Dealing With Offense

We're planning to go to Cincinnati for the feast. We could use some workers there. Now, I also did neglect to mention, I know we have some visitors here, so welcome. It helps fill in the seats a little. We've got so many people up in Columbus today for the prom. Younger people. It's nice to see some people under 30 still here, so I'm glad not all of you left us. Well, many of you have probably heard an old military phrase, and it is a very prominent and effective tactic called divide and conquer. Divide and conquer. Throughout human history, and as long as people have been fighting, military leaders have tried to use that principle. And I was reminded of it actually just this last week. We visited the Chickamauga battlefield. There's actually a park, what they call it a military park there, a little way south of Chattanooga. That reminds me of something else I was going to tell you.

Now, we were driving... I didn't realize Chattanooga is only like a couple miles north of the Georgia state line, so we were driving down to the battlefield on this site, and there was a restaurant there that specialized in chicken and biscuits. And, you know, they had one of those sign boards out front, and I'm not sure what else it said, but one of the things it said is, praise the Lord, eat a biscuit. And I thought, in Georgia, they like to mix their religion and breakfast. But anyways, the point I was getting to was that Chickamauga, the history of that battle, that's what preceded the battle at Chattanooga, where I think, last fall, I gave a sermon talking about that charge-up missionary ridge. But before that happened, the Union and the Confederates had fought a battle south where the Union had been defeated, and they fortunately were able to withdraw without having their army totally destroyed. But they lined up Union soldiers here, Confederates here, and as they were fighting, there was a mistake in the Union line. They ordered some of their units to move over, and they moved over behind some of the units, leaving a gap. And Confederate soldiers poured through that gap, and they were able to separate the Union soldiers, or the units in the Union Army. And what happens when an army is concentrated, and together it's when it's at its strongest, they can support each other. When units are separated, soldiers are isolated, or small groups, it's easier for a stronger force to destroy that force than destroy them and move on and eventually destroy the whole army. Well, that seems easy enough in principle to understand. Well, we want to see the relationship to us. As Christians, we're Christian soldiers. That analogy has been made many times. We're fighting spiritual forces in high places, and especially Satan the Devil as our primary enemy. He wants to use that strategy of divide and conquer. Satan would like nothing better than to separate us from each other so he can work on us individually. And of course, since that's one of his goals, I'm sure he would hate what he normally sees in this room. A group of people who are of one mind. That we're united by love. Love of each other, love of the truth, and of a firm purpose to work together to preach the gospel. Satan wants to destroy that. He would like to divide and conquer us. You know, if we got separated from each other, if we weren't fellowshiping with others in the body of Christ, it would become easy for us to become confused, discouraged, perhaps even eventually deceived and fall away from God's way. Doesn't that sound like what Satan would want to accomplish? But how could he possibly pull something like that off?

Now, I don't like to put myself in his place, but I think, how would he do it? Could he work to convince us that it's just not worth the time and effort to get ready and travel some distance to meet with brethren on the Sabbath? Well, that might be a tactic you'd try, but we have evidence here. People will go to a lot of trouble to meet together on the Sabbath. He hasn't had a lot of luck doing that. Over the years, people have made great sacrifices to gather on the Sabbath.

What about appealing to our individual vanity? Could Satan try to get us hung up on a particular interpretation of a doctrine or a prophecy to where we think, if other people don't see it the way I see it, I'm not going to fellowship with them and I feel like I've got to separate?

That sounds a little closer because we've seen that happen in the past.

Although, I'd say, fortunately for us now, most of those who are susceptible to that kind of thing have already left. We're not here because we fancy ourselves great scholars so much as we're here as people who love God's truth. We want to be here together and study it together and learn it.

What about causing offense within the body of the congregation here in Portsmouth? What if people became offended at each other so much that we destroyed our congregation? We destroyed our camaraderie and fellowship with each other. Now, that might sound a little bit more possible. That's something that could be done in a lot of different ways at different times.

Now, I do want to focus in on that and I'll say here as a disclaimer, not because I see a big problem happening. I don't think that's a danger and so I didn't prepare the sermon as the like the Apostle Paul writing to Corinthians saying, boy, you've got this problem and you'd better fix it. I wanted to address it as a general problem that's out there and it has been, it's always there and we want to prepare ourselves. We understand the principle of divide and conquer, but even knowing that it could be easy to fall into that trap. So, I want to look today at the subject of offense and how to deal with offenses to try to not let ourselves become separated from each other. Now, first of all, let's think about some of the just basic information about offense.

And I'll just remind you, I'm not going to turn there, but in Luke 7, 23, Jesus said, blessed is he who is not offended because of me. I'm taking that a little out of context because at that point he was talking to some of John the Baptist's disciples and explaining why he did a ministry different than John's and was saying, you know, blessed is he who is not offended, realizing there is a danger there. That applied to the disciples of John the Baptist, to the original 12 apostles, and down through the ages to Christians everywhere. And so, it is something for us today. If we cannot be offended, there's a blessing in that.

Jesus warned that people could easily be offended by his teaching. And we're too often offended by each other. And here's where I look back, and I've heard this said by enough ministers at different times. I can't say who I heard it from first, but I know I've heard several times men say that I think the greatest danger for Christians as far as becoming offended or hurt isn't from persecution outside the church, not from the great trials and temptations, but really some of our biggest danger comes from within the body of Christ. That we can get hurt at each other and so upset that, you know, as I said, we cut ourselves off. Now, people might say, I just can't take the way he's acting anymore. I'm out of here. Or if this is what Christians are like, I don't want anything to do with it. And that's something that can happen to us more easily when we're new to the faith.

And unfortunately, more often, that's happened when people have seen people in the ministry, ministers saying something that's offensive or doing something that's wrong and causing offense.

