Divide and Conquer

That's been a principle because the simple fact is when an army is all together, when people gather together, they're stronger. But individual pieces that are isolated are easier to overwhelm and defeat because they can't draw on others for help. Now, we Christians are in a spiritual battle. We know that. Satan is our ultimate enemy. He wants to fight and destroy us. And, of course, any time he can, he would like to use that strategy.

Divide and conquer. And thus, he'll use that when he can, but he probably hates what he normally sees at our church services and what we see here on a regular basis. He sees a group of people where the love of God and the peace of God and unity of God are evident. No doubt he would like to stop that. Satan doesn't like that unity. He wants to divide and scatter us so that we wouldn't support each other and strengthen each other when we need it.

Now, if he could accomplish what he wanted, we would eventually be scattered so that we would stop supporting each other, eventually become discouraged, perhaps even fall away from the truth and the way that God has taught us. Doesn't that sound like what Satan would like to accomplish? But how in the world could he do that? Now, if you think of yourself as a devil's advocate trying to say, well, what strategies would you use? I mean, would he try to convince us that it's just not worth the time and effort to gather on the Sabbath to meet with brethren and be taught about God's way? No, maybe he could try that. But if we look through the years, over history, God's people have shown that they're very determined.

And some people will go to great sacrifices to get up and get ready and travel sometimes long distances and sometimes even at great expense to be with God's people. Well, perhaps another way. What if Satan would work on our intellectual vanity and try to convince many people of some particular obscure interpretation of doctrine or prophecy, so that they would start looking down on other people that don't see things that way and they'd feel like they need to separate?

Again, I could say perhaps. And that has actually happened with some, but I think most people that are susceptible to that type of silliness, I think a lot of times it is silliness, they've left us long ago. We're not here because we see ourselves as great scholars and we're parsing a lot of Greek words and such. We're here because we want to obey God.

We want to be with His people. What about another way that Satan might use? What if he would strive to cause offense within the body of Christ here in Prestonsburg or in any congregation? Cause offense to the point where people would damage their relationships with each other and eventually fall away and separate. Well, as I think about it, that sounds like more of a possibility. Now, I say that it sounds like a possibility, not because I see a potential or a problem with it here, but because it has happened in the past.

Over the years, that's one of the techniques that Satan has used to separate the people of God from each other so that he can work on their individual weaknesses using that principle of divide and conquer. That's why, because there are a lot of important things to talk about and we try to vary our messages, this is one that's important to always come back to on a regular basis. To take a deeper look, not at divide and conquer, but what is one of the biggest things that does divide us from each other? The subject of offense. That people take offense or get offended with each other.

We need to understand what it is and how to strive to prevent that. Now, I'm just going to quote Luke 7.23, where Jesus Christ said, Blessed is he who is not offended because of me. Now, he said that specifically to the apostles of John the Baptist, who were wondering about how this would work.

Their teacher was now in prison and Christ seemed to be rising in prominence and still, Jesus wasn't doing all the things that some people expected. So, John sent messengers saying, well, are you the right one or do we look for another?

And Jesus explained some things and he said, Blessed is he who is not offended because of me. But I don't think that was a warning only to those disciples at that time, but it's a message that endures for us for all time. All of Jesus' disciples throughout history need to strive to not be offended because it can do so much damage. Jesus warned that people easily could become offended by his teaching.

I think it's interesting. Jesus was saying, Blessed is he who strives not to become offended because of me, Jesus. Well, if people could be offended at the teaching of the Son of God there in the flesh, how much more could we become offended at each other? Because we're all human and we make mistakes. I've heard long-time ministers in the church and, of course, people with much more experience than me say that probably many of the greatest challenges that Christians ever face is not from outside the body of Christ.

Although there are challenges and difficulties, but many of our toughest ones come from within. You know, where somebody does something or says something that hurts our feelings and sometimes it's something that's a legitimate cause for concern or offense. And it's even worse when it's among the ministry. And that's happened.

