Mar. 02, 2025

Welcome back to our winter conversation called ‘Real Faith Disrupts.’  We are walking you through 12 essential questions about our faith. So far, we have discussed The Bible, Grace, Worship, and Success, and last week, we talked about The Church.  We aren’t just talking about what these things are but focusing on what they mean to you and how they impact your life.  Why is that important?  Well, it’s because real faith leads to life change; it disrupts what was so that we can experience what could be.  When we ask Jesus into our lives, we live differently.  Last week, I wanted to highlight something to you because it greatly impacts our lives.  All twelve of these questions are about how we view things.  Did you pick up on that?  Has our faith changed how we view Scripture, Grace, Worship, Success, and The Church?  This is important because how we view things is so powerful.  How we view things interprets life to us and sets our reality and what we see as truth.  I could say it this way: how we view things makes things real to us.  We all have a way of viewing things in life; you could say we all have a lens through which we view things.  That lens has been shaped by many things…our hurts, pasts, upbringing, sins, and life experiences.  The challenge can be that the lens through which we view things may not give us an accurate view, but to us, it is. This is why people say perception is reality.  Even if it isn’t reality, it is to the perceiver.  This would mean the lens through which we see life is very powerful because it sets our reality, and it would also mean seeing through an accurate and healthy lens is essential. 

”The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.” William Makepeace Thackeray 

What a powerful thought that reinforces the magnitude of how we view life.  We will get from life what we see in life, which continues to tell us how powerful the way we view things is.  This means how we view life is extremely important, and why we need to allow God to heal and shape the lens through which we view life, rather than continuing to view it through a fractured lens shaped by people, our past experiences, hurts, and even sin.  I think about this often, and I believe the number one reason we struggle to experience true life change is our inability to view life through the true, healthy lens God wants us to see it through.  Once someone accepts their view of life as reality, good luck getting them to see life or anything in any other way.  One of the most important things we can do is allow God to disrupt and heal how we view things because how we view things sets our reality.  How we view things will be how we treat things, and how we treat things will impact our life experience.  Today, this will only become clearer as we discuss the messiest, most challenging area of our lives.  An area that many of us would love to avoid but can’t completely avoid.  Jesus taught that this area we speak of today is the essence of our faith, and our inability or ability to do this well shows whether we are walking in this real faith we all say we want or not.  Today, we talk about life with people.  Here’s our question of the day.  Has your faith disrupted how you view people?

A few weeks ago, we were talking about choices, and I brought up a recent study by The Surgeon General that I've been stuck on lately, calling Loneliness the latest epidemic in America today. Did you know that over 60% of adults today are dealing with unhealthy levels of loneliness and isolation?  Those numbers skyrocket with the younger generations today. The study shows that many adults can go over two weeks without having a meaningful conversation with another person.  It talks of the pain and emotional and physical toll this is taking on people today, right down to shortening the life spans of people struggling through unhealthy levels of loneliness and isolation.  I can’t get past this happening in the most connected time of our lives.  We can push a button and talk to anyone we want, and our phones can navigate us anywhere we want.  We don't even have to remember phone numbers, addresses, or directions anymore!  So, in a time when it's simpler to connect with people than ever before, we are feeling more isolated and alone than ever before.  This is a problem, and this latest epidemic in America today reveals something that I hope we learn before it’s too late.  We need people in our lives.  We were created to be with people with a need for meaningful connections with others.  As it’s become easier to isolate and do life from a distance, a couple of things have happened to us.  We have found that it can feel easier, or at the least cleaner, to not deal with people; let’s face it: life with people isn’t easy, and it can be so tempting to avoid the work and effort that we have to put into people, and technology has only made that easier.  Even if we know God designed us for life with people, we can justify isolation by saying, I still connect with people through social media and technology, but the human soul needs meaningful connection with others.  When we lack meaningful connection with people, it leads to major health issues and pain...in fact, this concept of loneliness is the first “not-good” we find in our Bible!

Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him." NLT

When God created all creation, He stepped back and saw it was very good. But it didn’t take long before He saw Adam alone and realized this wasn’t good.  The human being desperately needed a connection, not just with His Heavenly Father but with other people.  From the beginning of time, with the first human, loneliness was a thing. I’m so thankful that we are talking about this because the problem keeps growing today; even in a time of greater connectedness, we are seeing more disconnection than ever before.  We are replacing meaningful connections with others with shallow versions of them through social media and technology, and as a people, we are suffering because of it.  We need people in our lives.  We were created by God to live life with God and people and experience meaningful connections. 

