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God wants people to be happy. And what is the key to happiness?
It is good, life-giving relationships.
When God created Adam, he had everything. Land, animals, all the food he wanted. But it was not enough. Because he was lonely.
When God created Eve, he was complete:
This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! (Genesis 2:23)
Through good, loving relationships, our lives can be happy and complete. God has given us relationships so that we can be happy and complete.
But we know that reality is often different. The very thing that makes us happy is often the thing that causes the most difficulty.
When your relationships with classmates at school or co-workers at work are not good, it makes your life very miserable and difficult. When your relationship with your spouse or family members are strained, it causes grief and heartache.
In order to be happy, you need to have good relationships with the people around you.
God understood this. Good relationships are at the centre of the law.
Paul summarizes the law in one command: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The thing with neighbours is, you don’t choose your neighbours. You don’t choose who lives next to you. You don’t choose your classmates. You don’t choose your work colleagues. You don’t choose your family. They are given to you.
God has placed them in your life, for better or worse.
The question, therefore, is: how will you live with your neighbour? Because your happiness depends on that.
Human beings are so complex and interesting.
Adam was so happy when he met Eve. But soon enough, they were blaming each other for eating the forbidden fruit.
That is our experience. The more you get to know someone, the harder it is to live with them in harmony.
What determines the possibility of a good relationship with your neighbour?
To me, it is this: how you see your neighbour. How do you see your neighbour?
Do you see mainly negative things in them and their flaws? Or do you see past their flaws and see them with love?
How you see them determines whether you can love your neighbour.
Often, a bad experience with a person shapes how you see them. If you’ve been hurt by them, you see them only as someone capable of hurting you. If you’ve been lied to, you only see them in that light. A lot of times, how you see people is shaped by your own experiences.
Once you see someone a certain way, you develop a fixed view of that person. They are like this. Anything they do only reinforces that fixed view. They are trapped by your view of them. They cannot change.
Human beings have memory. We remember. If you’ve had a bad experience, you remember that. You hold onto that memory. That memory shapes how you see that person.
Paul quotes a verse from Leviticus. The full passage goes like this:
Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your kin… Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:17-18)
To love your neighbour, you cannot see them through the past hurts and grievances. Your history and past experiences with the neighbour cannot be the basis of your relationship with them.
The key, then, to any loving relationship is the ability to forgive.
That is the most difficult thing to do. But that is the root of the issue. Our inability to forgive is what prevents you from being able to love your neighbour.
How do you change how you see a person when there is a past? How can you get over the weight of that past?
It is difficult. Especially when there is a lot of history and a lot of baggage.
To change how you see other people, you need to be changed by God.
People form opinions and make judgments based on what they see or experience. What people see or experience from you is a part of who you are. What they’ve experienced from you is real. But that is not your complete self.
People cannot see your real inner self. They cannot see the underlying motivations. They cannot see your thoughts. They cannot see your heart.
But God can.
The heart is what we conceal the best. We put on armour around our heart. Because we are too embarrassed, self-conscious or ashamed to reveal our true heart to others. Perhaps because you’ve been hurt.
But true change only starts when your heart is seen by God.
When your heart is seen, all of you is exposed. Your thoughts, your sins, your fears, your insecurities.
It can be very uncomfortable. Very distressing. Very agonizing. Because you come face to face with who you really are. You are exposed in the eyes of God.
When this happens, you see yourself for the flawed person you really are. It can be a moment of shame and regret. But that is the beginning of God’s work.
When you are seen by God, you experience a sense of judgment, yes. Judgment for your sins. Your shortcomings. The things you have done. The way you have treated others.
This sense of judgment brings you to your knees. There is nothing else to do but to confess your sinfulness. So confession of sins is a very important first step.
But something else happens when you are seen by God. You experience God’s grace.
Grace that says you are forgiven for your sins. You are loved as you are. Not for what you’ve done in the past, but for who you can be. The past does not determine who you are. A new start is possible.
You start to see yourself as God sees you – as a beloved child of God. Someone who is stained by sin, but not defined by them.
Experiencing that grace is what changes how you see others. You begin to see the other person with the grace you have experienced.
Just as you have been forgiven by grace, it gives you the ability to forgive. You are no longer bound by your grudges and resentments. The Spirit gives you the power to overcome them and see the other person with grace.
The key to loving your neighbour is having the power to forgive. That is the key to good relationships. That is the key to happiness.
And that comes when you are seen with God’s grace.
Paul says this in today’s passage:
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone; the day is near. (Romans 13:11-12)
The world has become a cruel place. It casts judgment on people. It gets people to see the worst in others. The world has become more and more divisive because we see each other with eyes of suspicion.
If we are not awake, we simply absorb that culture. We just become part of that environment.
It’s time to wake up from that environment and culture. It is time to put on the armour of light. It is time to see each other as beloved children of God worthy of love.
We just finished our final summer ministries this past week with our Hi-C retreat and Overnight Camp.
During our Overnight Camp, our theme was “Living in God’s Community”. We watched Zootopia and compared it with stories in the Bible.
In God’s community, everyone is seen. Not by labels that others put on them, but for who they truly are – as God’s fellow beloved children.
In God’s community, everyone is different, but that is not a reason to divide. It is the very thing we celebrate – our unity in diversity.
When kids spend so much time so close to each other, they bicker, they fight. They’re no different from adults in that sense. But through God’s Word and the Spirit, they learned how to work through their differences and see each other with God’s grace.
At our final worship, everyone embraced each other with God’s love. It was a beautiful moment that I’m sure they’ll remember.
My prayer is that these lessons will stay with them as they head back to school.
The summer has gone, and we are into September. As we head back to school, as we go back fully to our workplaces,
May God change how you see yourself. May God change how you see others. May God bless you with loving, life-giving relationships with all of those around you.
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