We've seen ministers behave badly, speak uncaringly, do something that's harmful or taking for granted to members. But in cases like this, and I've said this, well, I said it 18 years ago when the United Church of God first started. I said it two years ago when many people were upset and leaving. And I'm not the only one to say it, but I say, you know, you're not in God's church because of any person. You shouldn't be. You should be here because God the Father called you. And Christ teaches that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws Him.

So that's the reason we got here in the first place, not because of a person, even though many, many my age are in the church because of their parents or grandparents were there first. But still, it was a direct connection to God. And if that's the case, we certainly should never leave because of what any person does. It should only be because we're there with a relationship with God the Father, and nothing that any human being can do should separate us from God and from His people.

And yet, I say that, but we're human beings. We have feelings and sensitivities. You know, unfortunately, we offend others, and we get offended ourselves at times. The Bible gives a lot of instruction for dealing with the subject, but as I like to do, it's good to make sure we're clear of our terms. So what do we mean by the word offense? Let me clear that up first.

Well, I looked in Webster's dictionary, and the first definition it gave was, well, I like this, offense is the act of offending. And I said, that's not very useful. But then it continued, it said, or the causing displeasure, causing anger, resentment, or insult. Now, that does tell us something, and that's the one I want to focus on. There are a couple secondary definitions that play in. One is the act of attacking or assaulting, as in launching a military offense, or perhaps going on the offense in a sports competition.

It's funny, I think of that in football, maybe, because it has so many military analogies. In basketball, you're launching an offense every 30 seconds or so as you go back and forth. Another definition was, any violation of a rule or duty or property, particularly a breach of law, that means when you're committing an offense of the law. So, as I said, I think we're primarily looking at that first definition, causing insults, or displeasure, or harm in someone.

But those others can be related. Certainly, if you violate the law, that might cause offense or insult someone else, because we hold that as a high standard. And I want to come back to that in a moment. But still, it can be a little intangible to say, what happens when a person is offended? It's easy to say, and we sort of know what it means, but it's hard to break down and say exactly what happens.

But I'd say one way we can think of it is, it often comes into the fact of violating boundaries. We all have a common background, and we hold God's law as our common set of rules. So, when we see someone violate those, it can bother us. It can cause offense. It violates a sensibility of what we expect.

Of course, it can go beyond just violating God's law. I think of an example, a physical example. We all have certain boundaries about our physical bodies. If someone were to walk up to you and reach into your back pocket and take out your wallet and start going through it, you might be offended. Or, for you ladies, if they reach into your purse. And it might not be because there's something secret there. I think I've got about eight or nine dollars in here.

There's nothing. But, it's violating that boundary that shouldn't be crossed. And, different people, it's interesting how personality types are like that. Some people have more of a wider space where they don't want people to come in too close, and other people, they want to be close. So, you have to learn the understanding of each other. And, of course, you can violate those boundaries in other ways. If someone comes up and hits you or ticks you, it's probably going to cause offense. And, the harder they hit, the more offensive it might be. But, if we could translate that to, you know, usually it's not a physical boundary that bothers us so much as a mental or emotional one.

Imagine, go back to the physical again, if someone walks up to you and steps on your toes, you know, there's a physical offense. Now, the person might not have done it on purpose. Matter of fact, they might well not even know that they did it. Similarly, though, if someone walks up and says something that has an emotional effect similar to stepping on your toes, you know, it could cause a little bit of an offense. But, just as someone who's a little bit clumsy or not so light on their feet might step on your toes without meaning to.

And, when I say that, I instantly take myself back to dance floors when I was single, and I know I've stepped on ladies' toes. And, as I said, often unintentionally and often without even knowing it unless they tell me. So, someone could walk up and they might say something that steps on your emotional toes, and they didn't mean to do it. And, unless you tell them, they might have no idea that they've done it. Well, and then I would say, who has done this? All of us. Everyone does this at one time or another.

Matter of fact, let's turn to James chapter 3. Seems like I normally get into turning to Scripture sooner than this, but... James 3 and verse 2. Now, how this reads depends a lot on which translation you have. The original King James says it the way that I look for the best. It says, We all cause offense in many things. Or, I think, King James says, In many ways we offend all. The new King James says, We all stumble in many things.

