Being Difficult To Offend

Good morning, Good News Church. I am stoked to see you all this morning.

I am. Is that old? That is old, probably. Does anyone say stoked?

Young people? You do? You're young. Wow, lots of young people say it. Look how cool I am.

All right, so today we are continuing a series that we started last week called

How to Handle Relational Drama.

And the reason I'm excited is I'm excited about the reaction that you guys have

had last Sunday in particular, and then some comments that have happened since

last Sunday between then and now.

It seems to me that you are, at least some of you, are more excited about this

series even than the average series that we have going on here.

People have made comments like, oh, I can't wait to find out what's next,

and this is going to be so helpful. And so I just want you to know,

I'm excited that you're excited.

That encourages me, and I hope this is helpful to you. I hope this is helpful

to you as you think it will be, or maybe more.

We started the series last week, so if this is your first time here and you're

just catching up, there's not a whole lot to catch up on.

Last week we did part one and it was called the foundational rule.

And we talked about the foundational rule when it comes to relationships.

Before we even get into how to handle the drama, what is the main thing that

God's word reveals about how humans are supposed to treat each other?

And so the foundational rule was love your neighbor as yourself.

We looked at the passage where Jesus said the most important command is to love

the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your heart, with all your strength.

And then he said the second most important command is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And so the love your neighbor as yourself is, it's the second most important

command overall, but it is the most important command about how we as humans

are supposed to treat each other.

So we said that, that idea is probably going to permeate the rest of this series.

Okay. So now after having laid the foundation, let's move on to the drama.

Okay. How do we handle relational drama? Because there is at some point,

someone is going to be rude to you.

Someone is going to miscommunicate or someone is going to sin against you and the drama will begin.

And sometimes the drama can be something that's very small at first,

like a spark, like just a little spark that can eventually set a whole house on fire.

And you've probably seen this happen before with relationship.

Have you seen something where things start off small and it started spiraling

out of control relationally, right?

I mean, you haven't, have you, like where it just begins with something little,

like, you know, I said I didn't want potato salad.

And then three hours later, someone's in jail and you're going like that escalated so quickly, right?

So what do we do? Like when we see the spark beginning, when we see the drama

starting up, what is it that we're supposed to do to handle it?

And so I would say there are at least two reactions that you can have when someone offends you, okay?

There may be more, but I think there are two primary ones. And so we're gonna

put them on the screen, okay?

Two main reactions you can have when someone offends you. You can confront it or you can overlook it.

Now, the question is, which one is the right one?

Like, which one is the one that you're supposed to do when someone offends you?

Are you supposed to confront it?

Are you supposed to overlook it? Or maybe a better way to say it is,

which one of these is the biblical one, right? What does the Bible say you should

do when someone offends you?

So let's go ahead and look. We're gonna start with Matthew 18, verse 15.

Matthew 18:15

This is a fantastic verse. Matthew 18, 15, it says, If your brother sins against

you, go and rebuke him in private.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

All right, so we got one point for confront it right here, don't we?

Obviously, we know that there must be situations where we need to confront them

because that's what Jesus says to do. If you didn't know, this is actually,

Jesus is the speaker here in this verse.

Jesus is the one who said, if your brother sins against you,

go and rebuke him in private.

If he listens to you, you've won your brother. There comes a point where someone

can sin against you and offend you in some way that you are supposed to talk to them about it, right?

And rebuke him is, the word rebuke and the word confront here is not meant to

be like a synonym for punish, okay? It's not if someone sins against you,

go and punish them with your words.

No, it's go and rebuke him. Go ahead and talk about it and notice you rebuke him where?

In private. So it's obvious that the goal of this is not to humiliate the person.

It's not to embarrass the person, right? In fact, it says if he listens to you,

you've won your brother.

That's the goal. You actually want to win the person, right?

So the goal here is not to attack them.

But it is a situation where you need to confront it, okay?

So I guess the biblical way is to confront it. Except, let's look at Proverbs

Proverbs 19:11

19, verse 11. This is interesting.

Proverbs 19, 11 says, A person's insight gives him patience,

and his virtue is to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19, 11 says.

What? Wait, wait. That doesn't fit with what we just learned.

This verse seems to be saying that a person can have insight,

like wisdom, that will cause them to be a patient person.

And his virtue, this could also be translated glory. It's his glory to overlook an offense, right?

Someone offends him, someone sins against him, and he overlooks it out of patience.

Wait, so which one is it? Well, let's keep going.

So Luke chapter 17, verse 3 says this, be on your guard.

Luke 17:3

If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him.

Another point for confront him here. Okay.

This again is Jesus speaking. And Jesus says, you got to watch out.

If your brother sins against you, what do you need to do?

You got to go talk to them about it, right? You got to rebuke him.

And again, rebuke here is not like verbal punch, right? If your brother sins,

rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him.

The goal of confronting it is so that he would repent and you would forgive

him. The goal is reconciliation, not punishment.

But it's not overlook it. You got to say something, right?

