Conflict and Offense in God's Kingdom

(upbeat music)

Man, God is good, is He not?

Man, He's so faithful, He's so faithful.

As I shared before earlier,

we have been camping in Acts chapter two

and looking at the model of the early church.

And I didn't, Pastor Jonathan,

do just an outstanding job last week

presenting the Word to us

and kind of encapsulating everything within that passage

and I was so grateful for the Word.

You know, one of the greatest criticisms of the church,

and when I say the church, I mean capital C,

the church at large.

One of the greatest criticisms of the church

is this notion of hypocrisy.

Have you ever heard that?

I don't go to church

because there's a bunch of hypocrites there.

And when somebody comes to me and says,

I don't go to church

because there's a bunch of hypocrites there,

I just answer them and guess we have room for one more.

And...

(congregation laughing)

Because we are people and we are human

and we mess up.

And some of us are messed up from the floor up,

some more than others, okay?

But boy, we are on this journey together

and every one of us have in common that we need a Savior.

We need Jesus Christ.

We need the blood of Jesus Christ,

which is sufficient to cleanse us from all sin

and all unrighteousness.

We need His blood.

But it goes beyond that.

It's not that His blood isn't sufficient,

but it goes beyond that.

He has given us a precious gift

that we don't talk a whole lot about.

And that is the precious gift of His Holy Spirit,

the Holy Spirit of God.

We have access to the Holy Spirit

and over the next several weeks,

we are going to be unpackaging

and looking at the person of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm excited about the journey that we're going to go on.

But as I was praying about where we were supposed to go,

initially I felt this was a little bit out of place,

but the Lord just really showed me

that it was exactly where it needed to be.

Have you ever read scripture?

Sometimes when I read the story of like Jonah and the whale,

do you ever like hear that story

or Daniel in the lion's den

or the three guys who go into the fire?

You hear that story or somebody's portraying it

and in your mind, it's like automatically,

it goes to animation.

Like it goes to like, it's like, I know I believe this,

but it seems so surreal that it's like,

it almost lends itself to like a fictional slant.

You know, it's like, yeah,

I guess he really did live in the belly of a whale

for three days.

You know, I do believe that, but boy,

it's just like, I see it as a cartoon in my mind.

In this section of scripture we've been studying,

some of you may be looking at it

as we're presenting week by week.

And it's like, man, that is such a wonderful concept,

a really great idea that we would all come into the place

and hold hands and sing Kumbaya

and just be together and happy

and smile at each other all the time.

And we would just be great and perfect

and everybody's in sweet harmony.

But here's the reality.

They were people just like you and me.

And anytime there is more than one person involved,

there's bound to at some point be conflict.

There's bound to at some point be an opportunity

for an offense to be taken up.

Have you been offended this morning?

Before you got here?

By your spouse or your kids?

I offend my wife with my breath every single day.

There are opportunities for offense

that surround us all over the place.

And today we're gonna talk about offense

and we're gonna talk about conflict resolution.

Because why is this important?

You're like, man, we've been talking about,

man, this early church

and we've been talking about them being devoted

to themselves and having all these things in common.

They wanted to see God's face,

but we're not going to remove the humanism

from the scripture.

They were human.

Why do we know that they had conflict?

Because Paul just wrote a whole bunch of letters

telling churches, this is how you're supposed to act.

This is what you're supposed to do.

So it tells us there was conflict.

There were sometimes division.

There were things that got off kilter.

I'm sure there was somebody in there saying,

I don't wanna sell my possession.

I don't wanna sell my new toy.

There are probably these things that happened,

but guess what?

Because of unity,

they were able to write in the scripture

that they were devoted to one another

and devoted to the purposes of God.

You can have unity and still have conflict

and chance for offense as long as you are handling it

the way the scripture tells us to.

So we're gonna look at a scripture today.

Now, as we look at the scripture,

it's very important to me that you understand

that the group that we were talking about

for the last several weeks,

they already know this information

that we're about to read.

Jesus is speaking in this passage

and they know this information

because he is talking to his disciples.

He is alive, he's on the earth.

This is before he ascended to heaven,

before the death, burial, and resurrection.

He is speaking to his disciples

and he's talking about the end times.

He's talking about the time that we're living in.

Do you guys ever wonder if we're close to the end times?

Do you ever wonder, man, what is that gonna look like?

He's talking about the end times here.

And so we can actually pick up in this scripture

and actually relate and perhaps empathize

with some of the disciples' questions

and their thoughts.