And face it, ministers aren't immune to that, as we saw a couple of years ago when a large number of them decided to leave us. It wasn't about doctrine. It was more about, I'm upset by what that person said or did apparently to someone else.

And there's where I'll say again something I've said many times. We're not in the church because of what anybody says or does, or we should not be. We might have been led or first become aware of it because of a person, but you're here because God the Father called you. He chose you, every one of us. So you should never leave because of what any person does.

Even if they do something wrong, you're here because of your relationship with God, and no man should be able to disrupt that. Now, having said that, though, we're human beings. We're all going to be offended, and unfortunately, we will offend others. So let's understand the subject and try to see ways to deal with it. First, let's get down to some of the nitty-gritty, even the meaning of the word. I often do this, but what does offense mean? We use the word and we kind of know what it means. Checking Webster's dictionary. Like the first thing it said is offense, the act of offending. Well, that's not very useful. But it goes on a little more. It says, also, causing displeasure or causing anger, resentment, or insult. That tells, so if someone offends me, they've caused me to be angry or resentful, or they've insulted me. A couple other definitions that aren't really our primary focus but do tie in. Another definition for offense is the act of attacking or assaulting. That fits back with a military analogy, such as going on the offense, or I guess in sports, you're going on the offense when you're trying to move the ball down to your goal. And of course, another definition for offense is a violation of a rule or a violation of property. It's like when you're an offender of the law. Now, as I said, we're primarily talking about that first definition. You know, causing someone to be insulted, hurting their feelings, so to speak. But the others tie in. When we violate a law, especially God's law, it could offend other people. And certainly assaulting someone could cause them offense.

Now, what happens when someone's offended? We sort of know, but I discovered, as I was thinking about it, it's not the easiest thing to put into words. So let's think of it this way. We have, we tend to have shared boundaries that we formed, and they're based on our beliefs, our values, our customs. For example, all of us are called into God's church, and we believe in God's law, so we have fairly common established ideas of what we think is right and wrong, especially based on God's law. But we also have ideas of what's right or wrong, or proper or improper, based on our cultural background. And when someone violates those established principles, it might cause us offense. And it violates our sensibility. I talk about boundaries. Let me give another example. We all have physical boundaries. In our own bodies, our skin, obviously, is a physical boundary, but we use the term personal space. Someone gets too close to your personal space. It sort of starts to send off alarm bells. And for some people, the personal, some people, their personal space is way out there. Some people, it's a lot closer. There's the difference in backgrounds. But just think, if someone walked up to you and, let's say, reached in your back pocket, pulled out your wallet, huh, you know, I'll see how much money is in there. That might cause you offense. Or you ladies, if they just reached in your purse, they violated your physical boundaries. Now, someone walks up and hits you or kicks you.

That probably is going to cause you offense. Now, the harder they hit, probably the deeper the offense, right? Now, we're not usually talking about those physical things, although that can happen, but we're concerned with mental boundaries, mental and emotional. So think of an analogy.

Someone might violate your physical boundaries if they walk up and step on your toes. You know, they've stepped on your toes. That's a little bit offensive. Now, someone might do that without realizing it. Someone might similarly walk up and say something that emotionally steps on your toes.

And they might say something that's the equivalent of stepping on your toes physically. But in both cases, could have been done unintentionally. I don't mind dancing, but I'm not the best dancer in the world. I have stepped on a good number of ladies' toes, usually unintentionally, and sometimes not even realizing it. And isn't it that way with words? Can you imagine some? Probably all of us have sometimes done the equivalent with our words of stepping on someone's toes unintentionally many times, most times, perhaps unknowingly many times.

Now, who's done this? Well, I'm making the point all of us have done that. Let's turn to James chapter 3. James 3 beginning in verse 2. I'm going to jump around a little bit today, and I want to point out I brought my new King James Bible. No, I brought my old King James Bible, not my new, because the old King James uses the word offense. Many places the new uses the word stumble, which is not inaccurate. But since I'm talking about offense and the meaning is still the same, it's a little smoother. So James 3 in verse 2 says, and many things we offend all. I do want to point out with the old English, it doesn't mean in many things we offend everybody on the planet. We offend all means all of us are guilty. We offend all of us. So in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, see it's a mental, emotional thing, the same as a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body. And none of us are perfect yet, even though we're striving for that. Jesus said, be you perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. We're striving to get there, but James says, we all offend because we're still in the process of becoming perfect. So we want to start with that basic truth. We offend in actions and in words and sometimes in words and actions that we don't do.

You know, we offend people by omission as well as commission, because we say that about sin at times.

Now there are a number of sources we could look to for that, and I just briefly I thought I'd mention some because I called them from some different sources I was looking at.

Well, I will mention also, I'm focusing primarily on unintentional offenses through most of the rest of the message. There are cases where someone offends you on purpose. There's where we use the term picking a fight. You know, someone goes out of their way, you know, and I would think if we look back, although it wasn't in the news much this last week, the week before we heard constantly about North Korea offending the United States and the international community, they were doing it on purpose. They were trying to pick a fight. But most cases people aren't doing that. But why do why do offenses happen? A number of reasons, and I'm just going to list a few briefly and not discuss them in detail, but human pride is a big one. We all have a bit of an ego, and we're struggling to overcome it, but in the process, you know, it's easy for that pride to cause offense.

Also, it's funny, in my notes I wrote down the word emotional wounds, and then I thought, you know, I should just say baggage. That's the word we use today. We're all carrying baggage from the past. We've been through experiences that leave us a little bit damaged, and it might leave us susceptible to offense in ways that other people aren't because they've got different baggage. I'm going to come back and discuss both of those a little bit later. We also sometimes get offended or cause offense because of expectations. We have expectations for how we think other people should act, and if they don't comply with that, it could cause us offense. Or other people might have expectations of us, and when we violate those expectations, you know, offense happens.