However, let's look at Proverbs chapter 12, verse 16. Proverbs 12,

Proverbs 12:16

16 says, a fool's displeasure is known at once, but whoever ignores an insult is sensible.

Wait a minute. So if someone's sinning against me, I got to say something to

them, but yet if someone sins against me in some sort of insulting way,

it looks like there's a situation where it's the sensible person,

the wise person that ignores the insult.

And it's actually the fool who makes his displeasure known every time, right? It's the fool.

That's the one that's always going, well, I don't like that.

And I don't like her. And I don't like what you just said. And you better stop,

right? It's the fool that's doing that. Whoever ignores an insult is sensible.

Well, which is it? Are we supposed to confront it? Are we supposed to overlook

it? Is there a contradiction in the scriptures?

I don't think that there is. This is what I think the answer is.

I think the answer is it depends on the situation. Did you see that coming?

Yeah, it depends on the situation. Every situation is different.

Wisdom literature, and I'm thinking of Proverbs in particular,

although Ecclesiastes might do this as well, but wisdom literature sometimes

gives what seems to be contradictory instructions or contradictory principles,

because different things apply in different situations.

I'm thinking of, there's a place in Proverbs where these two verses are back to back.

It says, do not answer a fool according to his folly. And then the next verse

is answer a fool according to his folly.

And so obviously the writer put them back to back for a reason.

It's not like he was saying like, it seems to me what he's saying is there's

a different situation, depending on the situation, you may need to do this.

And then in a different situation, you may need to do the opposite of this.

Okay, well then how can you know? If you're in a situation and someone has offended

you, how can you know whether you're supposed to confront it or whether you're

supposed to overlook it? So I will let you know this.

That's not actually my topic this morning, okay? So that's not what I'm trying to answer.

My topic this morning is I wanna talk about the occasions where we overlook it.

And then next week, I wanna talk about the occasions when we confront it, okay?

That's the plan. But I realized bringing this up, there may be some of you that

go, well, I don't really care what your sermon was.

I now wanna know the answer to, do you confront it or overlook it?

Like, that's nice that you have plans, Mario. You wanna do this and that,

but you brought up something now.

And now I wanna know, how can I know whether I confront it or overlook it?

But so I'm not doing a whole sermon on that.

I don't even know if I could do a whole sermon on that, at least not at this

point in my life. But I did think about it and I realized, okay,

somebody there is gonna wanna know. So I should say it.

So I thought of three things and I'm just gonna give you those three things.

They're just like bonus material. They're not part of the sermon,

okay? The sermon's gonna be on this.

But just at the beginning, because I think it might be helpful.

You might literally be in a situation right now where you're going,

yeah, I don't know if I'm supposed to say something or if I'm not supposed to say something.

So these are three things I thought of that I think fall along those lines.

I hope it will be helpful to you. Here's the first one.

As you walk with Jesus over time, as you follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit

over time, and as you learn more and more of God's word over time, you will gain wisdom.

And wisdom is the thing that helps you figure out whether you're supposed to

confront it or overlook it.

If you're someone who's been a Christian for a while, you should thank God that

he has given you some measure of wisdom for you to be able to know whether you

should confront it or overlook it.

If you're new to Christianity, if you're new to following God,

it might be a good idea for you to ask a wise, godly friend what they think about this.

That where you're in a situation, you go, I don't know, I don't know if I should say something or not.

Then find someone who you, as best as you know, they are way wiser and farther

along than you and ask them.

And that way you can sort of borrow their wisdom until you get more of your own.

Another thing that you can do in trying to determine, confront,

or overlook, I think, is apply to your life the words that Jesus said.

And we learned these last week. It was Luke chapter six, verse 31.

There was a command that Jesus gave last week. Well, he didn't give it last week.

He gave it a long time ago. We talked about it last week. Luke chapter six,

verse 31 is where Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right?

Just as you want someone to treat you, that is how you're supposed to treat them.

You can use that, like you can actually practice that in trying to decide,

okay, well, do I say anything?

Like one question you can ask yourself is, well, what if the situation was reversed?

What would I want done for me?

Like if the situation is one where you're going like, well, if I were the person

who like, it was like a verbal slip.

I said this thing, it sounded really offensive. I wasn't trying to be.

What would I want someone to do for me? Maybe I would want someone to extend

grace, right? And just overlook it.

Well, if that's the case, then when the roles are reversed, do that for them.

But you might hear that and you might go, well, yeah, but then that means I'm

never going to confront anything, right? Because I don't ever want anybody to

point out anything wrong with me ever.

So if I'm going to do unto others, I'm just never going to point out anything to anybody.

Okay, that's an option. But here's the thing.

Is that really how you ought to be? Like, is that how it should be?

Do you really want to have no one in your life warning you about anything,

anything that you can't see?

Do you want to have all of your friends in your life to be the kind of people

that as you're starting to walk toward a cliff, they say nothing?

Is that what you want? And I think a lot of us will go, well, no, I don't want that.

Okay, then what would you want? And I think a lot of us would say,

well, okay, I would want someone to say something, but I would want them to

say it like nicely and gently and not harshly, you know, and all judgy. Okay?

