Slides: Relational Fitness

By David Feddes

Relational fitness

• Real: honest, sincere, communicative
• Caring: love, empathy, interest
• Stable: steady, faithful, reliable
• Respectful: honor and serve others
  
• Spiritual: sharing inner Christ-life
• Helpful: connect, affirm, expose
• Militant: battling evil together
• Gracious: apologize, forgive, restore

Real: Honest, sincere, communicative

… speaking the truth in love…

put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor (Ephesians 4:15, 25)

Love must be sincere. (Romans 12:9)

Now that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. (1 Peter 1:22)

Communicative

• Listening: … quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. (James 1:19)
• Speaking: Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Eph 4:29)
• Doing: Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:18)

Caring: Love, interest, empathy

Love your neighbor as yourself. (Mt 22:39)

Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31)

In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4)

Stable: Steady, faithful, reliable

No longer tossed by waves and carried about by every wind. (Ephesians 4:14)

Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find? (Proverbs 20:6)

Do not break faith with the wife of your youth. (Malachi 2:15)

Respectful: Honor and serve others

Love does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. (1 Corinthians 13:5)

Those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-44)

Respect can mean different things:
1. Treating someone like a person.
2. Treating someone like an authority.
If you insist on being treated like an authority but don’t treat someone like a person, you are abusing that person and abusing your authority.

Respect self and others

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity… Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. (1 Tim 4:12; 5:1)

Spiritual: Sharing inner Christ-life

I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. (Ezekiel 36:27)

God has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Cor 3:6)

Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1:27)

Divine fellowship

• Father, Son, and Spirit relate in perfect love and union of the Trinity.
• Redeemed people partake of and express Trinity’s love and unity.
• God dwells within each believer and among his people as a whole.

Christ in us

• The same Christ lives and reigns in all  believers by the same Spirit.
• Christ is so richly glorious that he cannot be fully expressed in any one of us.
• Christ displays himself in believers with different personalities and different domains, showing different facets of the one Christ’s glory and reign.

Spiritual connecting

As you connect with other believers, you display the unique glory of Christ in you, and you delight in the unique glories of Christ in others. Christians connect in order to share what Christ is doing within us, to battle together against hindrances to Christ within, and to strengthen each other. As Christ in you connects with Christ in me, we grow up in Christ.

Three approaches to helping

• Moralistic: Order what’s right.
• Therapeutic: Heal what’s sick.
• Spiritual: Nourish new life.

Helpful relating: Connect, affirm, expose

You were taught… to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteous-ness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

Spirit’s helping

• Spirit shows me Jesus. I see that He is delightful and that he delights in me.
• Spirit reveals and affirms the goodness and glory in my new heart and destiny.
• Spirit exposes my darkness, sin, and pain so I can enjoy forgiving love and healing mercies.

Helpful relating: Connect, affirm, expose

• Christ in me connects with Christ in you. I show that I delight in you.
• Find and praise the good and glory in each other’s new heart and passions.
• Meet each other’s sin and pain with honesty, grace, love, and high hopes.

Relate by the Spirit

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. (John 6:63)

After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ... Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?  (Gal 3:3)

Militant: Battling evil together

Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. (Ephesians 6:10)

Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier… whom you sent to take care of my needs. (Philippians 2:25)

Archippus our fellow soldier. (Philem 1:2)

Gracious: Apologize, forgive, restore

Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold… And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God… Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger... Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Eph 4:26-32)

Relational fitness

• Real: honest, sincere, communicative
• Caring: love, empathy, interest
• Stable: steady, faithful, reliable
• Respectful: honor and serve others
  
• Spiritual: sharing inner Christ-life
• Helpful: connect, affirm, expose
• Militant: battling evil together
• Gracious: apologize, forgive, restore