So we're gonna stand together

and read from Matthew chapter 24.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

And I would like you to read like you love me.

That better not be silent, here we go.

Now as he sat on the Mount of Olives,

the disciples came to him privately saying,

tell us when these,

and what will be the sign of your coming

and the end of the age.

And Jesus answered and said to them,

take heed that no one deceives you,

for many will come in my name saying,

I am the Christ and will deceive many.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

See that you are not troubled,

for all these things must come to pass,

but the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation

and kingdom against kingdom.

And there will be famines, pestilences,

and earthquakes in various places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you.

And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

Praise the Lord.

And then many will be offended,

will betray one another and will hate one another.

Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

And because lawlessness will abound,

the love of many will grow cold.

Are you encouraged this morning?

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word.

I thank you that your word renders truth, hard truth,

real truth, encouraging truth.

We get the whole picture when it comes to you, God.

I pray that you would encourage our hearts

and speak to us this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Guys, we live in such a polarizing culture,

polarizing society.

I can say something under my breath.

I can look at you a certain way.

I can suggest something and you be totally offended

and sever our relationship just like that.

We are super sensitive

because we've been brought in a culture

that says it's my way or the highway.

It's all about me.

It's what my view is.

It's how I feel.

And really, I don't give any margin for your opinion

'cause it doesn't matter.

That's what we've been taught.

I mean, we can't even get our soft drinks correct.

You know what I mean?

Who prefers Coke over Pepsi?

Pepsi over Coke.

Okay.

Let's see if we can cause some division today.

McDonald's over Burger King.

Who's got McDonald's?

Who's got Burger King?

Who's got option three?

UPS or FedEx?

UPS, FedEx.

Okay.

Dunkin' or Starbucks?

Dunkin'?

Starbucks.

All right, lots of division in the room.

DC?

Marvel.

I'm gonna have to open the alders again, Pastor Barbie.

Right now with this one, Apple or Android?

Apple?

Android.

We're gonna dismiss those.

No, I'm not gonna say.

Tennessee?

Alabama.

(congregation shouting)

Don't you dare answer.

Don't you dare answer.

Here's my point.

The world divides, the gospel unites.

The good news of Jesus Christ unites

as the world is out to just completely divide you

and isolate you from anything that's good to pull you away.

The world divides, the gospel and its purpose is to unite.

So why do we as Christians still contend

with this thing called offense?

Boy, we have offense.

Now, if you're familiar with the bait of Satan,

I'm gonna be drawing a little bit from that course.

So don't be alarmed if I'm using some of that.

That's intentional.

But has anybody in here been offended in your life?

Raise your hand if you've been offended.

Raise your hand if you're a liar.

No.

You've been offended.

You have been offended.

And if I ask the better question,

how many of you have offended someone else?

Every hand probably should go up as well.

Because everyone has stepped in that way.

Sometimes intentionally,

but most of the time unintentionally.

Acts chapter two, I want us to realize

that the people that we're reading about are human.

They're in a community.

And anytime we're in a community,

there's bound to be an opportunity for conflict

and for offense to be taken.

Now I'm gonna give you this morning right now,

I need everybody to pay attention off your cell phones.

Everybody ready?

I'm gonna give you a piece of revelation right now

that's gonna change your life.

Okay, are you ready for it?

If you're ready church, say yeah.

This is gonna change your life.

This somebody's getting free today, okay?

Sometimes you are wrong.

That was for somebody this morning.

Plural, that was for somebodies.

And the Lord has this tendency

to send the most annoying people in your life

to tell you this truth.

And to remind you about this truth.

But sometimes you are wrong.

And anytime somebody is walking around

with a posture that they are always right,

then they are only about themselves

and they are dealing with pride.

Because all of us at some point or another are wrong.

And we don't like to be wrong.

Does it feel good to be wrong?

No, it doesn't feel good to be wrong.

We walk around trying to be right.

But it is okay, it is okay that sometimes you are wrong

when you admit, hey, I was wrong, I messed up.

So sometimes it's harder not just to be wrong,

but to actually admit the truth that I was wrong.

That takes courage.

It takes loving the other person.

And for many of us, it takes the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because we are conditioned as people to be very selfish

as opposed to selfless.

And we put ourselves in the center.

And if we're in the center of our world,

then we're always right.

But guys, the Lord doesn't want you

to be the center of your world.