Okay. So then when the roles are reversed, what should you do?

You should go talk to them and say it nicely and kindly and not harshly and

all judgy, right? Because that's what you would prefer.

Here's another. This is a third principle. I think this one's good.

You have to judge for yourself.

But as you're trying to decide, do I confront it or overlook it?

I think a good question to ask yourself is this. The thing that the person just did.

Does it offend God or did it just offend me?

Isn't that important? You ask yourself the question, did they break God's law,

or did they break one of your laws?

And I think the more that it leans toward breaking one of God's law,

more likely it is that you're going to want to confront it.

And more likely that the more that it leans toward breaking one of your laws,

the more likely it is that you're going to overlook it.

Is that helpful? All right. That was for free. Now back to the sermon.

So for today, I want to focus on this half. What does it mean to overlook it?

What does it mean to be someone who is difficult to offend?

And then next week, if the Lord allows, I would like to talk about what does

it mean to confront sin? And how do we do that?

So this is going to be an unbalanced sermon, right? I'm just announcing that

now, right? We are covering one thing and we are not covering another thing.

So there might be someone that wants to come up to me afterwards and go,

well, I felt that that sermon was lacking balance, pastor, because you didn't,

what about this? And what about this situation?

What about this? And what about this? Okay, I think that sermon was not very

balanced. And I will say to you, you are right, okay?

That is correct. It was unbalanced, purposely so, because I cannot preach on everything at once.

So today's focus is overlooking offenses. Next week's focus will be confronting

sins. All right, you ready?

Okay, good. Now, if you're here today and you are like an aggressive person, okay?

Like by your personality, that maybe you don't even want like the word aggressive,

a direct, if you're a direct person when it comes to problem solving, okay?

If you're the kind of person that's like, well, I got a problem.

So I went and I told her, I said, I don't like that, I don't do that anymore.

Okay, if you are a direct person, you're gonna love next week, okay?

You're gonna love it Because you're gonna show up at church and you're gonna

hear Bible verses and you're gonna be like, that's in the Bible?

That's fantastic. Like things that feel natural to you, it turns out some of

them are in the Bible and you're gonna be like, that is great.

This is the religion for me for sure.

And that's gonna be, so you're gonna love that. But here's the thing,

if you're in that category, you really should listen to this sermon that you're in right now, okay?

You probably don't even need to come next week, okay? You're probably fine,

all right? You probably do all that stuff anyway.

This sermon is your sermon, okay?

And then for those of you here who are passive people, okay,

you're the kind of person that like you see conflict and you're like,

whoa, I will walk this way for 20 years. Okay.

You're going to love this sermon. Okay. You are. You're going to get to this

end of the sermon. You're going to be like, I am such a godly person.

Okay. And that's great. But here's the thing. You need to come back next week.

You need to come back next week because you cannot overlook every problem.

I repeat, you cannot overlook every problem.

Okay. So today we're going to talk about what does it mean to be difficult to offend.

And I have eight points that I want to share with you. As I was thinking it

through this week, I was trying to think like, well, what is it that the Bible says about this?

Which Bible passages address it? And what, like, how should I like say these

Bible verses to the people?

And so I have eight points. And at some point I realized that it's three whys

and it's five hows. Okay.

Three whys, three, like, why should we be difficult to offend?

And then five hows. How can we actually pull that off if we think we ought to

be someone who doesn't want to be like easily outraged.

So that's the outline for today. You see it's on the screen,

right? Why one, why two, why three?

And then how one, how two, how three, how four, and how five.

So that's what we're going to go through. I'll try to go through each one fairly

quickly. Let's start with why number one.

Why do you want to be someone who is not easily outraged? Why do you want to

be hard to offend? Here's why number one, because it is a chance to imitate God.

It is a chance to imitate God.

Look at Psalm 103, verse eight. It says, the Lord is compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger and rich in faithful love.

This phrase that the Lord is, and then something like this phrase or some variation

of it, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in love

is actually something that's in the Old Testament multiple times.

It's in more than one Psalm. It's over in the book of Exodus.

Like I don't even know how many times, but this is something that recurs in the Old Testament a lot.

That when the people talked about God, they said he's compassionate and gracious

and he's slow to what? Slow to anger.

All right, now I want to fast forward to the New Testament and I want you to

see this in the life of Jesus Christ. Okay, so look at Luke 23, verse 34.

Luke 23:34

It says, Luke 23, 34, This is one of the most famous things that Jesus said.

And if you don't know the story, this is very incredible.

When you consider what was happening at the time he said it.

For those of you who know, let's see if you can give me the answer.

And when Jesus said, Father, forgive them because they do not know what they

are doing. When did he say that?

He was on the cross. This is one of the few things that Jesus said while he

was dying on the cross. He said, Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.

The them in this verse is the people who were killing him and the people who

were supportive of him being killed.

I mean, talk about being difficult to offend. Jesus was being slowly and actively murdered.

And as it was happening, he was concerned about his murderers.