And, that word can be translated either way, but... cause someone to stumble or cause offense. If anyone does not offend in word, he's perfect. Able also to bridle the whole body. Well, our goal is to become perfect, but we're not there yet. And so, all of us do this.

All of us, at some point or another, offend. That's a basic truth that we can count on. Once we know what it is, we realize we all do it. And, we often do it unintentionally. Now, there are a number of sources for why we might take offense at things.

And, I'm not going to deal... well, actually, I want to set it aside and say, I'm emotional. Maybe I need to slow down a little. I mostly want to look at working with our brethren, and mostly people who cause offense unintentionally. We all know there are times when people go out of their way to offend on purpose.

That's where we use the term, they're looking to pick a fight. And, that's a whole different type of animal. And, there's ways to deal with that as well. But, mostly, we want to look at those who didn't intentionally offend. But, sometimes, those are the deepest, because we know what's coming from someone's heart. Although, when I say that, pick a fight, it reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Brave Heart, that came out many years ago with the Scottish fight for independence. The way Mel Gibson portrays it, he's William Wallace.

And, at one point, the armies are lined up. Some of the men leaders are about to negotiate. He doesn't want to negotiate. He wants to win this battle. So, he goes out and says, I'm going to pick a fight. And, he does exactly that. Anyways, what are some of the emotional sources? I just want to briefly touch on these to set a background and not focus on them. But, among brethren, we can take offense often because of human pride. We'll come back and talk about that a little bit later. But, we're all struggling to humble ourselves, but not there yet. And, so it can be a source of offense.

Emotional wounds is another one. We all have suffered in the past from being mistreated, hurt emotionally in some way or another. And, those leave us vulnerable in ways that we might not even realize until... I've had paper cuts that I didn't know I had until a little salt gets in there. And then, you know... Also, expectations of others. Expectations we have of others. And, how many of you remember when you first came to church services thinking, Those are God's people.

They're going to be perfect. And then, when you find out they're not, you know, you might take a little bit of offense. Wow! What are they doing? And, of course, but we're all like that. We're not perfect yet. And, one of the biggest... A general cause for us to offense is not necessarily a conflict we have with each other.

It's the fact that all of us, in some degree, although we're striving not to do it, have a conflict with God. And, what I'm meaning is to cite Romans 8-7 where it says, The carnal mind is enmity with God. All of us have some part of us that's still carnal that considers God an enemy.

And, we're struggling to put to death that old man. But, when we lose our grip, for whatever reason, you know, if we get out of alignment with God, Then, it's easy to get in also out of alignment with God's people who are trying to be in alignment with Him. And, it causes offense.

So, as I said, I don't want to deal with all those... the causes so much as how do we deal with it? Okay? And so, moving on from here, and this is going to seem so cliché, but most of you have been around long enough, I've got seven points for dealing with offense. And, I say, I don't mind joking about it a little bit because, actually, I had some help with this in consulting and getting some information from Mr. Joe Handley, who's an elder in the Columbus Church. And, he served as a mentor to Sue and I for several years, partly because he lived only a mile or so away. So, he helped me condense this into seven points, even though it perhaps could have been eight or nine, it could have been six if I'd have done it a little bit differently. So, for the sacred tradition, I'll go with seven. Although, I don't know if you're like me, I think the first time I was ever sitting in a church service, and a minister said, I've got six points on something, I leaned over to my friend and said, is he allowed to do that? Don't you have to have seven? So, you know, we don't have to have seven, but it worked out pretty well. And the first one, first point is the big one. I'm going to spend more time on this, because when there's offense, the first thing we need to keep in mind is communicate quickly. Open lines of communication, where people are involved, even converted people, there are going to be problems and misunderstandings. As I said, there are going to be offenses, and so we want to deal with them quickly. To make another analogy, think of, as I said, a paper cut or something like that. You're always going to get some kind of break in the skin sometime in your life. Now, usually you wash it up, maybe put a band-aid on it, and it's fine. But if you get a cut like that and you don't deal with it, in time it can get infected. First, it's a little red and sore, and in the right conditions it could start to fester and turn into a really dangerous wound. We don't want that, because offenses can be similar. And when offense is dealt with quickly, it's like washing up a cut and putting a band-aid on it, and it heals. But if an offense is left to fester and grow, it can cause a lot of other problems. Let's turn to Matthew 5. God wants his people to do something, to take action when there's an offense.