He wants to be in the center.

And the biggest conflict that we ever had

on the face of this planet was a conflict with our creator.

And it was that we opposed him because of our sin.

That automatically puts us in a category of being wrong.

And he's right.

And so selfishness and pride.

I was on a, come on up here, Phil.

I was on a car ride with Philip yesterday.

And he just, we were talking a little bit

about this message today.

And he brought up a quote by St. Francis of Assisi.

And I just want him to share this quote with you.

It's a short one, but I wanted him to come up and share it.

Because it has everything to do with how we handle conflict.

Would you just share that?

- Yeah, first off, anybody?

- I need a microphone.

Okay, here we go.

- Yeah.

- Anybody feel like this message is for them?

Yeah, that's definitely me.

Well, it's one thing that has gotten me

through some difficult conversations in the past.

Whenever I have needed to approach someone,

I know that I've done it wrongly so many times in the past,

going up to someone and trying to make sure

that they heard my perspective

before actually understanding what they were going through

or how they were receiving something.

So I was talking with Pastor Kevin yesterday

and a quote came to mind that I used to really live by.

And I try to still to this day,

especially with my team at work.

But the quote is, "Seek to understand, not to be understood."

And I feel like that's really powerful

'cause whenever you go into a courageous conversation

with someone that you presumably love,

it's very easy to represent your own perspective

so forcibly a lot of times

and really not take the time to understand

what that person might be going through,

how they might be processing the circumstance

of the conversation that you're looking to have with them

or anything else.

So that's kind of a quote that's really helped shape

the way that I try to go into courageous conversation.

- So it's seek to-- - Understand.

- Seek to understand, not to be understood.

Would you say that?

Seek to-- - Understand.

- Not to be understood.

Here's the thing, guys.

Who is right is less important than what is right.

Who is right is less important than what is right, okay?

When we make it about us,

when we put the who before the what,

we create a big mess, create a big mess.

Sometimes we have to understand with humility

that being wrong doesn't knock us down the ladder

a few notches.

We were just wrong and that's okay, that happens.

So where do we go to find what's right?

Where in the world do we go to find what's right?

Any guesses?

The word of God, go figure.

He has given us his word.

We go to the word of God as the authority in our life

and it gives us truth, it gives us the answers.

The word of God, Psalm 119 says this,

"Great peace have they which love your word

"and nothing shall offend them."

Nothing, I'm going through a circumstance right now

over the last several months that I have every opportunity

to pick up an offense.

But I have great peace.

God, why do I have great peace?

I know his word, I know his truth.

I know that he is sovereign, I know that he is good

no matter what the outcome of my situation.

How do I know that?

'Cause I'm just so great and I'm perfect.

No, it's because his word says it

and I believe what his word says.

I have to remind myself daily of this truth.

It's not something that's just natural.

My natural inclination is wanna punch people in the face.

Anybody else?

My natural inclination is a lot of different things

but I have to combat it daily by picking up my cross

and following what I believe this word of God to say.

So do you know the word of God?

What advice do I give as a pastor when people come to me,

hey, Kevin, so and so said this, did this, whatever.

What's my advice?

I don't tell them to go run,

well, what I first tell them to do is go put it on Facebook

'cause you know you gotta put it on Facebook

for everybody to see, right?

Then go gossip about the person

and then after that, no, go to the word to seek truth.

And it's not just go to the word to seek truth

about that person, go to the word to seek truth

about yourself, about how you're supposed to respond,

about reminding yourself about what Jesus Christ did

for you on the cross and why your offense toward them

or the way that you picked up offense should be lessened

because of what Jesus did for you.

It's a reminder, it's a reminder.

But there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

You know what we do as Christians?

We pull people in that are gonna counsel us

that agree with our side of the story.

We pull people in and sometimes it's disguised

in the altar space as I need prayer,

so and so said this and did this and they did this

and da, da, da, da, da, da, would you,

let's pray for them right now.

And I come to convey information rather than in truth

ask the Holy Spirit to come and infuse the situation.

We need to be looking for God's face

in all of our circumstances, especially our relational ones.

God, where are you in this?

God, where are you in this?

I wanna see your face because if I see your face,

then I'm gonna see them the way you see them.

Not the way I wanna see them,

not the way I feel about the situation right now,

not the way that it's been painted,

even with the scars and what's coming at me.

God, I want to be able to see them the way that you see them.

We need to see God's face in our situations

and we have to stop trying to fix it on our own.