And another very general one that's also very important ties into Romans 8-7, which I'm just going to quote partially. It says, the carnal mind is enmity with God. Our human nature is in conflict with God. Now, we're striving to overcome that. We try to get ourselves in alignment with God, but when we do get a little bit out of alignment, it makes it very easy to cause offense with other people that are trying to stay in alignment. And we sometimes aren't aware of that, but we want to remember offense has happened because that human nature is in us, and it's fighting against God, and Satan is trying to play into that. So we want to be aware whenever we accidentally cause offense or someone offends us, that underlying cause is always there, and we're all part of that same struggle. So having said that, that's a brief look at what offense is. I want to move on and talk about, well, what do we do about it? And I've got seven points. Now, and I'm going to give credit where credit is due. I got some help in organizing some of these points from Mr. Handley, an elder up in Columbus, and when it came down and helped separate it out.

How many sermons have you heard with seven points? You know, that's, it's an old tradition. I thought, well, why not stay with tradition? Although I don't remember where it was, but I was an adult at one time in church services, and I heard a minister say, I've got six points on, and I stopped.

Is he allowed to do that? Can you only have six points? Or can you have eight? This could have broken down a little bit differently, but just for the sake of continuity, we'll have seven. And the first one is the biggest one. Seven points for dealing with offense. The first point is open up lines of communication and do it quickly. Emphasize that quickly. You've got to get in communication quickly. Because as I've been making the point, a lot of times problems and misunderstandings and thus offenses happen, and we don't always know why, and they can easily get worse if we don't open communication. Now, many of you have accidentally got a cut if you're outdoors working. You know, you get a little cut, and it's not worth messing with. A couple days later, oh, it's a little swollen and red and tender. And you may or may not at that time do something with it. If you don't, a few days later, it might start to be a little puffy, and you squeeze it, and there's some gunky stuff. Well, and if you would have just washed it in the first place, and my wife is back spying at me, yeah, because she's the one that always wants to wash things, and I say, ah, rub some dirt on it. Here, I have to say, it is a better way to take care of a cut. Wash it, bandage it, it'll heal up. Well, an offense can be that way. If you deal with it quickly, perhaps you can take care of it right away, but if you let it go, it could start to fester and just turn into a deep wound that's much harder to deal with. So, Jesus Christ gave some clear instruction for handling offenses, and they always, they all involve doing something, that is communicating. Let's start, let's go to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew 5 and verse 23. Although, I'm going to focus on the communication between the two parties involved, but I, it almost goes without saying, I'm going to talk about talking with God very soon, but you want to do that early on also. And also, sometimes you want to sit down and have a talk with yourself. I don't know if that officially counts as communication, but sometimes you talk to yourself and say, what am I bothered about? And sometimes you think it through and you realize, well, I'm being dumb, I don't need to be offended, and that might be all it takes. But I'm looking more at the cases where there's a real offense and there needs to be some talking. Matthew 5 and verse 23.

Let me get to the right chapter.

And therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave there your gift before the altar and go your way and be reconciled to your brother. So this is talking about immediacy. I'm going to talk to God and suddenly I realize, oh, my brother has something against me. He said, leave it there and go talk to your brother. Get that communication going. Now that's how you become reconciled. Now, a lot of times to be able to do this, first of all, you have to go, this is where he has something against you. There's a good chance that if he has something against you, you might have done something for which you're going to need to apologize. But I want to stress that opening that line of communication, usually we tend to think of, I got to go talk to him. Sometimes it means I'll start talking, but it also means I've got to go and listen. Go and say, okay, something's wrong. Please tell me about it and wait till they get finished. Listen, hear the whole thing through. And I'm saying, emphasizing that especially to point at myself. And a lot of us men are like that. You know, we want to hear a little bit and then jump to the conclusion instead of patiently hearing it out, getting all the information. And then, if necessary, or if proper, give a proper apology and talk through the issues. The other side of this can be found in Matthew 18. Matthew 18 in verse 15. Here he said, if your brother has something against you, here says, moreover, if your brother shall trespass against you, or we could translate it, if your brother offended you, then go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Go and tell him. Talk about it. If he hears you, see this is communication. You talk, he hears. Of course, that's going to be turned around in the course of a conversation. But if he hears you, you work things out, you've gained your brother. It goes on from there to say, if you won't hear, take with you one or two witnesses so that you establish. Sometimes you might say, no, I didn't say that. Yes, you did. No, I didn't. Well, here's another guy who heard you say it. Oh, did I say that? I didn't think I did. A lot of times, it's like that. And it can go on. If you won't hear one or two witnesses, tell it to the church. And if necessary, treat him as a non-believer. But we're talking about the communication. Usually, it will clear the air. Work things out.

Now, on paper, I've got it right here, on paper, this piece of paper, that sounds terrific. That's easy. Oh, he's got something in it. I go talk to him, we work it out. Or he offended me, I go talk to him, piece of cake. But how it sounds on paper and how it works in real life are often two separate things, right? So many times, we ignore these clear instructions to go talk to our brother. Why?

Why don't we do this? A lot of times, we're afraid. Face it, it's not easy to go to your brother. We're afraid he's going to bite our head off. You know, I don't mean literally bite our head off, but, you know, oh, he's going to chew me out. He won't listen to me, and he'll defend himself. And I don't want to have an argument. And I want to say that, especially, you know, sometimes we got to watch how we go to people. He might be ready to defend himself because of the way we've come to talk to him before. You know, when you go to your brother, put your pride on lockdown. You know, go in a humble attitude and be willing to talk about things. But it takes courage to do, especially, remember a sermon I gave a couple weeks ago about different personality types. We have these traits that we're born with. And for some of us, it's easy as anything to go talk to people.