And it applies to both sides. Matthew 5 and verse 23 presents one side of that. If you're the one that's caused offense, I say accidentally because usually it is. Matthew 5 and verse 23, this is part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, usually we think of that as us coming to God in prayer, and there, remember, your brother has something against you. You realize you've offended your brother, he's hurt because of you. He says, leave your gift there before the altar. Go your way, and first, be reconciled to your brother. Then come and offer your gift. Now, I say prayer because we're not going before a literal altar and sacrificing animals these days, but this could be interpreted in a number of ways. I'm not saying don't ever get down on your knees and pray, because often if you've offended your brother, one of the first things you want to do is pray to God. Communicate quickly means communicate with God, and then go talk to your brother. But it means open that communication. How can you be reconciled except by going and talking? Often it means being ready to apologize. But before you can do that, you have to know what the offense is. So there, part of the communication is also being ready and willing to listen. And that's where I'll admit I've had to struggle sometimes. It's easy to run in, and I want to say my piece. Sometimes you have to run in and say, tell me what's wrong, and then genuinely force yourself to listen and sort it out. Sometimes then you can give an explanation that may or may not require an apology, but you want to deal with those things. It takes communication. As I said, listening to what your brother is thinking and then telling what you were thinking. There we go. Let's turn back a few pages to Matthew 18. Matthew 18 and verse 15. I'll read this quickly because it seems like I'm turning to this in every other sermon, but I'm learning how important this is for God's people dealing with each other. As I said, this is the other side of the equation. If your brother does something that offends you, says moreover, here it says, if your brother sins against you. But you could say, if he offends you even, it doesn't have to be a sin, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he hears you, you've gained your brother. Now here again, open those lines of communication. Go and tell him, and hopefully he'll hear you. And then the other side of it can go, he can talk to you and you can talk.

With the goal of reconciliation, you want to gain your brother. Now there are the further steps. If he won't hear you, you might need to take one or two witnesses and say, no, you didn't understand. This really did happen. And then it can go from there. If he won't hear them, tell it to the church. And then, still, if he won't listen, if he genuinely is in the wrong, you might have to treat him as a non-believer.

But of course, our goal is reconciliation. Open those lines of communication and do it quickly.

Now, as we just read on paper, that sounds pretty easy. You think, wow, this is great! This is just what I have to do. I go do it. It solves all my problems.

But, saying it or reading it and then doing it aren't always the same thing. And I know, as I said, when I talk to a crowd of people that are mostly older than me, I know you know from hard experience that that's the case. Sometimes we don't do this because there might be a little bit of some type of fear in our mind.

I don't want to go talk to my brother about this because he might yell at me. He might not understand. It might just make things worse.

But the longer we let a division go, the worse it can be, sometimes.

But we have to tell ourselves, taking this kind of action, sometimes being willing to humble yourself to listen when your brother comes to you and says, you know, what you did bothered me. Sometimes our first reaction is to go on the defensive and, I shouldn't have bothered you and go and explain or maybe try to correct him. You shouldn't be offended. Let me straighten you out.

We have to pause and put ourselves down or keep our pride down.

But I gave a sermon trying to think. It doesn't seem like it's been that long ago, but it also seems like a long time ago.

These weeks are getting jumbled. I've been so busy.

Talking about personality differences, how there are so many differences among brethren and we need to understand.

And it is important to realize that for some people, naturally, don't open up and relate well to people.

And other people do it very easily. They might be blustery and opinionated and very strong personalities.

So for someone who's a little more withdrawn, to be willing to go into someone who is more open and strong-willed, they might feel like that's like walking into a lion's den. He might just tear me up. And it just is tough to do.

And I'm not saying one personality is right and the other is wrong, but just that we need to realize the differences and appreciate that what comes naturally to one person could be a real challenge for someone else.

But we still, it's important to do.

And what's amazing is when that timid person goes to that stronger-minded, stronger-willed person and they open the lines of communication, often they find they're very willing to talk, quick to apologize. You know, they can work things out.