He was concerned about their ignorance and he was praying to God on their behalf

so that they'd be forgiven.

Is that not incredible? Talk about slow to anger.

Okay, so then the next verse I wanna show you is Ephesians 5, verses one and two.

Therefore be imitators of God as dearly loved children and walk in love as the

Messiah also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

So we see here a reference to Jesus dying on the cross again.

But at the beginning of this section, notice what it says. It says,

be imitators of who? God.

So when I say it's a chance to imitate God, we're supposed to be like God as

his dearly loved children.

And then look at the next part, and walk in love like who?

As the Messiah also loved us. So in this verse, we see, okay,

we're supposed to be imitators of God, the father and imitators of God, the son.

We're supposed to be like God, the father. We're supposed to be like Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

So then let's go to James chapter one, verse 19.

I think this will all make sense now. So James is giving Christians instructions.

And notice what he says in chapter one, verse 19. He says, my dearly loved brothers, understand this.

Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

Now, that's interesting. Notice this phrase.

James says we're supposed to be slow to anger. And it's the same thing that

the Old Testament says about God.

So, the Old Testament uses this phrase slow to anger to say this is what God

is like. And then James says to Christians, that's what you should be like. Well, why?

Well, now we know why. Because we're supposed to be imitators of God and imitators of Jesus Christ.

And so why would you want to be someone who's not easily outraged?

Why do you want to be difficult to offend? It's a chance to imitate God.

All right, why number two, okay? Not only is the chance to imitate God, it's a symptom of love.

It's a symptom of love. And for that, I wanted to bring up 1 Corinthians 13.

This is an incredible passage as far as its popularity. It's one of the most

popular passages in the Bible.

It gets read at weddings all the time, okay? It was actually Paul talking to

the Corinthians, but people, Christians love for this passage to be read at their weddings.

And honestly, I think people that don't even love God very much,

they like this passage read at their weddings.

Okay, so here it is. You've probably heard it before. Love is patient.

Love is kind. Have you heard it? Yes. Love does not envy, is not boastful,

is not conceited, does not act improperly.

You can see why you would want this attached to a marriage or a wedding, right?

Is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish.

Now it's this next phrase that I really want you to catch. Is not what?

Provoked. Is not provoked. Love is patient, love is kind, but then we get to

this one. Love love is not provoked. And I looked it up online.

And if you look at the original language, the word that's traded,

the word or words that are translated into the word, the English word provoked

is something that means to incite, to anger.

So like the NIV translation actually translates this.

It's love is not selfish. Love is not easily angered, right? It's the same thing.

Love is not provoked. If you are a person of love, someone jabs you,

you don't lash out back at them real fast, right? Love is not provoked.

If we want to be someone whose characters is characterized by love,

then we need to be people who are not provoked.

Okay, so it's a symptom of love. Why number three? It extinguishes relational drama.

Okay, so these first two are sort of like theological and spiritual.

It's about your, you know, it's about God. It's about your character.

But this This one's just practical, okay?

To be someone who is difficult to offend is going to extinguish relational drama in your life.

Let me show this to you in Proverbs 15, verse 18.

Proverbs 15:18

It says, a hot tempered man stirs up conflict, but a man slow to anger, calms strife.

If you thought about it really hard, you realize you knew that before you walked in here, didn't you?

If you are someone who's getting offended and you're angry and expressing your

anger all the time, you're gonna have relational drama in your life all the time.

You're gonna stir it up and it'll always be there. But someone who is slow to

anger, someone who's not easily provoked is going to have a calming effect on

the relationships in their life.

Okay, so those are the whys. And some of you might even be going,

okay, that sounds great. I actually would like to be someone who is difficult to offend.

But how? How do you pull that off?

So I wanna give you five hows, okay? How number one is pray, okay?

So we've got the whys. How am I gonna do this? So I start with pray.

And the verse is Philippians 4, verse six.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition with

thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

I love this verse because if you're in the middle of a situation,

you're going, I don't even know what to do with this. And she is,

I just can't handle, I just can't handle her.

Okay, well, don't worry about it. Pray about it.

Pray about it. And one of the things you can do, let your requests be made known to God.

And I would say this, at least just for my life, you could ask God in the midst

of it, God, how do you want me to feel about this?

Okay? Like I already know what I think about it, but how is it that you want me to feel about this?

And I will tell you this, there may be occasions where God wants you to be outraged about it.

It very well could be that God is angry about something.

He wants you to be angry like he is so that you will pursue justice in that situation.

So I do not want to make it sound like there's never a situation for anger ever.

There's never a situation for anyone to be outraged or anybody to do anything

about something offensive.

I'm not saying that, but I'm saying a lot of the time in my life,

when I'm offended and I pray, I mean, I just think if I don't do this every

single time, but I should, I should pray, God, how do you want me to feel about this?

Because I think the sense that I get from God most of the time when I,

if I were to pray, God, how should I feel about this?

And I say the sense, God does not speak to me audibly. I've never heard his voice like in my ears.

But when I've prayed about this, it seems to me a lot of times what the sense

I get back is, calm down, you're more upset about this than I am.