We need to invite the Lord into our circumstances

and into our conflicts.

And so we're gonna work through

this bottom portion of Matthew.

And we're gonna look at this real quick

and I'm gonna ask Cole Burkett to come up here.

And if you'll grab this, come back here, come up quickly.

Actually, I'll grab this while you're coming up.

It is so easy for us to pick up a fence.

How many, give Cole a round of applause.

(congregation applauding)

Now, Cole is a musician.

This says, this says, offense.

You get it?

Okay.

Cole is a musician, but more importantly,

Cole's my friend, okay?

So come here, Cole.

Last week, I want you to stand right here, buddy.

Last week, Pastor Jonathan gave a definition of fellowship.

And he talked about fellowship being deeper than a friend,

deeper than friendship, closer to family,

but even beyond that.

And so the most important word in that definition

of fellowship was the word intimacy,

which is a word that we totally obliterate

and don't really understand.

But the posture of intimacy looks like this.

Go this way.

The posture of intimacy looks like this.

It's close.

There's a bond.

There is closeness, a bond.

There's a truth.

There's, what are you doing?

(congregation laughing)

There's comfort.

There's love.

There's trust, okay?

All of those vulnerability.

This is the posture of intimacy.

This is what we are supposed to be with fellow believers.

We're supposed to be an intimate connection, okay?

That's what God's desire for us is.

But something happens along the way.

Now, I said Cole was a musician, okay?

I'm just gonna use some bogus examples here, okay?

Cole's a musician.

He plays a show downtown and I don't show up.

So Cole makes up in his mind,

Kevin must not care about me

because he didn't come to the show.

Do you know there's a difference

between perception and reality?

So his perception is I didn't come to the show

because I don't care about him.

The reality was my kids were sick and I had to stay home.

But he didn't say anything to me about it.

He just kind of holds on to that.

Cole wants to come and he's a musician.

He wants to come and play worship at Springhouse.

He wants to come and be on the stage and lead worship.

And Pastor Jonathan never talks to him,

never says anything to him about it.

So his perception is, man, I'm really a nobody.

Nobody wants to use me.

I guess my talents are worthless to the kingdom,

are worthless to the church.

But the reality was is that Pastor Jonathan is over here

praying and seeking for somebody to come to him and say,

hey, I would like to maybe join the worship team.

And he doesn't know that Cole's has a desire

because Cole's not said anything about it.

So now he's got a perception that nobody sees him,

nobody hears him.

Pastor Justin takes Cole to lunch

and Cole sits there and they have a great meal together.

And Pastor Justin didn't pay for Cole's meal

'cause he's got 45 kids.

That's the reality.

The perception is Pastor Justin doesn't see me

or care about me that I'm a poor musician that needs money.

So Cole has all of these situations going on

and has had none of which he has said anything

to the person about.

And so what happens is is we're supposed to be in this,

we're gonna use the example of me, okay, earlier.

He and I are in this intimate position, okay?

We're close.

We are walking life together and we're close.

Every time we see each other, we have a close bond.

But, but because I didn't go to his show,

he has made up in his mind

that I do not value his musicianship.

And his mind has started to spiral into,

Kevin must just not care about my life at all.

And he must not care about my wife or my family.

And it has just gotten bigger.

And what he's done is he's picked up this offense.

Go ahead, pick this up.

Literally pick it up, okay?

And I want you to come toward me and face me.

So this is what happens, okay?

Now our relationship has a barrier between it.

So here I go, not yet.

(congregation laughing)

Okay?

So now when we're supposed to be an intimate connection,

it's awkward.

And it's awkward because I can tell something is off.

Something is not quite right here.

He's not reciprocating the relationship the way he used to.

He has stopped communicating the way

that I'm used to him communicating.

He has stopped showing up to things

that he normally shows up to.

Something is clearly off.

And even so much so that I might be cognizant enough

to go, Cole, hey, something's off, something's wrong.

And he just smiles, smile at them.

(congregation laughing)

And he says, no, everything's fine.

Everything's great.

So many of us, that is a lie.

So many of us will lie

instead of go to the middle of the relationship.

Let me tell you something.

When you say you love someone,

when you say you love someone,

there is nothing on the table that you can't talk about.

There should be an open pathway to say,

even if it seems dumb,

even if it seems like you just are like,

man, I know this is crazy.

You should be able to communicate.

That is immature love whenever you can't,

when you can't converse like that.