For others, it's not so easy. And if you're one of those for whom it's not easy, and you have a conflict with someone who's very boisterous and outgoing, you might feel like you're walking in the lion's den to go talk to him. It's like, he's going to chew me out and jump on me, and I just don't want to do that. And he might be thinking, why doesn't anybody ever just come to me? You know, like I said, the different personality types, or maybe you're talking in a different emotional language. We need to understand that these things are difficult, but it is worth it.

And I want to encourage us to look at our own, understand our strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes you can say, okay, this is why I'm putting this off. It's not because he's a bad guy or she's a bad lady. It's because I'm afraid. Sometimes just making that admission to yourself is, oh, okay, now at least that I know that I'm going to go and talk to him or her anyways.

And it's okay if it's a risk, but you're going to talk to him sooner or later.

That's one of the points Mr. Hanley helped me to understand, is even if it's not until God's kingdom, sooner or later you're going to be talking to each other, and sooner is often better than later. If you let an offense go, I use the analogy of a cut being infected, think of concrete.

When concrete or cement is wet, it can be worked with. It's poured out into a mold and you can shape it, smooth it out, put texture in it, but very quickly it starts to harden and it can get set. And once I'm getting this to Shoemaker, you back me up, once it starts to move, you can't change it very much after that. You know, offenses between brothers can start to harden and it's a lot harder to work with them. So you want to work on them quickly before they set up. Let's turn to Proverbs chapter 18, if you will.

Proverbs 18 and verse 19, a general principle that's worth... maybe I should have turned to this a little sooner. Proverbs 18 and verse 19 says, a brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. And I submit that it's much harder that those walls of a strong city get taller and thicker the longer the time goes by. Harder to win that brother over, but if you go to him sooner, he might not have closed the gate yet.

And the other thing we want to remember, we can turn to Hebrews 12 and verse 15.

Hebrews 12, 15.

That's one thing that happens when you bring a different Bible. The scriptures don't seem to be in the same place, even though they really are. Hebrews 12, 15.

And looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, and lest any root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble, or trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Just like the root of a plant, if it's given time, will grow in and embed itself in the soil. That root of the bitterness you feel towards someone that you're having a conflict with, it can get itself rooted in pretty tough and be hard to get out. I thought of that. I was digging up our flower beds before we left, getting ready to plant some plants. I was amazed at some of the dandelion roots I pulled out. Something's going down this deep. You don't just snap that off. So we want to cut that off. We want to deal with it sooner. There's where we want to take on that personal responsibility. And as I said, I'm not saying that there's a problem now. This is a general sermon, but that's why I want to look at, point a lot of this to me, but look in the mirror and say, hey, you, it's your responsibility to go to your brother early on. Put it on yourself to go and let him know.

Try to resolve things and work things out.

Now, be prepared. Sometimes if you haven't done it before, things might have built up and it might turn out there's a number of things to be resolved. It can get like a fishing line. And I'm not an expert fisherman. Matter of fact, I'm waiting for Sue's dad to teach Connor how to fish because I'm so poor at it. But the times I have fished, I've learned that it only takes like that for this big tangle to develop in your line. And it's really hard to get out. And what's the first reaction? Well, pull out your nippers and, you know, get rid of that tangle. Well, that's great for fishing line, but we're talking about our brothers in Christ. We don't want to just cut someone off and throw them aside. So if there's a tangle of difficulties instead of the nippers, we want to think like a mathematics student. And I'm going way back to algebra class where, you know, they teach you to separate things out. Take the different components of a problem. You've got this x times y over z. But there's ways to break them down into separate components and work with it a little at a time until you get the balance. And it's been so long since I've done that. I'm not even describing it very well. Trying to think who here is a math teacher. I was looking. Mr. Jenkins was in the audience in Athens this morning. He kind of nodded like I was on track. That's true. I was good at algebra, too. But... Oh, another point I did want to make before we leave communication. I've been focusing primarily, of course, on brethren in the church, where it's relatively easy. I've been talking about how hard it is. But we know where each other are, and we know we want to be reconciled. We're all going to the same... we have the same goal to be in God's kingdom. What if someone's offended you who's not in the church? Who just plain has a bad attitude? And maybe it's someone you're never going to see again. You know, he might have, you know, insulted you at the grocery store, cut you off in traffic, and boy, you're mad. You're offended. Well, it is okay that the anger flares up. Remember, Ephesians 4, 26 says, Be angry, but do not sin. Okay, it's okay to be angry. Don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. So deal with it. There, the emphasis is, okay, you still want to communicate quickly. You might not be able to communicate with that fellow. Remember, one of the lines of communication you're going to open anyways is with the Heavenly Father. Go in prayer and talk to God and let him know, I'm angry. This fella did me wrong, and I can't even get him back for it. You know, God will understand that, and He'll help us. I read a wise saying, and I don't know who to attribute this to, but it said, To hate a man is to become his slave.

He's going to control my every thought and rob me of passing pleasures. And have you ever seen someone, they're so consumed that they focus on this person, I want to get him, I die, and they can't relax, can't enjoy the pleasures of life. Let it go, and you can enjoy what you do have. Now, that person is going to have to deal with it, but imagine if that person that cut you off in traffic, or say the bratty kids in the neighborhood who threw eggs at your house on Halloween.

I remember, somebody did that to my house when I was like 12 years old, and I ran him down and started a fight. I wasn't the most Christian at 12. But, I mean, instead, let it go. One day, you might meet that person in the kingdom of God. Imagine they come up in the second resurrection, and you've been working on this for a thousand years. Hopefully you're not still angry, but you might be able to say, hey, I was angry at that time. I've moved far beyond that, and I want to help you learn to be, you know, like members of God's family. Let's turn to Matthew 5 and read Matthew 5, 44.