Whatever we do, though, we don't want to let an offense set. It can be like wet concrete.

You know, concrete, when it first comes out of the mixer, it is real easy to work with.

You can smooth it over, you can pour it in a mold and let it, you know, give it shapes.

But in a short amount of time, it starts to harden. It freezes into place.

And once it starts doing that, it's hard to move out. And doing so often causes damage.

That's the way it can be when there's an offense between spiritual brethren that's not worked out.

It can start to harden and it gets harder to work with. Because we're human, we have emotions.

We have, our memories are fallible. We start remembering something differently than it really happened.

And I'm really good at that. Matter of fact, I find Sue and I are both good at it in different ways.

So we'll describe something that happened, you know, we'll both describe it to a third party, and it's like we were in different places at different times.

And it's not that either of us are intentionally doing that.

But if we talk it out, we can fix the problem. You know, if it's done sooner.

I'm just going to cite Proverbs 18 and verse 19. Well-known scripture, it says, A brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city, because contentions are like bars, the bars of a castle.

Those are the contentions that are left to harden.

So, you know, brother offended, it can be hard to win him back, but not so hard if you do it quickly.

I do want to turn to Hebrews 12 to make this analogy. Hebrews 12 and verse 15. Hebrews 12 and verse 15. I'm breaking into a thought here, because I wanted to get to this one analogy.

It says, Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up, cause trouble, by this many become defiled. That root of bitterness, this time of year, as a matter of fact, actually yesterday, I was pulling some weeds out of the little garden plot that we started, and amazed me how quickly those roots go down and get hard to pull out.

You know, and offenses can be like that, like a plant that very quickly starts sending down roots and getting entrenched, and it's harder to get it out the longer you go. So there's where I want to stop and encourage all of us to be willing to take the initiative.

So look in the mirror, and I might do this and say, Frank, if you have an offense, it's up to you to go talk it out.

Take the responsibility. And I'm telling that to me, because I said, it's something that I need to do, and it's not always easy.

And often when you start that communication, you find that there's more than one.

You know, it turns out there was one earlier that you didn't know about that tangled up.

Pretty soon, you know, our interrelations with each other can be almost like a fishing line.

And some of you might be better at this than me, but when I've gone fishing in the past, often the straight line turns into this tangled mess almost instantly.

I still don't know how that happens. But of course, when that happens, when we go fishing, first reaction is get out the nippers and just put a new hook on.

We don't want to do that with each other, though, because we're not talking about fishing line. We're talking about our spiritual brethren.

So instead, we want to gradually, if necessary, unravel all the problems.

As I said, if it's handled quickly when we know about it, there'll be fewer things to unravel.

But we can be like... As I distantly remember, last time I took an algebra class. And for some of you, that's probably been longer ago than it was for me.

But one of the principles I remember in mathematics is when you've got this complex equation, you can start separating certain components and solve this one part of it, and then it's done, and then work on this other part until gradually you get it all a balanced equation.

I say that I remember that it works that way, but boy, I'm not sure if I could do a math problem like that now. Luckily, I don't think I'll have to.

Now, I want to switch gears slightly here, because as I said, I want to make the primary focus today dealing with brethren.

Spiritual brethren who all want to be reconciled to each other and reconciled to God the Father.

What if the person that's causing offense is not a brother? Someone not in the church?

Could be someone, you know, another employee or employer, or someone that you might never even see again.

You know, someone who does something in the parking lot at a store or cut you off in traffic.

Here's... I want to give special credit. As I said, Mr. Hanley helped me with this. He said, well, you still communicate quickly.

Only you might not be able to communicate with the other person, but you still want to communicate with God.

Ask... go to Him and talk it through and help Him... or ask Him to help you, help me with that problem.

And I'll make the point... it's not necessarily wrong that that offense made you angry.

Ephesians 4, 26 is where Paul said, be angry, but do not sin.

Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. So it wasn't wrong to have the wrath in the first place, but deal with it.

And there's where talking to God makes a difference. I think we all know that.

He will listen. The person that's caused offense might not. Or the person that you offended and you can't get to them because they're long gone. I've had that before and it can eat up on your conscious.