And so we've got a boundary between us right now

and it's kind of crazy and it's creating this chasm.

So that's what the scripture says

is that it says that many will be offended.

Many will be offended.

What does he say next?

He says, then, I'm sorry, let me say this.

One offended is more unyielding than a strong city.

Back in the day, they used to build walls around cities.

Why did they do that?

For protection.

What is offense birthed out of?

It's birthed out of a hurt.

I don't want to be hurt again.

So I'm going to build a wall between you and me

so I don't get hurt again.

But here is the lie of the enemy.

When we build that wall,

we're actually hurting ourselves worse

than if we would address the situation.

We're hurting ourselves worse

than whether we address the situation.

And here's the real crux.

When we hold onto an offense, we let go of God.

We have no ability to hold onto God

because we're holding onto the offense.

So the next thing that Jesus says here

is that they will betray one another, okay?

So here we've been an intimate connection.

Now it's awkward.

There's this thing going on in this space.

And now things are happening in cold spirit in his mind

that are not healthy.

And guess what?

He's got this offense.

He's let go of God.

So his natural, supernatural, heavenly affirmation

they should be getting from the word he's not getting.

And so what he does is he betrays.

And betrayal looks like this.

I want you to turn and face them.

This is what betrayal looks like.

It is taking the offense here in the perception

and showing all of you everything from his perspective.

Because if he will think to Chelsea his perspective,

then Chelsea will go, oh, you poor thing, Cole,

we're gonna round a bunch of people

to come see your show next time

because we wanna make sure you feel good.

How dare Kevin not do that?

Kevin isn't doing anything with his life.

He should be at your show.

All of these things.

And so he starts to paint this perception

to everybody as betrayal.

Why is the betrayal there?

Because he needs affirmation from people

because he's not getting it from the source.

He's gotta get it from somewhere.

And so we begin to feed into the lie.

Now, he's not gonna go to somebody like Pastor Barbie

with this because Pastor Barbie's actually gonna say,

uh-uh, that doesn't sound like Kevin.

Let's go right now and turn around and, right?

Why do I know that about Pastor Barbie?

Because she loves me.

Because she loves me.

Oh, that we would have people

when somebody comes to you and says something

that seems off from the character

that you know that person to be.

Instead of buying right into what they're saying,

you say, wait a second,

that does not sound like that person I know.

Let's go and figure out what's going on.

Or at the least, at the least, yikes,

that doesn't seem like they stepped

in the right direction there.

Let's go right now and talk to them

because I know them well enough that they will own it

and they will apologize and we can walk in forgiveness.

Guys, this has to be a place where gossip goes to die.

This has to be a place where we are authentic enough

with one another that we protect one another through love,

through the lens of love.

So, Cole is coming at you and he's gonna find the people,

he's not finding the people who love me

and want to support and lift my arms up.

He's finding people that are going to,

he's finding the weak ones.

The ones who will come and say,

yeah, let me just feed into this.

The ones who think they're strong, but they're really weak.

Then what happens?

Goes from being offended to betrayal to hatred.

To hatred, this is what hatred looks like

when you set this fence down over here

and once you get in the middle.

Hatred is a trap.

It's a trap of isolation.

It's a trap that says, I am untouchable.

Nobody can speak into my life.

Nobody can help me.

And another word that we would call this

instead of these walls being able to be a stronghold.

I got a stronghold going on in my life.

And it's got me and I'm not connecting to the Lord.

I'm not able to get past what's going on.

I am walking in hatred right now.

It's what Jesus says is gonna happen.

A fence leads to betrayal, leads to hate.

But then what it says, then it says more.

What does it say?

It's what I should have said.

Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.

Why is this person so susceptible to false truth,

false doctrine?

Because they're not holding on to the word

or holding on to the Lord.

So now they're wide open for whatever the enemy

wants to throw their way.

Whatever comes their way, he's buying into truth

that is not truth because he doesn't know the truth.

He's not connected to the Holy Spirit, to God.

He's just wide open target for anything that comes his way.

Jesus talks about false prophets in Matthew seven.

He says this, "Beware of false prophets

"who come to you dressed as sheep,

"but inwardly are ravenous wolves."

Do you notice there that he doesn't say

that the ones that are dressed, I'm sorry,

the false prophets are dressed like sheep?

He doesn't say the false prophets are dressed like shepherds.

See, when we read that, we think automatically,

well, a pastor is gonna lead us astray.