Before we move on, since over 65% of our population is struggling through unhealthy levels of loneliness and isolation, I want us to understand how important it is to be meaningfully connected to people. Do you notice I keep pointing to that?  Well, here’s the definition of loneliness.  Loneliness is a sense of sadness or unease due to a lack of meaningful connection with others.  I like that definition and the term meaningful connection because we live in a world of connectivity and social media, and we may think, I am not lonely; I have thousands of friends on social media.  You may have thousands of friends on social media, but those aren’t necessarily meaningful connections.  Studies have recently been done on college students, stating that the average student will have anxiety if they don’t touch their phone every 90 seconds, and the average screen time for them is anywhere from 8-10 hours in the day.  The study shows something that I can’t stop thinking about.  It shows that in that generation, which, remember I told you, the younger generation is struggling more than adults with loneliness, with almost 85% of that generation struggling with unhealthy levels of loneliness and isolation.  Over 8 for every 10 kids today struggle to find meaningful connections with people while being on their phones and connecting with others at least every 90 seconds of their day. That study done on college students also showed that there has been a 40% drop in empathy for other humans in that generation.  What does this tell us?  This world and its technology are shaping how we view people, and it’s not in a positive way; it’s leading to isolation, loneliness, a lack of compassion and empathy, and well…pain.  We are replacing meaningful personal relationships with social media and technology. While it feels easier or cleaner to send messages, texts, funny gifs, and memes to each other, we are losing our ability to connect meaningfully with others.  We are overstimulated and distracted, and, quite frankly, the lens through which we view life and people is being shaped by all the wrong things.  And it’s causing a lot of damage in this world today. 

“Technologies today now exist that give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.” Geri Scazzero

I like this quote from Geri Scazzero. In it, we get a glimpse of why it is so tempting to isolate and pull away from investing in and relating to people…did you pick up on that word that she used when relating to others?  She said we can live in a world with the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.  The word “demands” is important to see.  It is tempting to pull away from people because people take work, effort, and emotion.  It is demanding, and we can be tempted not to want any part of it, especially if we have been hurt before…we can think, why would I ever put myself through that again? But we need people in our lives.  Remember, as people, we are to be growing to be more like Christ each day; we need people in our lives to do that!  That is where our faith becomes real and where we practice living out real faith; it’s through the demands of people and relationships that we develop into the very people God created us to be!  This is why Solomon says that famous line…

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. NIV

This is not a peaceful process, one person sharpening another through relationships, just as it isn’t when one piece of iron is sharpening the other…it’s a violent, hard process of clashing together to make each other better.  If we slide into isolation, which is easy to do these days, we will struggle and not become the best version of ourselves. It is a significant temptation where isolation seems cleaner and easier…but we must stay in it; we are better together, engaging with others in the demands of personal relationships.  A lack of relationships doesn’t cause loneliness; a lack of meaningful connection does. I think this is what Solomon was trying to tell us in this word of wisdom, which we seem to violate daily in this world of technology. 

Proverbs 18:24 A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  NIV 

I’m not trying to discourage your social media usage…well, maybe a little, but I want you to see something here today.  As good as having many friends who know our name feels, that doesn’t prevent loneliness. We need meaningful connections.  We were wired by God this way. Every person is hard-wired to need two primary connections: Connection with God and Connection with Others.  Jesus clarifies this by explaining the two most important things we can do—love God and others.

Matthew 22:37 Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' 38 This is the most important, the first on any list. 39 But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' 40 These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." MSG

This is what it all comes down to: loving God and loving people.  Listen, we have all met people. We know it’s challenging, and if we are honest, I think we would all say we can handle the loving God part; it’s the loving people thing that is so challenging, and I would agree, but it’s also in the loving people part that we can see this real faith that we all want coming to life in us.  We are living in a world of people struggling more than ever to do these two most important things, and it is important to see that we need people in our lives; more than that, we need meaningful connections with people in our lives, but it isn’t easy, life with people, those meaningful connections are demanding, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another…that isn’t soft and easy, but it’s important. So there is something else we are going to need if we are going to be able to engage people well, and that is Spiritual Maturity.  We need to continue to grow spiritually so we can love each other well.

Last week, as we discussed the church, we discussed how important it is to grow in our faith to Spiritual Maturity. Why? Because the Spiritually Mature love well, they are growing to be more and more like Christ each day, changed from the inside out.  God is healing and shaping how we view life and people, and as God works in us…what happens?  We learn to live and love well, which we have established is something we struggle to experience and live out in this busted-up world of hurt people who hurt people.  We have been pointing to this section of Scripture throughout the series.

Ephesians 4:15 God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love — like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. 16 He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love. MSG

God wants us to grow up, and when we do, we will grow healthy in God and robust in love. This is huge, but let’s keep reading because Paul will next show the contrast between people who allow God into their lives and those who do not. I believe he is showing us their inability to view life and people through the proper lens.

