RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER 1
YES BE YES
Togetherness brings strength
Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10
Two people are better than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But Someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
We live in a world where relationships are affected by sin’s collateral damage.
Friendships, marriages, families, colleagues, and even our relationship with our communities have all been warped by trauma, vices, immaturity and shame.
Our cities, communities, homes, and even our places of worship remain hurt by denial, unresolved tensions, hate, anger, generational bitterness, and compounding unforgiveness.
Instead of moving toward one another, we tend to run away from God and hide from others.
To relieve ourselves from the tension of the very relationships that should be life-giving, it has become a normal tendency for us to separate ourselves, to isolate or to draw away from the very people we are designed to do life with.
We are not designed for isolation, we’re wired for connection.
RELATIONAL POVERTY – THE NEED FOR COVENANT
Selfishness denies us life-giving relationships.
Proverbs 18:1-2
A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment. A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in his own heart.
Living life and relating to God and others by how we feel is the greatest act of selfishness and the reason why the world finds itself in relational poverty.
Selfishness is the corrosion of community.
Selfishness is the end of relationship.
Living life based only on our feelings isolates us and cripples us.
Our very purpose is fulfilled when we focus our purpose on the needs of others. Treating our relationships in the wrong way only leads to relational poverty.
We have lost the brevity of covenants.
What is a covenant?
It is a chosen relationship or partnership in which two parties make binding promises to each other and work together to reach a common goal.
Covenants contain conditions, obligations, and commitments but unlike contracts and general agreements, they are completely dependent on relationships and personalities.
A covenant is keeping to our commitment, even if it hurts.
Our commitments fluctuate according to our feelings.
Matthew 5:37
A simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ will suffice. Anything beyond this springs from a deceiver.
This selfish, isolated world makes decisions based on the moment, promises on the circumstance, and relates only for personal gain.
It becomes easy to divorce, easy to leave, easy to deny consequence, easy to accuse, easy to judge easy to lie, easy to gossip, easy to slander, easy to sleep around, easy to be racist, and just as easy to accuse someone of being racist, easy to hate, easy to judge, easy to misuse relationships to appease however you feel and whatever you need at the moment.
But in Christ, we have been formed by a Word, a bond, a promise, a covenant that cannot be broken. And this changes everything.
We have been created to relate to others as God relates to us.
God has chosen poignant moments in history to remind the human race of our real source, our proper state, and our assured purpose. (Eg. Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Jesus)
Our source, our state, and our purpose form our identity.
Our identity creates our character and our character impacts our relationships.
By walking out our God-given identity, we ensure that the relational fiber of human society is God-based and not self-based.
Made in His Image (Source)
Genesis 1:27
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
Selfishness has blurred our source.
Seeking His Image (State)
Colossians 3:9-10
Lay aside your old Adam-self with its masquerade and disguise. For you have acquired new creation life which is continually being renewed into the likeness of the One who created you; giving
