I am Caleb Fielding and I have a question How should you treat the people you go to church with?
Have you ever gone to church looked around saw the people there and wondered “how should I treat these people”? Do you know that the Bible has a LOT to say about how you treat people? When you are at church are you obedient about how you treat your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are they obedient in how they treat you?
I Timothy 5:1-2 tells us
1Ti 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
1Ti 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
The first lesson of this series was on how we should not have a schism or what we may call a separation in the local church. When we go to church we should be close to people in church. The problem with being close to the people in church is that there are several different groups of people there.
Perhaps in our mind we separate the groups in church into children, teenagers, singles, married couples, and retirees. Its not wrong to say that there are different groups in church because I Timothy 5:1-2 gives us 4 different groups in the local church. But the Bible calls us to be close to someone in every group in the local church.
It doesn’t matter if you are a man or woman you should be as close to the men in the church as you should be to your brother, you should be as close to the women in your church as you are to your sister, you should be as close to the older women in your church as to your mom, you should be as close to the older men in your church as your dad.
I read that paragraph and to me its very convicting and uncomfortable, but it’s the closeness God calls every Christian to in their local church, and as single adults we were designed to be that close to people, and until we are that close with people we are not getting our needs met.
Today I am going to start where we are all comfortable at. How a guy should treat the men in church as brothers, and how a woman should treat the women in the church as sisters. The reality is that men and women should treat the opposite sex differently than they treat someone of the same gender, but God still calls them to be close and todays lesson will help clarify that in the next lesson.
As we begin this lesson please understand as a single man you should be as close to the other single men in your church as the married men in your church. If you are a single young lady you should be as close to the other single ladies as the married ladies. Whether someone is married or unmarried should not matter at all in how you treat someone who is the same gender as you in the local church.
In fact as a single person I would encourage you to invest more energy in developing relationships with the married people in your local church, because its harder. Its harder because y’all are in different places in life, you may not have any idea of what its like to live with someone for life, or being responsible for children, and they may never have been where you are at in singleness, or perhaps they cannot remember what the single life is like. And although you lead very different lives God calls you to closeness in Christ.
The reality is that if you do not intentionally invest time and energy developing relationships with the married people in your local church then the relationship is not going to happen. Married people should be getting most of their relational needs met inside of their marriage, so when you develop a relationship with them you are meeting a small amount of their relational needs. As a single adult most of your relational needs should be met by the local church. What is going to happen is that generally the married couples are going to meet more of your needs than you are going to meet their needs, so it is very appropriate for you to invest more time and energy in the relationship.
That said no one individual in your local church is going to meet 90% of your relational needs. You are going to need several close relationships to meet your needs. Some of these people are going to be married, others single, others are going to be the opposite sex, and others are going to be leaders. Inside the local church. All singles should be determined to be as close to as many people as possible.
As a man to develop this closeness I have to be intentional about developing this relationship with other men, and all these points are applicable to women developing close relationships with other women.
According to Hebrews 10:24 we should be considering the people we go to church with. The definition of consider is “To think carefully about”. To do this we should know their name, we should know whether they work or not, if they have family in the church or not, we should know something of their testimony of when they got saved and their walk with God. To consider the people in the local church we have to step out and get to know them.
According to I Corinthians 12:25 we should care for the people in church as much as we care for ourselves. At the very least this should mean we are praying for those we go to church with, but this should easily extend to helping others in need, or just being a listening ear when someone needs to talk to somebody.
According to Hebrews 10:24 we should be provoking people in church, not to anger, but to love and good works. Certainly we have to be serving the Lord ourselves to develop this kind of relationship in the local church because you need to be an example of this to provoke people to this. We are either going to provoke people who are not serving, to serve and love people and in doing so they will mature in Christ and it will be much easier for us to develop a close relationship with a mature Christian than an immature Christian. Or we will be provoking people who are already serving but need encouragement in a difficult time of serving others.