17 And so I insist — and God backs me up on this — that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. 18 They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. 19 They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

Did you see that they have refused to engage God for so long that they haven’t just lost touch with God, they have lost touch with reality?  They can’t think straight anymore. They are now living and viewing life through a version of reality that isn’t reality, and in that world, all they can do is feed their fleshly desires.  Paul then explains that we know better than that and must go all in. 

Ephesians 4:22-24 Everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. MSG

We need Spiritual Maturity in this challenging world, especially when it comes to life with people because the spiritually mature love well. They allow God to shape the lens through which they view life; they grow healthy and robust in love. I love verses 22-24, where we eliminate everything connected with that old way of living.  It is funny because, for so many of us, I’m not sure we would equate everything to everything.  We see everything and think we need to change some behaviors, clean up the language, and work on the harmful bad habits we have in our lives.  But everything means everything, including our thinking, how we view life and people, and even how we relate to people. It all must go, and then we can take on an entirely new way of life, a God-fashioned life, as God produces His character in us.  What is God’s character?  God is love. Do you see it? Before diving into how we view people, I wanted us to see two things.  We need people in our lives, and we need to grow toward Spiritual Maturity because the spiritually mature love well.   

With that said, let’s slow down and personalize our question of the day.  Has your faith disrupted the way you view people?  Think about this today.  How did you view people before you met Christ, and are you allowing God to shape how you view people today?  Do you know?  Has it changed?  This is important but challenging because life with people isn’t easy, but I believe I can show you something that can help you today.  So, I will make a nice, clean statement here that will sound easy and look great on paper but isn’t all that easy to live out.  I will add to that. It is the primary lesson that life is trying to teach you in all aspects of your life, and it is the key to you relating to people as God wants you to…if you can do this, it will open you up to those meaningful connections with people that we desperately need in our lives.  But as exciting as all that sounds, it isn't easy.  Are you ready for it?  Have I hyped it up enough?  Here it is: if you want to live and love well, you must learn to let go. 

Well, great, Sam. What does that even mean? I must learn to let go. I thought you were trying to help me in an area of life I’m struggling with, and that is what you gave me: Learn to let go.  Well, yeah. This is the key to everything. Remember what Paul told us we must do?  Well, stick with me for a moment, and let me show you how learning this lesson will change everything with people in your life. 

We must learn to let go of our hurts and pain. I keep pointing to this lens through which we view life and people. One of the challenges we face is that instead of God’s love shaping that lens, it’s often shaped by our hurts and past experiences. When that happens, it’s hard to view people through anything but our pain, and over time, as we hold onto hurts and pain, we see everything and everyone through our pain, making a hard life harder and harder.  It’s why the same thing keeps happening to you repeatedly in relationships; it’s because your past experiences shape how you view and translate life and people to you, and it keeps you stuck in a cycle of pain. We have to let go of our pain. If we can’t, we will find offense in everything and continue to walk through life in so much pain that we can’t focus on anything but ourselves and our pain.  With no ability to see or focus on others, we will do the thing we speak of often, become the hurt person who hurts people, and because we are so hurt that we can’t see or focus on anything else, we may have no idea that we are hurting people.  If we don’t let go of our pain, we don’t see the hearts and emotions around us, and we are confused by how people treat us and respond to us, and we stay stuck in that endless cycle of hurt people, hurting people.  If we hold onto our pain, we find it everywhere and in every experience we have, it repeats itself over and over again…we must learn to let go of what happened to us so that we can step into this new life we all say we want and may tell others we are experiencing.  So, now I’m going to say something that you need to hear.  What happened to you did happen to you.  I wish it wouldn’t have, and I’m sorry it did, and sorry you have had to deal with it, but it did happen. The pain you feel is real.  The problem is because you aren’t letting go of it, what happened to you will keep happening to you.  Let me simplify what I’m saying this way.  Can you change what happened to you, maybe years ago?  No.  Can you change that person who hurt you or change how they feel about you or respond to you?  No.  What part of any of the situation do you control?  Only how you respond and move through life.  That’s all you can deal with, the rest you have to let go of.  I get it, it's easier said than done, and that statement can sound insensitive because what happened to you happened to you, but you can either learn from it, give it to Jesus and move on, or hold onto it and continue to allow it to shape how you view life and people…we have to let go.  Remember that quote from the beginning of the talk?  Life is a looking glass that gives back to everyone what they see in themselves.  This is so important. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Our capacity to love others is linked to our capacity to love ourselves.  We have to deal with that inner world and allow God to heal us from the inside out.  So many of us deeply desire this, but we are stuck; we are holding on to what happened…we relive it, can’t stop talking about it, see life and people through it, and our lives keep repeating themselves.  Let’s think about our hurts and what happened to us and reread Paul’s words…what if our hurts and past experiences are part of the "everything" that has to go?