This should apply to anyone that offends us, that doesn't want to be reconciled.

And sometimes it applies to those who will be reconciled, but it might take a while.

Matthew 5 and verse 44, says, I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.

And I've noted before, I think that when you're praying for someone, it's hard to be resentful towards them. It's hard to keep that anger. You're praying for them. You might still not like what they've done. You might want them to change, but praying for them changes that attitude.

Now, after looking at this obligation, as I said, I wanted to spend a fair bit of time on this action that we have to take. I want to make another point on dealing with a fence that's a kind of a basic one, but it sets the stage for the others. And that's just to simply make the point that we can't deal with a fence with our own power. We don't have what it takes on our own.

Let's see an example of that. Matthew 26. Matthew 26 will begin in verse 31.

This is a well-known story, especially since the Passover was not long ago, and many of us have studied this. And here's another case where, as I said, I'm using the original King James that uses the word offense rather than stumble, and I think it applies very well. We're going to see an example from one of the strongest of the original 12 apostles, but without God's Spirit, He didn't have the power to deal with offense.

It says, this is this last night that Jesus Christ is on earth. Jesus said to them, that is the 12 apostles there, all of you shall be offended because of me this night. It's written, I'll smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flocks will be scattered abroad. After I'm risen again, I'll go before you to Galilee.

And Peter answered, what does Peter say? Though all men shall be offended because of you, yet I won't be offended. No, Jesus, I know you're saying I'm not going to be. I'll be with you through thick and thin. And Jesus said, Peter, you can imagine you had to look, yeah, Peter, I've heard it before. I'll tell you, before the cock crows twice, you're going to deny you even know me three times. No, I'd rather die first. I'll go to the hell and back with you. Now, I'm making that part up. But Peter said, I won't deny you. But then what happened? Over in verse 73, Jesus is taken.

Peter's following along. But then, when he's about to be trapped, people say, hey, weren't you with Jesus? It happens once and twice. And then in verse 73, after a while, someone said, a while came him that stood by. So I'm reading the Old King James. And they said to Peter, surely you're one of them. That is Jesus' disciples. First speech betrays you. And he began to curse and swear, saying, I don't know the man. And then he heard the cock crow.

And he remembered what Jesus said. He said, Peter, you're going to deny you even know me before the cock crows. And he went out and wept. Peter didn't want to be offended. But he didn't have the power in himself to deal with the offense. He didn't yet have God's Holy Spirit. And we remember also, as recorded in the book of John, when Jesus was teaching them that last night, he said, the Holy Spirit will be with you or will be in you.

It's been with you. The Holy Spirit was working with them, well, guiding their minds. But it wasn't yet in them. And so without God's power, they didn't. And we don't have the power to deal with offense properly. But with that power, we certainly can. So that's all I'm going to say on that.

I want to move on to the next five points on what we do and what we ask God to give us to deal with offense. As I said, I broke it down. So my third point, I said I broke it down to make seven. So this one kind of combines two, but they're really two sides of a coin. That is, ask God to help you grow in wisdom and understanding.

And I put wisdom and understanding together because they're really like two sides of a coin. Wisdom and understanding. And ask God to give it to us. We know we can. James 1.5 says that if we want to turn back there. Or I can read it to you because it's actually a short section I want to read, but it says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God. Ask God for wisdom that gives to all men liberally and upbraids not, and it shall be given. God will give us the wisdom that we don't have, that we can't have on our own.

And in a sense, we're doing that now. We're looking to God's Word for guidance and how to deal with offense. And His Spirit opens up our understanding of His Word. Some other things we need to be aware of, of course. For one thing, as I discussed a couple of weeks ago, God calls people into His church out of a variety of backgrounds with different education, different experiences. We're not all the same. And some come into His church with very good people skills, with great tact and ability to talk, other people with less so.

So if you're having trouble with that communication or someone says something that seems offensive, sometimes it's good. Ask God to help you have understanding. It could just be the background, the different training. People say things in different ways.

And many people suffer the results of either themselves or others in the past, breaking God's law. And it affects them. It leaves scars. And most of us have that in some way. As I said earlier, we have baggage from the past. Some a result of our own actions, some a result of others. And sometimes, you know, a person might take offense at what we do and we don't understand why. I'll draw from my own experience rather than look at someone else. But, and many of you know this instinctively or from your own experience, but the children that come from divorced families often have emotional scars. And I don't think of myself as emotionally scarred, but my parents divorced when I was three years old, and it's affected me all my life. Now, many young men have deep anger issues. I haven't seen that in myself that I know I had a temper when I was a kid, but I always thought that was more the Scots-Irish than from the divorce. But it's also common for children of divorce to have trouble trusting people.

Even when people have shown themselves to be trustworthy. And I think I've seen little hints of that in me, not as much now as I used to have, but I want to make the point someone might say, well, why don't you trust me? I've acted in a trustworthy way. I'm offended because you won't trust me. And they might not realize that this person had something happen to them in their past that makes it hard to do. They don't mean to offend you. And I'm shifting the third person there because I don't think that I do that, but if I have, you know, I didn't mean to cause offense.

And one of my points here is to say I'm not expecting that we should already know all these things. Of course we don't. That's part of why it caused offense in the first place. But we can ask God to give us wisdom and understanding so that we start to see the differences in what affects people. And of course, that ties into the next thing we want to ask God for. So my fourth point is to ask God for greater patience and what comes from that, the ability to forgive.