Like you, your priorities are different than mine.

And so this is bothering you in a way that it's not bothering me because you're

offended by something that's really important to you that shouldn't be so much.

Okay, here's how number two. Okay, so how number one is pray.

How number two, don't judge until all the information is in. Oh, this one is so good.

Okay, don't judge until all the information is in.

So, have you ever seen a situation where someone tells you like part of it,

they say like, this is what they said about you or this is what they said about your mom or whatever.

This is what they did when you weren't around. They took credit for your idea, okay?

And you just heard like just that one person's point of view,

right? and you're like, well, let me go give them a piece of my mind.

Have you ever been there?

And then, has this ever happened? And you went and you gave them a piece of

your mind and then you find out the other part of the story and you're like,

oh, this is a little different than I thought it was. Have you seen that happen?

So I wanna show you the verse. So the idea here, don't judge until all the information

is in, is there are gonna be times where you're gonna have to postpone judgment

until you've got the other side.

Someone's gonna ask you, like, are you offended? And you're gonna have to go,

I don't know. I don't know if I'm offended. I'm gonna have to figure it out.

I'm gonna have to look into it and figure out if I am or not,

okay? So here's the verse for it. It's Proverbs chapter 18, verse 17.

Proverbs 18:17

This is such a fantastic verse. I suppose they all are, but I really like this one.

Proverbs 18, 17 says, the first to state his case seems right until another

comes and cross-examines him.

You've experienced this. Now, this concept is actually like foundational even

to like the criminal justice system in America, right? Like we do what we do because this is true.

The first to state his case seems right. The reason why there's a prosecuting

attorney and a defense attorney, the reason why in civil cases,

there's two different attorneys that present two different sets of evidence

and a judge that's in the middle that decides or a jury or whatever it may be.

It's because the first to state his case always seems right.

Whenever someone tells you a story and they're like, okay, here's the point.

So I'm going to tell you this happened, this happened, this happened. Don't you agree with me?

Right? And every time that's happened to you, you go, yes, I do agree with you.

Everything you said makes total sense, right? Of course it does,

because they've only presented the part of the story that they're telling that

backs up the thing they're saying.

Then, have you ever then gone and talked to the person or gone on the other

side and you went, well, it wasn't near as black and white as I thought it was.

So that happens in courtrooms all the time where it's like, they're guilty.

Oh, maybe not, right? And it doesn't just happen in courtrooms.

It happens in our lives all the time.

Some of us in this room, probably everybody at some point has done this.

You've heard half a story and assumed you had the whole story.

And honestly, half a story is about as good as no story sometimes.

And so you've got to decide I'm going to suspend my judgment until I find the other side.

You've got to go talk to the other person about it. You don't know if you're

offended because you don't know exactly what happened yet.

You've got to go and figure out the other side. I'm going to tell you a story

of something that happened to me that I just think was very memorable.

I had never seen it happen in my life really before or since.

There was a time years ago when I was, there was this couple that attended the

same church that I was at.

And this couple got really angry at me, okay?

It was not because of something I said to them personally. It was something that they heard.

It was about an email that they heard about and they got very angry at me and

they started talking to people about how angry they were with me and I heard

about it and I contacted them and I said, is there any way I could share with

you like my side of the story?

And to their credit, they said, yes, okay? Yes, we will meet with you.

And so we met at a cafe and my goal was to tell them my side of the story.

And I will tell you this, when they walked in, And like I said,

to their credit, they were there to hear my side of the story.

But when they walked in, they possessed half a story, but they were pretty sure they knew everything.

As they walked in, they were pretty sure there was nothing I was gonna say that

was gonna change their mind.

And so there was this like crazy amount from their body language and their words

and the stuff they said in the first half of the meeting and the way they looked,

like it just, the hostility that was radiating from their body was like so,

like I could feel it on my face, like heat.

I mean, they were just, they were so angry at me.

And then I said, I said, could I read the email that you're upset about?

Because I'd known ahead of time what it was. So I printed it out and I brought

it with me. And then they were like, sure. And so I read the email.

And this is the crazy thing that happened. Like I said, I've never seen this happen before or since.

I've never seen like a mood shift or a vibe shift happen so rapidly.

I'm reading the email and then looking up at their faces and reading the email,

looking up at their faces.

And as I'm reading it, like the hostility that was there, that was like full

on 10, it like slowly started melting away.

And by the time I was done reading the email, they weren't even angry at me anymore.

The whole mood, I mean, this was like anger cafe. And then like the whole vibe shifted.

By the time I was done, it all went away.

And one of them said to me like, whoa, we are sorry. We should have known better than this.

Will you please forgive us? And I said, yeah.

Now what those people did in that story, this is important to understand.

It's something we all do. We all hear half a story and I'm pretty sure we heard the whole story.

You've got to postpone judgment until you've looked into the other side because

the first to say this case always seems right until someone comes along and cross-examines him.

All right, number three, how to be difficult to offend. Oh, this one's great.

It's gonna be real fast too. Mind your own business, okay?

