 years, but guess what? Somebody’s going to go first. And they weren’t always there. Things change. But God does not. Paul, James writes rather in James chapter 1 and verse 17.

If you turn to James, we’ll be done here in just a moment. James chapter 1 and verse 17, he writes, every good and perfect gift is from above. Coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James tells us that he wants to be there for us. He wants to give us good things, and that he does not change. Everything we have is from him, and because of him.

God yearns jealously for us. Turn over to chapter 4. Begin reading in verse 5.

He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. Isn’t that an awesome thought that God yearns jealously? Each of our souls. He wants it so badly to be his. He wants that close relationship. He wants us to yearn jealously for him.

But he says, in order to do that, we have to draw near to him. He continues in verse 7 and 8, and he says, submit yourselves therefore to God and resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. If we want to have that relationship with God, James says all you have to do is draw near. Run away from the devil and run to God. That’s what he says there. Run away from the devil and run to God. And he’s going to be there for us. If anyone changes in that relationship, it’s us. And we cannot be friends with the world. He says in verse 4.

He says in verse 4 there that we are oftentimes adulterous people. We’re treating on God. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. We want to have the relationship with God that we ought to have. We cannot be friends of the world. We set ourselves at enmity with God.

Why does he want this relationship with you and me? Because we certainly don’t deserve it. Just want to give us a few reasons this evening and we’ll be done. Number one, he wants this relationship with us because we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Ephesians chapter 2. And yet God, in his great love and mercy, did something about it. Verse 5 Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He wants us because he gave us an incredible gift. And he paid an incredible price for that gift. He sent Jesus for us to die on the cross for our sins.

Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 11 tells us that while we were yet enemies of God, we were at enmity. We were hostile because we were friends with the world. We were in sin. We were adulterous people. We were cheating on him. And yet, while we were enemies, he sent Jesus to die on the cross for us. We went contrary to the thing, the very thing for which he made us. The very thing which you talked about earlier about the fact that we are supposed to be salt and light, that we are to glorify God with our bodies, that we are to bring others to him. We went against him in all those things. He created us for good works. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10.

We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. And yeah, we said, nah, I don’t want to do that. He wants a relationship with us because this is why he made us. He wants a relationship with us because we are his children. Romans chapter 8, verse 16 and 17 says that we are heirs together with him. We are children of God. He created every single one of us. He knew us in our mother’s womb. He knew us before we even knew ourselves. This relationship we have with God is that of a parent and a child because he knew us before our parents did. He is our Father. He is our creator. We are his children.

Told the kids in our Bible class that it’s something that’s very difficult for them to ever understand until they have their children of their own. I said, I know it’s hard to love your parents like you ought to. Because you don’t understand the love they have for you, and you never will until you have a child of your own. And the same is true for all the rest of us. We will never understand the love God has for us until we have a child of our own. We are his children.

When we’re gone, he misses us. He wants us to come back. He wants us to come home. He wants what’s best for us. And that’s all he’s ever tried to do. That’s all he’s ever tried to get through our fixed skulls. Like Tony said this morning.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 1.

Conclusion

The wise writer writes, remember now your creator in the days of your youth. Before the evil days come when you will say, I have no pleasure in them. And the key part of that verse is remember now your creator. Who is it that made you? So three points, and we’ll conclude. Number one, remember whose you are. You are God’s creation. You are God’s child. A possession of the creator of the universe who knows you, who loves you, who can count the hairs on your head, though they may be few in my case. Remember where you are. Whether it’s in your youth, or whether it’s just the fact that we’re here on earth and that this place is temporary, and that our home is eternal. Remember where you are.

And remember where you’re going to heaven.

That’s our goal.

We’re all here just for a little while. And we’re just trying to make it home. And if we’re going to do that, we have to build the right relationships. We have to grow the right relationships with God, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, with our parents, with our family, with our friends, with the world. That’s what’s going to get us there. And if you’re here tonight and you don’t have a relationship with Christ, if you haven’t come to know him, if you haven’t believed on him as your Savior, if you haven’t been baptized into his death and put him on for the forgiveness of sins, that means you don’t have a relationship with him. And if you don’t have a relationship with him, you are lost in your sins and you have no hope.

But the message we preach is that all it takes is belief and confession and repentance and baptism. In a life of faithfulness, growing ever closer to Him.

For all eternity.