Once again, I didn't want to have eight points. So I'm combining patience and the ability to forgive because I think one leads to the other. If you have patience with people, and God can give us patience. Matter of fact, we need that. Let's face it. Patience and mercy aren't traits that are naturally a part of us, but they're traits that God can put in us. If we turn a few pages over to Galatians chapter 5, we'll see that. Galatians 5, 22 lists the fruits of the Spirit.

And you're going to hear me talk about that a fair bit. I think it's just natural thinking of meat in due season with Pentecost coming and the giving of the Holy Spirit. I tend to think in terms of fruits of the Spirit along with other things. I might be turning to Galatians 5, 22 several times in the next few weeks. Here it says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering. Or you might have a translation that says patience. That's something that comes from God's Spirit. It comes from experience and comes from other ways, but one way we can have patience is God can help it to grow in us through His Spirit. It also says gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such is no law. Now I'm trying to think, I believe, gentleness in the New King James it says kindness. Am I right? Because I was going to say we ask God for patience and the ability to forgive. That ability to forgive isn't here. But if we turn over to Ephesians 4, 32, we'll see that one of the aspects of the kindness that comes from God's Spirit is an ability to forgive. Ephesians 4, 32, Paul wrote, Be you kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. That kindness that grows in us through the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to forgive others. And while we're asking God to give us these traits, we should be motivated by how much He's already forgiven us and by how patient God is with us. Let's turn up to Mark 11. Mark 11 and verse 25.

I think all the scriptures I'm reading today are ones that are very familiar, but you turn to the ones that fit. Mark 11, 25, of course, it helps if I'm in the right chapter again.

I don't remember when it was, but it happened more than once several years ago. I remember thinking to myself, and this is a dangerous thing, looking at my life and thinking, you know, I'm a pretty patient person. That's one thing I've got down. I'm good at being patient.

And I'm sure God was looking at me saying, I'm going to let you have a look at yourself.

And I don't remember the exact turning point, but I've learned since then that, no, I wasn't a very patient person. I've come a long way since and have a long ways to go.

So God needs to help us with that. And one of the ways He helped me learn first is by having dogs and then by having a toddler, a baby. And I find both, and I don't mean to put them both in the same category, but, you know, they do things alike. Matter of fact, I can't remember how many times I've called Sparky Connor. And I call Connor Sparky. But, you know, I'll take the dogs for a walk, and it's amazing. You know, I'm ready. You know, I want them to do their business, and I want to enjoy the walk, and they want to stop at every little thing. And Vanna Arbeijon can spend 20 minutes sniffing one leaf. It's like, how many things are there to smell on that one leaf? Come on, let's go! You know, we've got to get the Phoenix by sundown! You know, I'm not patient. And so it helped me. I'm not a patient person. I need to be more patient. And then, of course, with a little boy, and most of your parents, you've experienced that. Now, don't do that. I told you not to do that. How many times have I said, don't do that? Did you understand me when I said don't do that? And he doesn't. And I think God is looking at me, saying, did you see where I'm here? I told you not to do that. And then I had a minister stand up and say, don't do that. What are you doing it for? So God has given me a taste of my own medicine, and partly to show me, you know, I'm being patient with you. You need to be patient with others, especially, you know, Sparky and Connor. And Vanna, too.

And one of the ways I can do that is letting God's Spirit work in me and asking him, help me to be more patient. Many of you, now, it's funny how the seasons pass. I had a note here, in our pop culture, the word Hatfields and McCoys is a sign for not letting things go and forgiving. I'm trying to remember when that the History Channel had a miniseries on that. And I can't remember, was it six months ago? Eight months? Sometimes since I moved down here.

But, you know, it's a shame if you follow that. If I just say Hatfields and McCoys, you think feud, people holding a grudge, not letting go. And it escalated until people got killed because they couldn't forgive. We don't want to be that way. And say, if you can't forgive an offense right now, at least move past it mentally. Maybe let some time go. But it's not good. Don't think I'm going to wait until I forgive. I've got a note here, and this is something Mr. Handley helped me with. He said, you want to remember that forgiveness is not something that the person earns.

And it's not something that I earn. If I ask someone to forgive me, forgiveness is a gift.

And if you forgiving someone is a gift to them, you don't have to wait until they earn it.

In your mind, give it to them now, and let them come around and accept the gift later, if necessary. But it'll make you happier in the meantime. As I said, to hate someone is to let them be your master. Let's go to Matthew 18, while we're on the subject, before we leave it. Matthew 18, verse 21.

Here we see how much do we have to do this? This ties into forgiveness and patience.

Because Peter came to Jesus, and he said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him? Seven whole times? No. Now, he didn't say whole times, but you could tell Peter, forgive him seven times? And Jesus, no, no, that same look with Peter. No, not just seven times, but up to seventy times seven. And I can imagine Peter's face probably fell. That's impossible. I can't do that. Well, of course we can't do that on our own, but we can with God's help. If we look at across to the end of the chapter in Matthew 18, 35, it reminds us not only that we have to forgive, but how we have to do it. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also to you, if you, from your hearts, forgive not everyone, his brother, their trespasses. We forgive from the heart, not just a superficial, yeah, I forgive you when we put it away. Because if we just do it superficially, but we don't really, it's kind of like putting out a fire, but leaving the embers there underneath.

And I learned especially from teaching kids how to build fires at camp. You only need a smoking ember, and if you clear it right and start getting down there fanning or blowing, you can blow that back up into a raging inferno. And Satan knows how to find those embers of resentment, and not having forgiven someone, and blow on it, and get it up into a burning smoke, you know, or burning fire. And of course, I want to make one more time to say what we're trying to do here is humanly impossible. But with God's power, it is possible. If he can give us that patience, help us to humble ourselves and forgive others. And that leads right into the fifth point, is ask God for greater humility. Ask God for humility. Now, that's something we're always careful to ask God for. I often ask God, please help me to humble myself. Because I know you can humble me real quick, quick, and real effectively, and it might not be pleasant. So God, if you will, show me how to humble myself and help me to do it. But a lot of times we do, we get offended because of our pride. Or we do something in our pride that causes us to offend others. And I want to share a story. I know I heard it from Mr. Hanley, and maybe it's been told many times.