One way to be less offended is mind your own business. Isn't that fantastic?

This is what I mean by mind your own business.

There's a lot of drama in the world. You can always be in drama if you just

keep hurling yourself into it wherever you find it, right?

There are so many fights. If you just keep jumping into other people's fights,

you will always have something to fight about.

There comes a point that if you wanna be someone who's slow to anger and not

stirring up strife, you gotta mind your own business.

There are times when we take up the offenses of other people that we do not

need to. Let me show this to you in Proverbs 26, verse 17.

Proverbs 26:17

Proverbs 26, 17 says, so good, look at this.

Like one who grabs a dog by the ears is a passerby who meddles in a quarrel, not his own.

Isn't that, I mean, that's just so visual. Can you picture it?

I guess a lot of you know, you're not supposed to grab a dog by the ears.

If you didn't know, now you know, good thing you go to this church.

Don't grab a dog by the ears. And I think, I think at the time this was written,

I don't know for sure how to look into this, but I think at the time that this

proverb was written, I don't think dogs were pets. You know how we think of dogs as pets?

I think there were wild animals back then. So this is a little bit like one

who grabs a coyote by the ears is a passerby who meddles in a quarrel,

not his own, right? You don't need to be doing that.

There are times when we take up the offenses of other people and we're mad about

sins that were not even done to us.

Now, sometimes it is appropriate to take up the offense of another person.

Sometimes the person that was sinned against or the person that's the victim

is like your little son or your wife or your grandma or somebody who it's your

job to defend and protect.

In those cases, like that's not a quarrel that's not your own,

right? That is something you need to be concerned about.

But a lot of the time, a lot of the time when we're dealing with relational

drama, it's somebody that's sinned against somebody else, you, and it's not your thing.

And you need to be not like one who grabs a dog by the ears.

You need to not meddle in a quarrel, not your own.

Sure, there are times where you have to defend somebody who is under your care,

but there are a lot of times where you just say, so that's not my thing, right?

What's that for, not my circus, not my monkeys, it's that, right?

It's, this is not a fight that's for me. This is not a thing that I need to get into.

I need to mind my own business. Okay, how number four, realize you are like them, okay?

Realize you are like them. Now you might go, who's the them?

Whoever sinned against you or whoever it is that offended you,

okay? You need to realize you are like the person that offended you.

Now I realize you might say back to that, but that's where you're wrong, Mario. I am not.

That's the thing. I'm good and they're bad. That's why this is the case.

Like I'm frustrated with them

because I'm good and they're bad and I would not do what they did, right?

And so I would say to you, you're incorrect, all right?

Because we learned last week, you're bad and they're bad. Do you remember that?

I'm not arguing with you that she's bad. I agree, she's bad. You're also bad, okay?

And so you need to realize that you are like them. So let me show this to you

in Ephesians chapter two.

This passage I'm about to read to you is actually the same passage that Lance

read earlier in the service.

That was not pre-planned. So God apparently wanted you to hear this passage twice. Christ.

Ephesians 2, starting in verse 1. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins

in which you previously walked.

So this verse is for quite a bit of you in this room, because you can see this is Paul.

He's talking to Ephesians and he's talking to Christians.

You can tell because he says, you were dead, past tense, right?

You were dead in your trespasses, but now you're not.

You were dead in the sins in which you previously walked. So these are Christians,

who have renounced these sins, right? They have walked away from them.

They are now Christians.

They are no longer previously dead. So you were, and now you're not. So this is Christian.

So if you are here today and you are a believer in Jesus Christ,

this passage was written for people like you, okay?

You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according

to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over

the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient.

I think that's a reference to Satan.

We too all previously lived among them.

Notice this is all of us, all of us previously lived among them.

And you might go, what does that mean lived among them?

No, it doesn't mean that you lived across the street from them.

You can see this is kind of a metaphor.

We lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclination of our flesh.

He's saying you previously lived among them, not meaning you lived in the same

neighborhood as them, meaning you were one of them. You were doing all the same things.

We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires,

carrying out the inclination of our flesh and thoughts.

And we were by nature, children under wrath.

People who deserve God's wrath. Like who?

As the others were also. We deserve God's wrath like everybody else.

Now, look at this part. So that's true about you. That's true about them.

That's true about everyone.

But, and what's the next word? God, that's huge. Oh, this is very important.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins. And it does not say,

but you got your act together, right?

They're bad and you're good because you were like them, but you started to try

harder and you became so holy and now you're holy and they're not,

right? No, it's not but you.

It's but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he had for

us made us alive with the Messiah.

Notice the person that's doing something. It's not you, right?

God made us alive. How did you go from being dead in your trespasses to alive?

God did it, right? It's not but you made yourself alive, very well done.

But he made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses, you are saved by what?

Grace, not merit, not you were so good that I decided to save you, you're saved by grace.

So when someone sins against you, particularly if the person is not a believer

in Jesus Christ, you go, why do they do that to me? Because they're a sinner, just like you.

Well, not just like me, I'm saying without God, you are them.

