THE BARRIER OF RELATIONSHIPS
Barriers to Bridges - Part 1
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Mark 1:1-16-31
“Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.
Mark 1:17
It’s all about people. It’s always been about people. When it comes to people, there’s only one thing that really matters.
Every person is created in the image of a God who deeply loves him or her.
I am created in the image of a God who deeply loves me.
You are created in the image of a God who deeply loves you.
Your neighbor is created in the image of a God who deeply loves him or her.
Your enemy is created in the image of a God who deeply loves him or her.
Get the point yet? As Pete puts it in the 1984 classic, The Muppets Take Manhattan,
Hey, I tell you what is. Big city, hmm? Live, work, huh? But not city only. Only peoples. Peoples is peoples.
Only peoples. Peoples is peoples. People are made in the image of God and in the end, people are all that really matter to God. All of creation exists to provide a place where people could dwell in peace and love and be in eternal relationship with God.
God didn’t need mountains and trees and birds and fish. God didn’t need planets and stars and galaxies. God needed people to love because God is love. Everything else is God’s gift of love to the people he created.
Perhaps the greatest barriers between us and God are the barriers we place between ourselves and the people God loves.
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates a brother or sister, he is a liar, because the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister who can be seen can’t love God, who can’t be seen.
1 John 4:20
What barriers do you face in your relationships with others, whether you know them or not?
In what ways do you view people as issues or problems rather than beloved children of God?
With whom do you need to extend a hand of reconciliation or reach out to make a new friend?
Peoples is peoples and God loves peoples. If we love God, we must love peoples too. Perhaps the first barrier we need to tear down between us and God is a barrier between us and our neighbor. We can’t love one and not the other.
Relationships matter.
Love of one another bridges the barrier between us and a loving God.