A prophet is gonna lead us, no.

He's talking about the sheep.

He's talking about you all because guess what?

Here's the thing, he's isolated.

We can't mind our business enough

to not come up to the fence and say,

hey, what's going on?

How's it going?

Tell me what's up here, what's going on?

And so the sheep start speaking into the life

of the person who's isolated, not the truth,

but false things, aiding the isolation

on the outside of the fence, on the outside of the fence.

And here's what actually happens.

I'm just gonna be real real tonight, today.

Once they do this to you, make you feel good,

they're going over here and they're talking bad about you.

Am I saying the truth?

And then they're talking bad about that person.

If somebody has the audacity to come

and just spew a bunch of gossip to you,

I promise you they're talking about you as well.

Aren't you glad you came this morning?

(congregation laughing)

And the reason I say that is because he says this

and because of lawlessness.

The vices that happen in here,

the sin that happens in this place,

'cause you gotta do something to sober yourself up

to feel good.

The lawlessness will abound

and the love of many will grow cold.

It will grow cold.

So, are we like people without hope

when we're in this situation?

Are we a people that once you get here, you are stuck?

You are never stuck when it comes to the Lord.

You can always have a pathway to be unstuck

when it comes to the Lord.

And we learn over in Acts chapter 24, a pathway,

Acts 24 · chapter mention

it says this, "And herein do I exercise myself

to have always a conscious void to offense toward God

and toward mine."

The important word in this is exercise.

Now, I have started to work out over the last several months

and I don't really like it.

I like to see the results, but I don't like the process.

I don't like the process.

This week, I was in super pain

over at Justin's house in my legs.

And he's like, "Let's do lunges

all the way up and down the freaking pathway,"

whatever it is.

It hurt, it didn't feel good.

But I'm subjecting myself to the pain

because I know the result I'm gonna be pleased with.

And so in this passage, it says,

herein do I exercise myself.

So here's what you do.

If you find yourself in a place,

maybe this morning the Lord has identified

somebody you've been holding offense against,

you've got a conflict with, you're in isolation,

maybe you can go as far as say, I hate them.

Maybe, maybe, maybe you didn't realize

you hated them until now

because you've convinced yourself that it's okay.

You've numbed yourself,

but the reality is that you're isolated from everyone else

and you've changed your behavior.

So what do you do?

The first thing that we want to do is this.

This is not what we're supposed to do.

This is the first thing we want to do

because we know, we know here,

okay, I'm supposed to go to that person.

I'm supposed to tell them what I feel like they've done wrong

and forgive them, right?

So we know that, but we don't do it.

First of all, it's too late.

That ship has sailed

'cause you have built a whole thing over here

that makes no sense against them.

But what we do is we carry this.

So go and pick that offense up and you bring it back to me.

Now I'm all of a sudden,

Cole's coming up to me

and he puts this offense right in my face.

And he says, look what you did.

Look how you hurt me.

Look what this did to me.

Look how this felt.

And then he puts it down and he says, but I forgive you.

And I'm just supposed to be okay.

Oh, okay.

And we're supposed to go back to, no,

that's not how it works.

That's not how it works.

Stay right there.

When someone mistreats you,

when someone mistreat, when you feel,

even if you have assumed they have mistreated you,

there is instruction in the Word

of what you're supposed to do.

It says this, pray for the one who mistreats you.

Pray for the one.

Pray for them, what?

God, do you not know what they did?

God bless them, God bless them, whatever.

Right, that's our prayer.

God, whatever, just touch their life, whatever.

Let them breathe tomorrow.

Hope they put on some shoes when they go outside, whatever.

And we start praying these meaningless prayers.

Why?

Because we want them to know.

We want them to feel our pain.

We want them to hurt like we hurt.

But aren't you glad that the Savior of the world

didn't make you hurt the way He hurt before forgiving you?

Because here's the thing, guys,

God does not just dispense love.

The Word tells us that God is love.

And He lives inside you, and I hate to tell you this,

no, I love to tell you this,

love holds no record of wrongs.

No record is not some record.

It's not the record that wasn't tarnished.

It wasn't the record that, well,

but this situation is an exception.

Love holds no record of wrong.

What that means is, is when you wake up the next day,

it's as if nothing ever happened.

And even more so, your relationship is deeper the next day

than before whatever happened happened.

Love holds no record of wrong.

And how are we able to live there and why?

How do we know that that's how we're supposed to live

for one another?