According to Hebrews 10:25 we should be exhorting one another. When you go to church and you see people and know something about their life, you should encourage them, that way its much easier for them to get close to you.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when we suffer we are to share that with others in our local church. We ought to share when we have a medical issue, or had a bad day at work, but we also should share when we have been wounded. So often in our churches we have people who have legitimately been wounded by another individual and if we do not share that wound it will turn into bitterness. So often we are ashamed of our wounds, but more often than not our wounds show us how close we are to others. If we are unwilling to share our wounds then our relationships are still to shallow and we have much work to do in our relationships.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when God blesses us we should be able to share that blessing with our local church.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when God blesses a church member we should rejoice with them.
As a single adult these are the 7 things you need to do to be close brothers, or close sisters in Christ. As a single adult you are going to have to do these things first; you will have to take these steps before others in your church to get your needs met. Yes we have gone over these points in much more detail in other chapters, but I felt the need to take the time to show how these different points work together.
I think the best Biblical example of putting these points together to develop a solid and close relationship is Johnathan, King Saul’s son’s, friendship with David.
In I Samuel 17 David kills Goliath, at the end of the chapter David talks to Saul until I Samuel 18:1 and then the Bible tells us that Johnathan’s soul was knit with David’s soul and that Johnathan loved David as his own soul. Johnathan could love David as his own soul because Johnathan considered David. Johnathan did not spend 10, 5 or even 1 year getting to know David before loving him like his own soul. Johnathan loved David because of 1 conversation David had with the king. The reality is that we need to be following Johnathan’s example and falling in love with church members when we hear their testimonies and how they love the things of God. We have a need to love people and it starts with considering them.
Johnathan did not stop with Considering David, Johnathan also cared about David. We know David was a poor shepherd boy, who killed Goliath with a sling, and Johnathan knew it to, so Johnathan gave David his robe, sword, bow and other things. We know Johnathan cared because Johnathan filled some needs in David’s life.
The Bible never clearly shows Johnathan provoking David to love or good works. Chances are though, because David was friends with Johnathan that relationship gave David the opportunity to fall in love with Johnathan’s sister and marry her. David served in Israel’s military and so did Johnathan so chances are that Johnathan encouraged David in David’s good work in the military. It really would have been a natural extension of their friendship for Johnathan to provoke David to love and good works.
We know that Johnathan exhorted David. In I Samuel 19 Saul decides he is going to kill David and during this time Johnathan comforts and encourages David by letting David know that Johnathan will take care of it, and strengthens David by getting king Saul to agree to not kill David. Many times we think of exhortation as saying a few words of praise, but Johnathan went way above and beyond in his exhortation, his actions let to comfort, encouragement and strengthening of David.
Throughout David’s relationship with Saul there were several times where Saul threw a javelin at David. During those times David often told Johnathan of his suffering, and Johnathan was not just a listening ear, in I Samuel 20 Jonathan stood up for David, and Saul threw a javelin at Johnathan. Johnathan really suffered when David suffered.
Finally Johnathan rejoiced when David was honored. When God honored and blessed David, Saul got jealous and envious and tried to kill David. Johnathan in a stark contrast was happy for David and rejoiced with him. More often than not the test of our friendships and relationships at church is going to be when someone else gets blessed. It can be discouraging sometimes when someone you feel already has everything keeps getting blessed when you feel like you are in limbo. If you go to church in America you will have to make friends with married people and the temptation is going to be to get upset when someone who has a spouse like you want, and a family like you want, and lives in house like you want, and has a vehicle like you want, and has a job like you want, gets blessed on top of everything. But God calls you to rejoice with them. In truth as a single adult there will be long stretches of time where if you are going to do any rejoicing at all, then you are going to have to rejoice with the people who have everything you want.
Johnathan is really a fantastic example of what singles should be doing to build relationships in the local church. God intentionally made you with a need for relationships, and God certainly set up the church, in part, to meet those needs, but if you are going to get those needs met you are going to have to be as intentional as Johnathan was with David.