From back in the old days in the worldwide Church of God, when we had large congregations, and just about every congregation had at least one, maybe two, softball teams. And you travel and have big tournaments. I don't know if anybody here ever went up to Finley back in the day. I think Finley and Toledo, they always hosted. Nobody's... maybe not. I'm just... I'm the youngster here. I remember those days. Anyways, the story goes, you know, that this game's going on, and this one fella gets a hit, and he's rounding the base path, and he's coming towards second, and the second baseman gets the ball, and he wants to make sure he tags the guys. Boom! Knocks the guy down. Guy jumps up and says, you can't do that to me! I'm a deacon!

And the guy says, I'm a deacon, too! They both got their fists balled up. And, you know, neither one of them is hurt, but they've let their pride of position make them think, you can't treat me that way. Don't you know who I am? You know, and we hear that with politicians and celebrities.

You know, and that's not what it's meant to be. You know, they hear they were leaders in their congregation, and probably, I'm sure, deserve the position they served and earned that, but we can all let things go to our heads and let that pride lead us astray.

And real humility is the cure for that. Let's look at Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2, and we'll start in verse, we'll read verse 3. We won't start, we'll start and finish. Philippians 2 and verse 3 says, Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, or pride, it could say, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem the other better than themselves.

One of the ways we need to see ourselves is to have a clear understanding of our faults and weaknesses. Realize, you know, in the common vernacular, you ain't all that. Or I should say, I don't know, the kids are you laughing at me? Is it that bad? I know I've heard somebody say that somewhere, but they used to say all that in a bag of chips. That's probably way old. But we need to look at ourselves and say, no, I'm not all there is to it, you know, I make mistakes.

And matter of fact, I need to look at myself especially because in the ministry, we've been known to do that, get puffed up and think I'm always right and roughshod over people's feelings, and that's just not the way to do it. You know, we're especially in a position to be accountable.

And if I have done it to any of you, I didn't mean to. And I do apologize. Well, better to apologize in person. I'm hoping there haven't been many cases of that, but it does happen.

And there are times when we need to humble ourselves. Now, what's interesting is it can be hard to do when you say, I'm not being proud and arrogant. I'm right. Well, sometimes that pride is not letting you see that you're not right. Or perhaps if you are, big deal. Don't get a swallowed head about it. But of course, the other aspect of this, looking back to that verse, is in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Esteem others better than yourself because everybody's better than you in at least one way. Every one of you here is my superior in at least one aspect of your life, probably several. You know, we're all different. We have different strengths and weaknesses, and we need to appreciate that. And that includes, whoever just offended me is my superior, probably in a number of ways. I need to esteem them that and realize that.

You know, if we have a humble attitude, it'll avoid a lot of offenses and make it easier to deal with the ones that are there. Let's move on to the next point because these do tie together and lead into one another, and that's to ask God for a spirit of true thankfulness.

Be thankful. And that relates to humbleness. Humbleness. Humility, I think, is the word I wanted there.

And we realized that all the things we have, including our gifts and talents, were largely given to us. You know, the gifts and talents that I do have, God gave me. I didn't go out and get whatever I have. And of all people on the planet, we're the most blessed. We have a calling from God the Father. We have His Holy Spirit. And we have the body of Christ, our family, that we can look to and be thankful for. Let's turn a few pages to 2 Thessalonians 1.

2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 3. The Apostle Paul expressed this very well about the congregation in Thessalonica. He said, We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is me, because that your faith grows exceedingly and the love of every one of you all towards one another abounds.

So Paul was saying, we give thanks for you, and we should look around and give thanks for our brethren. And it's interesting, it's hard to be offended when you're in a thankful attitude.

The two don't go together. And sometimes we don't appreciate each other as much as we should, but we should realize, look around God's Church. We have people we can trust. People who are concerned for our welfare, who pray for us when we're sick, who bring over food, or who come and help us do projects in our house. People who are willing to get down on their knees in front of us on the Passover and wash our feet. We don't find people like that just out in the world. Now, you might on occasion, because there are good people out there who are serving and humble, but we've got a room full of them. And, you know, that offense vanishes when we really appreciate each other. I think of that, I appreciated that the first time I went to Europe. I've told you the story, a friend convinced me to go over to serve at the summer camp, but we were going to take the trains around Europe first. And it's amazing how many places people took us in. When we rode on the train and chat, a new guy saw in Suhau, we'd get on the train at night. Many times we slept on the train. We'd get a departure at 10 30 or 11, arriving at 7 the next morning and just sleep there.

But a lot of cases, we know somebody in the church there, and they'd call the city where we're going. And they'd say, oh, they want you to come and stay with them. They'd take us into their house. They'd never met us. But they'd say, you're your brethren. And they'd give us food and tour us around the city. It was marvelous. Boy, I was thankful for that. Sometimes I'd be able to take a hot shower.

And in Europe, that can be a challenge. Anyways, moving on to the last point, and probably the most important, is to ask God to give us greater love for others. Ask God to help us have that love for others. If you will, let's turn to John 16, beginning in the first verse.

Wow, I'm talking so much, I forgot to drink my water.

John 16 in verse 1, Jesus said, these things I've spoken to you that you should not be offended.