Ephesians 4:22-24 Everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. MSG

We have to let go of our expectations and desires for people and love them where they are rather than where we want them to be.  I’m just going to say this…this isn’t easy, especially when you care for people!  But if we don’t let go of what we want for those we care about, we will view them for what they are not rather than who they are.  This is putting a strain on so many relationships, and in so many ways, if you can’t let go and love them where they are, you push them farther away from what you want for them rather than towards it.  It’s another cycle we get stuck in, desperately wanting them to thrive and live their best lives.  That life, Paul says, is healthy in God and robust in love, but we go about it in all the wrong ways.  In our passion or love for people, we can make a mess of the relationships we want to invest in…and I will tell you why.  It’s because we can’t let go of what we want for people and love people where they are rather than where we want them to be.  As Christians, we are very thankful that God loved us where we were; we seem to miss or forget that with the people we love who we want to see find and experience their best lives, too!

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. NIV

We are all so thankful for that, aren’t we?  God didn’t love us after we did what He wanted, no, while we were still a mess, He loved us, and Jesus died for us.  This is something to hold close to as we watch people we care about struggle through their lives, too.  It’s hard, but we must love them where they are, not where we want them to be, just like God did for us.  Do you have someone in your life that you care about who isn’t living the way you hoped and prayed they would be living?  They make choices that hurt you, decisions that scare you, and you desperately want to see them experience more in their lives than they are.  Yeah, me too.  Can I ask you something?  Has pointing out their issues, sins, and poor choices or mistakes ever helped?  Has pushing them to live the life you want them to live helped?  So often, it does the opposite.  It pushes them away.  I can tell you why.  It’s because when we are struggling, none of us need help seeing our issues and mistakes…we know we are struggling and are messing up.  I know I didn’t need any help from others pointing out to me that I was a mess; I was very aware of that.  But I will tell you what I struggled to see and understand…that I was worthy of love and that I had value.  I needed believed in and loved; I didn’t need help seeing all the ways I came up short…that I had down pat.  If you think back to those difficult days of your own life, you probably see the same thing. Somehow, in our passion and love for the people we care for, we make a mess of things…because we can’t let go of what we desperately want for people. We lose sight of this, and in an effort to help, we make things worse, reinforcing how people already feel rather than leading them out of what we want them out of…it’s tough, and the more you care about people, the harder this is, but we must let go of what we want and love people right where they are.  Jesus was amazing at this, and we are to live like Him!  We pray for them and ask God to do what only He can do in their lives, just like He did in our lives.  This is hard to do, but it is important if we want to experience life and people inside God’s design.  If you struggle with this, it’s because you care…and care deeply, but the only way through is to pray your guts out for people you love, let go of control of what is, and love them where they are…just as Jesus did for you.  While you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. 

So let me ask you our question of the day one more time.  Has your faith disrupted how you view people?  For many of us, there isn’t a more painful or disappointing area of life.  It can be tempting to pull away from people or replace real relationships with shallow versions of them through technology and social media. Still, we need people in our lives, and our society is increasingly struggling with loneliness because we are not experiencing meaningful connections with others.  We need people in our lives.  So, how do you view people?  Has it changed since you met Jesus?  Have you let go of your past experiences and hurts to view people through the lens of love?  Do you see and treat the next people like the last people, or have you let go of your pain?  If you keep experiencing the same things on repeat, it’s a good sign you need God to heal the lens through which you see life and people.  So, one last question as we close.  Is there someone in your life that you desperately want to help find Christ or find healing and health in their life?  Who is that person?  I’m sure you have them in your mind right now.  How is that going?  In all your efforts, are you helping or hurting?  If this relationship is strained or a struggle, it’s a good sign that in all your love and passion for them, you forgot the importance of letting go of what you want for them and loving them where they are rather than…just like Jesus did with you.  If you want to make a difference in their lives, it will come down to letting go of what you want, hope for, and probably desperately pray for and love them where they are and stop pushing them to where you want them to be.  This is so hard when we care, but it is so important.  The key to life is also the key to life with people. We have to learn to let go and love.

Life with people is so challenging.  We are seeing more and more people in desperate need of God’s love and starving for meaningful connections with others…but until we allow our faith to disrupt how we view people, this will not get easier, and the mess of life with people will continue to grow. How you view people is a big deal. That lens through which we view life and people is so powerful. We must allow God to shape us from the inside out so we see life and people in a healthy, accurate way…because how we view things is how we will treat things, and how we treat things determines our life experience. When it comes to people, it’s not just affecting us but everyone around us too.

It's time to let go of what happened to us, of all the pain and hurts we live through, so we can move forward in freedom and love. It’s time to let go of our wants for those around us and simply love people where they are rather than where we want them to be.  Jesus did that for us, so we do that for others.

We must allow our faith to disrupt how we view people; when we do, things change; if we don't, life with people stays what it always was: messy and often painfully disappointing.