As you step up and you are intentional in building a relationship with other church members it is natural that they respond in kind.
For instance when you consider another church member you have to find out their name, when you do that, they will ask your name, so now because you were intentional someone who did not know you can begin to consider you.
When you find out the needs of others in the local church and do your best to meet those needs its natural for others in the local church to be interested in your needs.
When you provoke another person to love and good works, you have to see a need for love and good works. When you share that need to love someone, or share that need to do a good work it opens the door for another person to share a different need to love someone, or a different need to do a different good work. When they provoke you to love and good works because you provoked them to love and good works it gives you an opportunity to care for them, which in turn gives them an opportunity to care for you.
When you exhort someone it makes it very easy for them to exhort you back.
When you share your suffering with another Christian it gives them an opportunity to suffer with us, and because we are open and honest with them it gives them the opportunity to be open and honest with us, which gives us an opportunity to help them when they suffer. God intentionally made us with the need to share our suffering with others, and help people when they are suffering. To get this need met as a single you have to be intentional and step up first.
When we get blessed we should share it with others, which will make it easier for other church members to share their blessing with us. When we find out a blessing that another church member gets we should rejoice with them, so in kind they will look forward to rejoicing with us.
A wonderful biblical example of someone reciprocating a good relationship is David’s relationship with Johnathan.
Throughout David’s relationship with Johnathan you see Johnathan initiating everything.
The reality is that David never had an opportunity to initiate a relationship with Johnathan, due to Johnathan’s status as the kings son. Johnathan had to initiate the relationship, the only thing David had to do was respond.
Many times in our local churches married couples at our age, are working full time jobs, and spending time with their families, due to their responsibility they will not be able to initiate a friendship with us, but if we initiate a friendship with them they will be able to respond with a friendship.
In Conclusion not everyone you try to become friends with will become friends with you, but if you obey Biblical principles, someone will become the close friend you need. And if you have no close friends in your church please go to your pastor and talk with him on how you can apply these Biblical principles to develop close healthy relationships at church.
Have you ever gone to church looked around saw the people there and wondered “how should I treat these people”? Do you know that the Bible has a LOT to say about how you treat people? When you are at church are you obedient about how you treat your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are they obedient in how they treat you?
I Timothy 5:1-2 tells us
1Ti 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
1Ti 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
The first lesson of this series was on how we should not have a schism or what we may call a separation in the local church. When we go to church we should be close to people in church. The problem with being close to the people in church is that there are several different groups of people there.
Perhaps in our mind we separate the groups in church into children, teenagers, singles, married couples, and retirees. Its not wrong to say that there are different groups in church because I Timothy 5:1-2 gives us 4 different groups in the local church. But the Bible calls us to be close to someone in every group in the local church.
It doesn’t matter if you are a man or woman you should be as close to the men in the church as you should be to your brother, you should be as close to the women in your church as you are to your sister, you should be as close to the older women in your church as to your mom, you should be as close to the older men in your church as your dad.
I read that paragraph and to me its very convicting and uncomfortable, but it’s the closeness God calls every Christian to in their local church, and as single adults we were designed to be that close to people, and until we are that close with people we are not getting our needs met.
Today I am going to start where we are all comfortable at. How a guy should treat the men in church as brothers, and how a woman should treat the women in the church as sisters. The reality is that men and women should treat the opposite sex differently than they treat someone of the same gender, but God still calls them to be close and todays lesson will help clarify that in the next lesson.
As we begin this lesson please understand as a single man you should be as close to the other single men in your church as the married men in your church. If you are a single young lady you should be as close to the other single ladies as the married ladies. Whether someone is married or unmarried should not matter at all in how you treat someone who is the same gender as you in the local church.
In fact as a single person I would encourage you to invest more energy in developing relationships with the married people in your local church, because its harder. Its harder because y’all are in different places in life, you may not have any idea of what its like to live with someone for life, or being responsible for children, and they may never have been where you are at in singleness, or perhaps they cannot remember what the single life is like. And although you lead very different lives God calls you to closeness in Christ.