It's because this is what forgiveness looks like.

Jesus sacrificed His life saying, forgive them, God,

they have no idea what they are doing, what they have done.

And so the correct posture is, Cole, go on back.

The correct posture is, I'm over here,

and Cole needs to start with forgiveness.

He needs to forgive me.

And I didn't really even do anything.

Remember the scenario?

But he's got to do forgiveness.

Do you know that forgiveness is really for you?

When you forgive someone, it's liberating you.

So he starts with a position of forgiveness,

but you don't do that by coming with the offense

and shoving it in the person's face.

You take that offense and you give it to the Lord.

So I want you to take that

and I want you to give it to the Lord, just lay it down.

And so now he's in a posture

because he's no longer holding onto the offense.

Now he has something that he can actually hold onto.

He can have something.

And before he even tries to come over in my vicinity,

God needs to remind Cole about who he is.

God needs to do some heart surgery in Cole.

God needs to tell Cole some truths about God's character.

He needs to fuel Cole.

Because guys, that's where the source comes from.

Cole wasn't getting any of that from me.

I was enjoying the source with him.

Your source is not the people next to you.

Your source is God.

Your source is the Lord.

And so he goes and he starts to get filled up.

And as he's on that process, he is now forgiven.

In his heart, he has forgiven me for what he assumed I did.

But guys, let me tell you something.

There's another part of it.

And the next part is reconciliation.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things.

So he is now forgiven

and now he needs to start walking the process

of reconciliation.

And what that looks like is coming to me,

coming to the one that presumably offended him

and humbly apologizing,

saying, man, I've created distance

and would you please forgive me?

I don't want this chasm between us.

I miss the intimate connection we had.

Notice he's not saying anything about me

not going to the show.

Why?

Because the Lord's already fixed that idea in his head.

Because it wasn't in keeping with my character.

But let's say he does say that.

Let's say in the context he's like,

just he kind of, he happens to say,

hey, listen, you know, it started with the fact

that you didn't go to my show and that kind of hurt me.

And I could say, dude, I'm so sorry that hurt you, man.

I was, my Ruby was throwing up

and all of a sudden Ruby's throwing up.

It locks everything in his mind

that he's just spent a whole year

severing our relationship off of a non-truth.

Off of a perception that was not true.

Because we brought and introduced truth

in the reality into the situation.

And so now there's reconciliation.

When we are reconciled to Christ,

guess what we have to do?

It's not just he dies on the cross

and we're reconciled to Christ.

He dies on the cross and we have to repent.

We have to turn from our, there is a step there.

We have to repent from our sin.

There's a step here.

There's a change that has to happen,

an interchange in this reconciliation

so that we can get back to this posture.

And let me tell you guys something.

Anytime I've gone through this process with someone,

I am closer today with them than I ever have been before.

Because it takes vulnerability, it takes transparency.

And you wanna talk about true grit and intimacy.

That is whenever you can bear all

and you can flesh out life together with someone.

Because the next time I don't show up to Cole's show

or there's a different example.

Cole has learned the hard way.

And he has now seen what my character,

not that I'm perfect, I'll probably mess up.

The next time I may really, really offend him.

I may actually really say something.

Hey man, I don't really like that white shirt.

But guess what?

We're close enough to that.

If friends say, whoa, whoa, whoa, come here.

Man, I know you don't like my white shirt,

but man, the way you said that really kind of hurt me.

And because I love Cole, I can react two ways.

I can love him or I can react out of my flesh.

Because it's a two way street.

I can say, man, you're so dumb.

Get over the whole shirt thing.

Why?

Why do we act like that?

Because we don't like to be wrong.

I cannot control how Cole feels.

But what I can do is ask him to forgive me

because he has perceived I've wronged him.

Man, Kevin, you said you didn't like my shirt.

That kind of hurt me.

Man, I am so sorry.

I did not mean, will you please forgive me?

I appreciate it.

I don't have to then say, oh, I love your shirt.

'Cause that's a lie.

I didn't like his shirt.

(congregation laughing)

Right?

It's not about lying so you can soothe it over.

I can be real.

His accusation was,

I didn't like the way that you conveyed that.

Maybe I need to shut my mouth

and stop telling him how I feel about his shirts.

Because nothing that comes out of my mouth,

everything that comes out of my mouth should be uplifting.

Then now what the scripture says,

let nothing unwholesome come out of your mouth.

Right?

Is that not?