But God understands and He might provide a way in the future.

But I have a quote, and I'm not sure who said this. I read it somewhere, but it said, To hate a man is to become his slave. It will control my every thought and eventually rob me of every passing pleasure. That's if you fixate and you're just so angry at this person and you hate them. It starts to dominate your thinking and it takes away your ability to enjoy other things. So you become almost a slave to Him and He doesn't know it.

One day, some of those people that we've had difficulties with will meet in God's kingdom.

Hopefully, I shouldn't even say hopefully. We know. We're striving towards that goal and God will get us there. We'll be spirit beings. So certainly we're not going to meet someone that we had a great disagreement with. 40 years ago and still be angry with them. Hopefully, we'll say, No, we had a problem. God helped me to put aside and now I'm in a position to help you. If they're a physical person that's been resurrected, maybe it'll be after the millennium and in their general resurrection. There'll be a moment for a teaching opportunity.

Let's turn to Matthew 5 and verse 44.

It's another part of the Sermon on the Mount.

One of the things, of course, one of the principal teachings that Jesus Christ is known for, especially by those who are not Christians, because they say, This is such a contradiction. It's almost impossible. Of course, it is impossible without God's Spirit, but it's not with it. Here in Matthew 5, 44, he said, But I say to you, Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those that hate you. Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Because when you pray for that person, you are following that principle. You're communicating with God. And I'm sure you know by experience, it's hard to be angry with or even have feelings of resentment for someone if you're praying for them. And I've learned that by experience. It's helped me many times. Sometimes if I couldn't work out a difference, but I was praying for them, somehow, as I said, my anger or hurt sort of started to melt away.

I'm dripping. Alright, that was my first point. And that's, as I said, that's really looking at the action that we need to take. Now I want to stop and have some points that we need to understand in doing that. And the second one, then, is just the fact that we need to be aware that we can't properly handle offense by our own power.

We can't do it on our own. And I think inherently we know that, but as I said, this is one of those points that could be condensed with another. But I think it's good to stop and just point it out and remember it. We're in Matthew. Let's turn to chapter 26. Matthew 26, and we'll read in verse 31. This is, of course, the account of Christ being betrayed and eventually being crucified. But it's interesting what he told the disciples. And again, here I want to read the King James Version.

Jesus said to them, All of you will be offended because of me this night. You're all going to be offended because it's written. I'll strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered. But after I've risen, I'll go before you to Galilee. And you know what Peter said? Everyone else might be offended, but I'll never be offended.

Now the New King James said, all of you will be caused to stumble. And Peter said, I won't stumble. Still basic meaning, but Jesus said, Peter, before the cock crows, before the rooster crows, and we know from one of the other accounts, before it crows the second time, you'll deny me three times. No, I won't. I'm ready to go die with you. Well, all we have to do is look further in chapter to see what happened in verse 73. A little later, those who stood by came up and said to Peter, Surely you're one of them, meaning one of Jesus' disciples, for your speech betrays you.

And he began to curse and swear, saying, I don't know the man, and the rooster crowed. And he realized, I did exactly what Jesus said. And I'm not pointing this out to put Peter down, but just to remind ourselves that it's sometimes beyond our power. We can't handle offenses or avoid them without the power of God. But He will help us. He will help us if we ask for it, if we realize it. But sometimes, as we read in the book of James, God says, you have not because you ask not.

I'll point out just another example without turning there, the parable of the sower and the seed. It's sort of twisting the analogy a little bit, but you know in the parable of the sower and the seed, the seed is scattered. Some falls by the wayside, and the birds gobble it up. Some falls on rocky soil, and it takes root, but then the sun scorches it, and it dies off. Some seed falls among thorns, and it starts to grow, and then the thorns choke it out.

But let's look at it from the perspective of the seed itself. Did it have any choice of where it ended up? No. The seed just goes where it goes, and has no power. Only a power higher than the seed can save it. And as I said, I know that's not the exact meaning that Christ wanted to give to this, but I find that interesting, because if we think of us, you know, being in the position of the seed, we say there's birds out there, there's rocks, there's thorns, and we need a higher power to save us from them.

