Church of the Nazarene – East Rock
The Relationship Keys: Loyalty
The deep commitment and willingness it takes to overcome the hardships that sometimes come in relationship.
What if today one of the greatest stands we could take against the enemy in our lives was to cultivate God honoring relationships? That’s exactly what our new teaching series is all about.
Through this series we are committed to seeing God’s emphasis on the importance of our relationships- with family, members of the church, our community and friends
How do we cultivate deeper, stronger, healthier relationships through the challenges we all experience in those relationships?That takes loyalty.
Loyalty- To be faithful, unswerving in allegiance, constant, steadfast, and resolute in relationship
You have heard it said before from someone going through a difficult time “You really find out who your friends are…” That’s the issue of loyalty in real life.Proverbs 18:24One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
There is no real relationship until two people have undergone challenges or hardships together. In those moments, loyalty plants the seeds for growth and fruit through the hardship.
Loyalty is upheld as the foundation of relationships throughout Scripture. Moses and Joshua, David and Jonathan, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene and many more teach about loyalty to God and to each other.
But perhaps the most direct example comes from a woman that walked the earth close to 3000 years ago. They are the words of Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi.
Ruth 1:1-18
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there. Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah. Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!” At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
As we begin to look at Naomi and Ruth’s relationship, we see that they had endured a lot together. Their bond of loyalty had grown through immense suffering and grief together.
As Naomi plans to return to her home, she knows there is no prospect for her daughter-in-law’s there. Naomi urges them to leave behind their relationship in favor of a better more secure life.
Orpah concedes to her mother-in-laws request, but Ruth stands on loyalty. It’s the glue that holds us together in God honoring relationship.
Loyalty for Ruth represented a significant and life changing sacrifice. There was hardly any guarantee that it would all work out, but Ruth couldn’t forsake her relationship or her commitment to Naomi. That’s because her commitment to loyalty flowed from her character. Faithful and loyal love was at the core of who she was.
We can all recognize within ourselves that we want a friend like Ruth or even Sheriff Andy Taylor.
Someone who sticks with us, even when there’s nothing in it for them.
But the call of loyalty for us today- our call and commission as followers of Jesus- is to BE that friend, to be an Andy or a Ruth, or to be more exact- to be Christ like in our loyalty to others.
Loyalty is the essence, the character of God’s faithful love.
We experience the faithful, loyal, steadfast love of God through Christ Jesus- Friends loyal love is the message of the gospel.
John 13:34-35“
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
To be loyal, faithful, un-swerving, constant and steadfast in relationship is to love out of the very nature of Christ within us.Loyalty flows from our Character, from our heart transformed by grace.
Why do I need to stick it out in relationship- Why should I put myself through that? Because we have been loved by an immeasurable and loyal love, and we are commanded to love others with that same love.
The way we engage relationship is to be so radical, so loyal, that the world knows we are different- that we belong to Christ. That’s loyalty. That’s honoring God in relationship, especially when the going gets tough.
Lord, give me the courage (and conviction) to love the people in my life with your selfless and loyal love.
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