So that's not uplifting.

What if I would have come up to him and said,

man, Cole, let me tell you something.

I appreciate how much you love me.

I appreciate the way that you so, so in musically

behind closed doors and you're writing songs, man.

I'm building my friend up.

I'm talking about the things that I really do enjoy

and I really do see in him.

And that deepens our connection of intimacy.

Amen?

Amen.

Thank you.

Give Cole a hand.

(congregation applauding)

Guys, this is important.

This is important because over the next several weeks,

we're going to lean into the Holy Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit is real.

He is alive today.

He is active in your life.

He wants to be an active part of your life.

But here's what's gonna happen

when we start getting into this.

You're gonna start to recognize offenses

that you did not know that you had.

You're gonna start to recognize places of potential conflict

that you didn't know were there

because the Holy Spirit wants there to be nothing

that stops you from your relationship

and connection with God Almighty.

And so he's going to illuminate.

I don't like turning on lights in my house sometimes

because I see all the crap everywhere.

If I can just turn the lights off,

I don't have to deal with it.

Anybody else?

Throw them in the closet, close the door.

The Holy Spirit has a big magnifying glass and flashlight,

not so that you can stand condemned.

You don't have to be condemned because of that right there.

But he poses a big flashlight on it because he says,

there's something so much better for you.

There's something so much you are missing out

on a relationship that is gonna bless your socks off.

Let's clean this up and you don't have to do it alone.

Let's be a church who purposes to lay down offenses,

who purposes to handle conflict the biblical way,

who believes in the truth of what God's word says

more so than the chatter around us about other people.

Let us let Springhouse be a place

where gossip goes to die, where we walk in authenticity,

and where we love Jesus in a real way.

Because at the end of that Acts 2 passage,

it says numbers were added to them every single day.

Every single day.

And you know what happens?

Those people come inside and they're bringing

all of this stuff that we just talked about from the outside

and they're gonna come in here and be introduced

to a new way of doing things.

A kingdom way with a king who knows how to bring unity

to every situation, to bring healing to every situation,

and knows how to bring reconciliation

in a way that the world has no clue.

Would you guys stand with me this morning

with the worship team come back?

Here's what we're gonna do

with those who will pray come forward.

Today was not a goosebump word, okay?

But it's a liberating word.

In a group this size, what, there's 250 people here,

300 people, hey, listen.

There are people who are holding onto offenses here.

There are people who are in the middle of conflict.

There are people who have not stepped

into the territory of forgiveness.

And it's tough and it's hard.

Remember I talked about exercise?

I don't necessarily expect it could happen.

Not necessarily expect if you come forward today

and you start to confess it that all of a sudden

you walk out of here and everything is just great.

There's some work to do.

But the first step is the recognition that you are trapped.

Just the acknowledgement.

And you can't do anything about it.

Some of you tried to do something about it

and it led you to a bottle

or it led you to an unhealthy relationship.

It led you to vices.

No, God Almighty wants to meet you

right in the middle of the trap

and He wants to liberate you today.

And the first step is just the acknowledgement.

Come to one of these brothers or sisters and just say,

hey, you don't have to get the details if you don't want.

Just say I'm trapped and I need out.

And they will pray for the Holy Spirit

to come and give you the strength and power

to start walking out these steps.

Maybe you've been the one who has offered the offense

and you realize that.

And you need to go to the person and you need to apologize.

You need to make things right,

but you don't know how to do that.

Maybe there's been a lot of time

in between point A and point B

and you're just like, I don't know.

I'm telling you, guys, it's not happenstance

that you're here today.

What I'm talking about,

there's so much we can talk about here at church.

So many, we can talk about sin, all these things.

But when we get to the places of reconciliation,

I believe that is the very heartbeat of God.

We are talking about real important things.

The third group that might need to come,

and guys, this is me.

God, search my heart.

I don't know.

I don't want to walk in offense.

Maybe I've offended somebody that I love

and I want to make that right.

God, maybe you need to tell me

and I've been blind and numb

and I'm seeing this person all the time

and they're reading all over them, but I don't know.

God, would you search my heart

because I don't want there to be any aughts

with any of my brothers or sisters.

Maybe that's you today

and I would invite you to come as a step of faith.

Say, Lord, I wanna be more like you.

I want to see your face in my situation

and in my relationships.

So would you come this morning

and allow the Holy Spirit of God to minister to your heart

and to reconcile things this morning.

Let's worship.