All right, how number five, realize that everyone is different.

I think this one is good. I think this one is so helpful.

It's something I don't think I would have understood on my own,

but I want to share it with you. I'll try to be as quick as I can.

You got to realize that everyone is different. And this one's particularly good

because how number four, you can tell I kind of focused on if someone is not

a believer in God yet, it's like, okay, well, they sinned against you.

Yeah, because they're a sinner just like you.

But some of you might be here and you might go, no, the person that offended

me is another Christian.

It's a fellow believer, right? They say they believe in Jesus.

I mean, I don't really know because they're stupid, but I'm frustrated at them.

And so I want to talk to you about that even every Christian is different and

there's a way that we need to deal with it.

Now, it could be that the Christian you're angry about did some sort of sin

that you need to confront, okay? In which case, come back next week.

We're going to talk about that.

But there's also something that

happens between Christians that probably doesn't need to be confronted.

But the way that we will become difficult to fend in that area is to realize

that every single Christian, every single person that God saved is different from other people.

So I learned about this. Well, let me first tell you that the place you see

in the Bible where every Christian is different, I would say two things that

you see in the Bible that are about that is one is the Bible talks about how

different Christians have different spiritual gifts. Okay. Have you heard of this before?

Different Christians have different spiritual gifts. So the Bible will say,

you know, this person has the gift of prophecy and this person has the gift

of teaching. This person has the gift of leadership.

This person has the gift of serving, right? Things like that.

In the places where the Bible says that, particularly Romans and 1 Corinthians,

there is also another thing that's found in those contexts, which is the Bible

talks about the people of God being the body of Christ.

And so the individual people, the individual Christians, are body parts making

up in totality the body of Christ.

So we've got different, so one way we're different is we have different gifts.

And another way we're is we are different body parts of the same body.

So we have different roles, right? Or different jobs to do, right?

And all of that's talked about together.

So I learned about this.

I mean, I guess I learned about it a long time ago, but there was something

I learned about this more recently that was just so helpful to me.

And I don't think I would ever got it on my own.

Jeremy and Amanda Richards, who attend church here, and in fact are sitting

right over there, did a class on spiritual gifts one time.

And it was so helpful to me in thinking about how to be difficult to offend

and how to get along well with others.

Because I got to realize everyone's different and different gifts means everyone's

different. And so here's the thing that they taught me that I don't think I'd have known.

Well, first, let me tell you the thing I knew before I met them.

Then let me tell you the thing I don't think I would have known without them.

The thing I knew before I met them is the stuff in the Bible about how we're

different body parts and some people are eyes and some people are feet and some

people are hands and some people have the gift of service and some people have the gift of giving.

I knew, even before I met them, I knew that that meant we are all good at different things.

Right? I knew that it meant that. The thing that I never really thought about,

but is obviously implied, is if we are all good at different things,

that would also mean we're all bad at different things.

Like, I don't know why I never thought of that, But if we're all good at different

things, that means we're all bad at different things.

So let's look at 1 Corinthians 12 to make this point. Okay, 1 Corinthians 12,

and I'm gonna start with verse 27 because that's sort of the topic sentence

that explains the whole metaphor.

Paul says here, now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it.

So you can see the body of Christ is the thing that he's talking about here

and the individual Christians are individual body parts.

That will help make sense of the metaphor, okay? Which comes a little bit earlier.

1 Corinthians 12, 17 through 22. So going there, this is what it says.

If the whole body were an eye, and keep in mind, the context here is that this

is a metaphor, right? The body of Christ, we are individual members of it.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

But now God has placed each one of the parts in the body just as he wanted.

And if they were all the same part, where would the body be?

Now there are many parts, yet one body. So the eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you.

That sounds like relational drama to me, doesn't it? I don't need you.

No, nor again, the head to the feet, I don't need you.

On the contrary, all the more those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary.

So the thing I guess I hadn't thought about, I understood that there are spiritual

gifts in different parts of the body.

And so when you think about the parts of the body, like the spiritual gift of feet is walking, right?

And eyes have the special ability to see, right? And ears have the ability to hear.

But what's implied in that is feet aren't really good at seeing and eyes aren't

super good at hearing and ears are terrible for walking, right?

So different Christians have different strengths and weaknesses and that is

why you cannot just look over and go, well, why didn't he say it the way I would?

Because he's not you and he's not your role in the body and he doesn't have

the same strengths and weaknesses that you have.

There's so many situations where, well, I can't believe they even said that.

You said that. I would have explained it a lot more thoroughly than that.

Yeah, maybe because you're an explainer. He's not really good at explaining.

Or a different situation. Why did she say that? I couldn't believe she even said it that way.

She told that person that they were wrong and just phrased it like that, you're wrong.

You know, and I'm sitting there going, come on, that's not how you, you gotta be polite.

You gotta like, you know, say some nice things first and then like,

come around the back door. Like, I know how to do that. I know how to be compassionate.

As I'm talking to people, this person just said what they were thinking. What were they doing?