The reality is that if you do not intentionally invest time and energy developing relationships with the married people in your local church then the relationship is not going to happen. Married people should be getting most of their relational needs met inside of their marriage, so when you develop a relationship with them you are meeting a small amount of their relational needs. As a single adult most of your relational needs should be met by the local church. What is going to happen is that generally the married couples are going to meet more of your needs than you are going to meet their needs, so it is very appropriate for you to invest more time and energy in the relationship.
That said no one individual in your local church is going to meet 90% of your relational needs. You are going to need several close relationships to meet your needs. Some of these people are going to be married, others single, others are going to be the opposite sex, and others are going to be leaders. Inside the local church. All singles should be determined to be as close to as many people as possible.
As a man to develop this closeness I have to be intentional about developing this relationship with other men, and all these points are applicable to women developing close relationships with other women.
According to Hebrews 10:24 we should be considering the people we go to church with. The definition of consider is “To think carefully about”. To do this we should know their name, we should know whether they work or not, if they have family in the church or not, we should know something of their testimony of when they got saved and their walk with God. To consider the people in the local church we have to step out and get to know them.
According to I Corinthians 12:25 we should care for the people in church as much as we care for ourselves. At the very least this should mean we are praying for those we go to church with, but this should easily extend to helping others in need, or just being a listening ear when someone needs to talk to somebody.
According to Hebrews 10:24 we should be provoking people in church, not to anger, but to love and good works. Certainly we have to be serving the Lord ourselves to develop this kind of relationship in the local church because you need to be an example of this to provoke people to this. We are either going to provoke people who are not serving, to serve and love people and in doing so they will mature in Christ and it will be much easier for us to develop a close relationship with a mature Christian than an immature Christian. Or we will be provoking people who are already serving but need encouragement in a difficult time of serving others.
According to Hebrews 10:25 we should be exhorting one another. When you go to church and you see people and know something about their life, you should encourage them, that way its much easier for them to get close to you.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when we suffer we are to share that with others in our local church. We ought to share when we have a medical issue, or had a bad day at work, but we also should share when we have been wounded. So often in our churches we have people who have legitimately been wounded by another individual and if we do not share that wound it will turn into bitterness. So often we are ashamed of our wounds, but more often than not our wounds show us how close we are to others. If we are unwilling to share our wounds then our relationships are still to shallow and we have much work to do in our relationships.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when God blesses us we should be able to share that blessing with our local church.
According to I Corinthians 12:26 when God blesses a church member we should rejoice with them.
As a single adult these are the 7 things you need to do to be close brothers, or close sisters in Christ. As a single adult you are going to have to do these things first; you will have to take these steps before others in your church to get your needs met. Yes we have gone over these points in much more detail in other chapters, but I felt the need to take the time to show how these different points work together.
I think the best Biblical example of putting these points together to develop a solid and close relationship is Johnathan, King Saul’s son’s, friendship with David.
In I Samuel 17 David kills Goliath, at the end of the chapter David talks to Saul until I Samuel 18:1 and then the Bible tells us that Johnathan’s soul was knit with David’s soul and that Johnathan loved David as his own soul. Johnathan could love David as his own soul because Johnathan considered David. Johnathan did not spend 10, 5 or even 1 year getting to know David before loving him like his own soul. Johnathan loved David because of 1 conversation David had with the king. The reality is that we need to be following Johnathan’s example and falling in love with church members when we hear their testimonies and how they love the things of God. We have a need to love people and it starts with considering them.
Johnathan did not stop with Considering David, Johnathan also cared about David. We know David was a poor shepherd boy, who killed Goliath with a sling, and Johnathan knew it to, so Johnathan gave David his robe, sword, bow and other things. We know Johnathan cared because Johnathan filled some needs in David’s life.
