Luke 10:16 He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.
Fundamentally Connected
I have sometimes thought it would be easy to be spiritual if I didn’t have to put up with other people. It is easy to pray, read the Bible, do good things, and be a good Christian as long as I don’t face any trouble, problems, or, quite frankly, people. But, that is not the kind of spirituality that does anyone any good. The truth is that our relationship with others and our relationship with Christ are fundamentally connected. You find this truth in the words of the Lord Jesus.
In Luke 10:16, Jesus is talking to a group of seventy that He was sending out before Him to every city and place where He Himself would come. In verse 16 He says, “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.” In other words, the way people treated these disciples because Jesus had sent them is the way people were actually treating Jesus.
Think about someone who goes to a church service, hears the Bible clearly given, and then thinks, “I don’t like what that preacher is saying. I don’t like what the Bible is saying.” They leave the service in anger with a deafened ear to what they have heard. They haven’t rejected that preacher; they have rejected the Lord Jesus.
Similarly, in Luke 9:48 Jesus is talking to the twelve. He said, “Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me shall receive him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.” This was in response to the disciples arguing about who would be the greatest in the kingdom of God. Jesus pointed toward a child and said essentially, “Look, the way you treat this child shows your regard for Me. When you receive this child or do good to those who are weak and can’t repay you, then you are doing the same to Me.”
In both cases, Jesus is saying that your relationship to Him and your relationship to other people are connected. I John 4:20 says it this way, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
Today, we need God’s grace to live the way Christ would live when we are living with real people, people who anger us, people who cannot repay us, and people whom we might not notice if we were not thinking about serving the Lord Jesus. Jesus is our Lord, and our relationship with Christ and our relationship with others are fundamentally connected.