They're a different person than you with different strengths and weaknesses

that you have, a different part of the body of Christ.

So this is how it kind of works out. There are people within the congregation,

like within the body of Christ, who are bossy. And they irritate me, okay?

It's true. There are people within the body of Christ who are bossy and they irritate me,

but it is important for me to know and to acknowledge that some of those people

who are bossy, when they are in a different context other than the one where they're irritating me,

they are doing important things for the kingdom of God because they have the

spiritual gift of leadership and that's the way God wired them.

And there are people who, maybe some people have the gift of service,

but they're not very social.

And so they're there and they're in the church and they're vacuuming.

And then you walk in, you know, and you're like, hi. And they don't even look

up and acknowledge you're there.

Or worse, they look up, acknowledge you're there, and then say nothing and go

back to vacuuming. And you're like, what's wrong with you?

Why aren't you handling this the way I would? When I'm in a room and someone

else walks into it, like I greet them, right?

That's what I do. Why wouldn't you do it? Because she's not you.

Because maybe someone said to

her or him, a man can vacuum. It could be either one. Let's make it a him.

Maybe someone asked him to vacuum and he's just doing the thing that he knows

needs to be done and he's not trying to hurt your feelings.

Okay, here's my favorite example of this because this one actually happened

to me and it happened here.

In fact, it literally happened, I think, right there. Okay, I was standing right

there and this guy came up to me after church. This was years ago.

It's a guy that doesn't go to our church anymore, but not for any bad reason.

He moved to a different state, but he used to attend here.

And he came up to me after a sermon and started talking to me.

And he walked up to me to critique my sermon, okay? Which I don't know if you

know this, but like pastors, like we don't love that.

Like it's not fantastic, but anyway, but it happens.

And so he came up to me and he said, well, I got a problem with your sermon. okay.

So what had happened that particular week was I had a definition of the gospel on the screen.

I was trying to explain what the gospel of Jesus Christ is. And so I had a definition

of the gospel on the screen.

And he came up to me and he might even walked up on the stage and pointed to it.

And he said, see, you have an adverb where an adjective should be.

I know that's how I thought. I was like, what? I can't believe it.

So he said, he said, you got an adverb where an adjective should be.

And here's the thing, his concern was, the difference in adjective to adverb

is he didn't want something that was the result of the gospel to be folded into

the definition of the gospel.

And so he was saying, if you would have just made this adverb into an adjective,

then it would have been more correct.

So I think if I had not taken Jeremy and Amanda's class on spiritual gifts,

I think my natural response would have been like.

Who are you? I spent the whole week trying to come up with the best explanation

I could come up with, the gospel, and you would come up to me and go,

there's an adverb or an adjective could be?

Like, you're stupid. Like, I think that's what I would have done.

Except, except not too long before that, they had taught me about spiritual

gifts, and I remembered that they said that people who have the spiritual gift

of teaching are usually really into precision because they care about doctrine

and they cared about God's word being communicated correctly.

And so they wanna make sure the adverbs are in the right place.

So the result of the gospel is not mixed up with the gospel itself.

They care about that stuff. And I identified him as a teacher.

And I went, I said, I literally, I walked over, I put my arm around him and

I said, hey, I'm glad you're a part of this church.

We need people like you. And here's the crazy part. I meant it.

Like I literally meant it. Like I was thankful for him and the way that God

wired him and the role that he plays in the body, which I would not have done

if there weren't people that had taught that to me.

So if you could put the whole list on the screen one more time.

I realized that the five hows that I gave you today are not going to cover every

single situation imaginable, but they do cover a lot of situations.

And next week, if the Lord allows, my plan is to talk about the situations where

sin must be confronted, okay?

But for now, let me just go ahead and review what you just heard to make sure you got it.

If you wanna be someone who's difficult to offend, it's important for you to

realize everyone's different. They're not all gonna react the way you do.

You need to realize you are like them. Apart from God, you're them.

You need to mind your own business and not get into quarrels that are not your own.

And you need to postpone judgment about how offended you are until all the information

is in. And you need to pray about it. Why?

It will extinguish relational drama in your life. It's a symptom of love.

And it is a chance for you to imitate your Lord and your savior.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for this. Thank you that your word is chock full of things that

we need to know in order to live this life.

I pray that you would bless not just the preaching of your word,

but like the living of your word.

I pray that these concepts that we're learning today, as we go out this room

and as we scatter all over Marion County, I pray that you would bless the practicing of your word.

And that we would see relational fires go out and relational,

like potential relational fires, not even start.

So I pray that you would bless us, your people through the obedience to your word as we go out.

And I pray as a whole too, I just pray for us as a church that we would treat each other this way.

And I pray that you'd bless us as a church as we become people who are not provoked,

but people who love our neighbor as ourself.

Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for our sins. Thank you for your grace.

Thank you for that. It's not up to us. Well, I'll just buckle up and try harder.

Thank you that you made us spiritually alive again through Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

We love you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. Therefore,

be imitators of God as dearly loved children and walk in love as the Messiah

also loved us and gave himself for us a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. That is good news.