The Bible never clearly shows Johnathan provoking David to love or good works. Chances are though, because David was friends with Johnathan that relationship gave David the opportunity to fall in love with Johnathan’s sister and marry her. David served in Israel’s military and so did Johnathan so chances are that Johnathan encouraged David in David’s good work in the military. It really would have been a natural extension of their friendship for Johnathan to provoke David to love and good works.
We know that Johnathan exhorted David. In I Samuel 19 Saul decides he is going to kill David and during this time Johnathan comforts and encourages David by letting David know that Johnathan will take care of it, and strengthens David by getting king Saul to agree to not kill David. Many times we think of exhortation as saying a few words of praise, but Johnathan went way above and beyond in his exhortation, his actions let to comfort, encouragement and strengthening of David.
Throughout David’s relationship with Saul there were several times where Saul threw a javelin at David. During those times David often told Johnathan of his suffering, and Johnathan was not just a listening ear, in I Samuel 20 Jonathan stood up for David, and Saul threw a javelin at Johnathan. Johnathan really suffered when David suffered.
Finally Johnathan rejoiced when David was honored. When God honored and blessed David, Saul got jealous and envious and tried to kill David. Johnathan in a stark contrast was happy for David and rejoiced with him. More often than not the test of our friendships and relationships at church is going to be when someone else gets blessed. It can be discouraging sometimes when someone you feel already has everything keeps getting blessed when you feel like you are in limbo. If you go to church in America you will have to make friends with married people and the temptation is going to be to get upset when someone who has a spouse like you want, and a family like you want, and lives in house like you want, and has a vehicle like you want, and has a job like you want, gets blessed on top of everything. But God calls you to rejoice with them. In truth as a single adult there will be long stretches of time where if you are going to do any rejoicing at all, then you are going to have to rejoice with the people who have everything you want.
Johnathan is really a fantastic example of what singles should be doing to build relationships in the local church. God intentionally made you with a need for relationships, and God certainly set up the church, in part, to meet those needs, but if you are going to get those needs met you are going to have to be as intentional as Johnathan was with David.
As you step up and you are intentional in building a relationship with other church members it is natural that they respond in kind.
For instance when you consider another church member you have to find out their name, when you do that, they will ask your name, so now because you were intentional someone who did not know you can begin to consider you.
When you find out the needs of others in the local church and do your best to meet those needs its natural for others in the local church to be interested in your needs.
When you provoke another person to love and good works, you have to see a need for love and good works. When you share that need to love someone, or share that need to do a good work it opens the door for another person to share a different need to love someone, or a different need to do a different good work. When they provoke you to love and good works because you provoked them to love and good works it gives you an opportunity to care for them, which in turn gives them an opportunity to care for you.
When you exhort someone it makes it very easy for them to exhort you back.
When you share your suffering with another Christian it gives them an opportunity to suffer with us, and because we are open and honest with them it gives them the opportunity to be open and honest with us, which gives us an opportunity to help them when they suffer. God intentionally made us with the need to share our suffering with others, and help people when they are suffering. To get this need met as a single you have to be intentional and step up first.
When we get blessed we should share it with others, which will make it easier for other church members to share their blessing with us. When we find out a blessing that another church member gets we should rejoice with them, so in kind they will look forward to rejoicing with us.
A wonderful biblical example of someone reciprocating a good relationship is David’s relationship with Johnathan.
Throughout David’s relationship with Johnathan you see Johnathan initiating everything.
The reality is that David never had an opportunity to initiate a relationship with Johnathan, due to Johnathan’s status as the kings son. Johnathan had to initiate the relationship, the only thing David had to do was respond.
Many times in our local churches married couples at our age, are working full time jobs, and spending time with their families, due to their responsibility they will not be able to initiate a friendship with us, but if we initiate a friendship with them they will be able to respond with a friendship.
In Conclusion not everyone you try to become friends with will become friends with you, but if you obey Biblical principles, someone will become the close friend you need. And if you have no close friends in your church please go to your pastor and talk with him on how you can apply these Biblical principles to develop close healthy relationships at church.