Once again, that's the original King James. So, what are these things that Jesus said? He doesn't want us to be offended. What did he tell us? We can see some clues if we go back to the previous chapter. Chapter 15 in verse 9, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love, even as I've kept my Father's commandments, and I abide in his love. In verse 12, this is my commandment that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

And again, in verse 17, these things I command you that you love one another. Christ was bringing out an important truth. If we really love each other, we won't be offended. It's hard to be offended by someone you love, like a close brother or family member. I think of that, and once again, it's a lesson I'm seeing more as a father than I would have otherwise. It's hard, you know, Connor might exasperate me at times or make me frustrated, but I've never been offended, even when he says something. There's times when he says, no, I want you to go away, you know, or he'll tell that to me sometimes to sue, you know, and it might hurt our feelings a little bit. It's not something that causes offense, you know, because there's that great love. How much more will God's love prevent him from being offended at us and us from being offended by each other?

And if we have any doubt, how do you have that love? Well, there are a couple things we want to remember. One is, Christ said, keep his commandments. That's the expression of love. That's that love in action, not just a feeling, but obey the commands. That's how you love.

And that will over-fry many things. I'm looking to see.

Oh, I've got it later on. Okay. There's a verse that I wanted to read.

But let me cite Psalm 119 verse 165, because it relates love and the commandments. That's the one that says, Great peace have they who love your law. Nothing shall offend them. You love God's law, and love is obeying the commandments. If you have that, you'll be at peace. You won't be offended. Let's also, while we're here, turn to 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter 4 and verse 8. 1 Peter 4 and verse 8 says, Above all things have fervent... My version says charity or love among yourselves, for love shall cover a multitude of sins. Hopefully, as we grow to become more and more like God, we'll get to the point where nothing short of sin does offend us. But even if so, love covers sin. It doesn't mean covers it up or hides it, but it means helps us put it away. That's the forgiving. Love will cover those sins. And of course, the love of God lets our sins truly be covered by his sacrifice. I'll mention again, we read earlier Matthew 5, 44. Jesus said, Love your enemies. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those that hate you. And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. I got the advantage. I typed it out in my notes. When someone's treating you that way, it's understandable. If they're persecuting you or whatever, you might be offended. But we're called to something better than retribution or revenge. God wants us to love the way he loves. And the way he loves is to pass over an offense, to offer forgiveness. And of course, I ask the question, can we really do this? No.

Not on our own. We need God's Spirit. We need the love of God in us. Notice the way I phrased that point. I didn't say the seventh point is law of others. The seventh point is to ask God to give you greater love for others. Or to give me greater love for others. I'm not talking down at you. We need the love of God put in us by his Holy Spirit. And we can see that if we turn to Romans 5 and verse 5. I can read it to you if you want. I've turned here a lot lately. It's funny, when you start speaking every week, you don't realize that you'll use a lot of the same scriptures over and over, but some of them just say the right things. Romans 5, 5 tells us, Hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that's given to us.

By God's Holy Spirit, it puts his love in us. And that's the love we need to forgive, to not be offended, to work through offenses. You know, over the years, a lot of people have fallen prey to that principle of divide and conquer. People have God offended and separated themselves from God's people. And when they separate, often, even though it's not being here in this room that makes you part of the church, it's having God's Holy Spirit. And I understand that. So when I say fall away, I don't mean just that you don't show up at services every week, but I mean you separate yourselves from the body. You don't have that fellowship. It leaves you susceptible to the divide and conquer. And the common denominator of a lot of those people has been that they were offended. Somebody said something or did something. And oftentimes a minister said something or did something. And that's a heavy burden on the ministry. That's one thing that made me the most wary of accepting the job, because I don't want to do anything that would cause someone to be offended and fall away. But I encourage you all, if I do something, don't let me come between you and God. That'd be terrible. Matthew 24, 12 says, because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will wax cold. That's the opposite of love covering a multitude of sins. We want to be that love covering a multitude of sins. Because, you know, can you imagine if you did get offended and separated and eventually just stop living this way of life? At one point in the future, you would stand before the throne of God. And you'd have to say, well, yeah, I sort of dropped away back in 2013 because so-and-so said something to me. And I can imagine God looking at you and saying, what?

Now, of course, he wouldn't because he'd already know the story. But do you really want to come to say to God, I got my feelings hurt because this person said this or did that and I broke off my relationship with you eventually because of it? God would be saying, hey, you're dealing with me. Now, I'm putting words into his mouth. I want to be careful about that. But I want to remember not to do that. We want to hold steady and work through offenses. One way to help do that, let's turn to Matthew 16, 25. A lot of that is that love gets expressed in service and a selfless attitude.

Matthew 16 and verse 25.

Jesus said, whoever will save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. Now, there are cases where someone literally loses their life, but more often we give up what our life is made up of, which is our time. We give up our time and our energy and service to others and help to others. We're laying down our life and that's an expression of love. And as I said, if we have that love of God in us, it's hard to be offended. And we need to strive to see that love in our brethren and even those who are not our brethren yet, but who someday will be. Because we are all a spiritual family and you know what happens in families? You fight and you hurt each other's feelings, but hopefully you reconcile. But we don't want to let Satan use offense as a tool to divide us so that he can conquer us. We don't want to be like those Union soldiers at Chickamauga with it. They had a mistake and then the Confederate soldiers surrounded them and defeated them piecemeal. Because offenses can separate and they can destroy friendships, destroy marriages, destroy families, even destroy congregations. And we've seen that happen. That's part of the reason we're smaller in number than we used to be. But let's make sure we don't get smaller than that. Offenses will arise, but we can draw on God's instruction and his word to deal with the offenses. We can open that line of communication and do it quickly.

We can fervently ask God to give us the strength to do what we can't do on our own. And we can ask him to give us wisdom and understanding, ask him to give us patience and the ability to forgive.

Beg God to give us humility, to give us an attitude of thankfulness, and most of all to put his love in us. And if we do this, we'll remember Christ's words where he said, Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.