Maybe I shouldn't go further on that. As I said, I know Christ was talking about the Word, and it being choked out or snatched away. But still, I hope you see the point, we need God's help. And that's where I'm going to turn in my next five points, then. Ways to ask God to help. So my third point is to ask God to help to grow in wisdom and understanding. Wisdom and understanding are sort of two sides of a coin.

James 1 and verse 5 tells us, If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, and it'll be given. So we know that we can ask God for wisdom, and he tells us, Ask me for wisdom. You'll get it. And we're striving to do that to some degree now, whenever we open our Bibles, we're looking for God's wisdom to help us. And we don't want Satan to take advantage of us because we're lacking that.

And we need to understand, when we look at the Church, as I said, we're focusing primarily on our brethren. We sometimes accidentally offend them, and sometimes they offend us. God calls people into the body of Christ from all different sorts of backgrounds. Some people come with very good people skills, and some would not so good. Some are refined and have a lot of tact and diplomacy. Other people are just sort of blunt and plain spoken. And both actually have their advantages and disadvantages. But it requires wisdom, God's wisdom, to understand the differences. And also, it's important to remember that people come into the Church, not only with these different backgrounds and trainings, but also with different amounts of emotional damage.

The world is a rough place for people to live in these days. And so, some people come in, and maybe they've been in the Church for years, but there's still emotional scarring from what went on earlier. And that can cause a person to take offense. It's something we might do, and we never realized it would cause offense because we don't know that they've got a certain sensitivity. And I'll draw on my own experience in that regard. Children who come out of broken families tend to have damage and harm.

With young men, it's often an anger problem they have. And it's funny, when I first was writing this, I said, well, I don't have any problem with anger, and I don't tend to think of myself that way, but I look back, when I was a kid, boy, I did have a bit of a short temper. And my sister knew just the right buttons to push to set that off.

But, you know, I don't think I have a big problem with that. But I realized there's another problem that often children whose parents are people, whose parents divorced when they were rather young, sometimes have difficulty trusting people. They're slow to open up and trust someone. And I realized, yeah, I am kind of like that. You know, I was only three years old when my parents divorced, and so it's something I have to force myself to realize not everybody's going to abandon you or leave you or anything like that. And it's not a conscious thing, as I said, it's subconscious and emotional. But I can see where someone, you know, if I'm doing that, they might look at me and say, I've always been trustworthy. I've done nothing to you to make you not trust me. Why won't you trust me? That hurts my feelings. And I don't realize I'm doing it. And I'm not thinking of any particular example. I'm just giving a generality here. But can you see how, you know, if you don't know someone's background and how they've been affected in the past, you could be offended at what they do or don't do.

Because you don't know why they are that way. And my point is not to say that we should already know everyone's problems or that we can always solve them. But it's good for us to ask God to help us to understand. Ask God to help us to have wisdom to know how to treat people. Give us the wisdom because sometimes we're just not going to know without Him giving us that. That's the rate I'm going. If I take a drink every time I'm about to shift points, I'll have seven drinks or so before we're done. But the fourth point I wanted to make is to ask God for greater patience. And what comes from that patience, I believe, the ability to forgive. Once again, each of these could have been separate points, but then I might have had, as I said, eight or nine points. But patience and the ability to forgive come together, and they don't come naturally to human beings. It's natural for human beings to be impatient and unforgiving. The only way we're going to really develop these traits is for God to give them to us, and in fact, I think to grow them in us. And that's where we can see in Galatians 5, verse 22. I'll be brief in discussing this because I'm planning to talk about it more next week. The Pentecost sees, and is when we talk about the Holy Spirit and the fruits of it, but Galatians 5, 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering. Or we might also say patience and kindness, along with goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these, there is no law. Now, it's interesting, of course, forgiving or mercy isn't in here. But if you'll turn over to Ephesians, just a few pages, I think it's like three pages in my Bible. Ephesians 4, verse 32, this is something I hadn't realized before, but I think you could say that forgiveness is an aspect of kindness. And Paul makes that point here. He says in Ephesians 4, 32, Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

So, these are things that can come that God can give us through the Holy Spirit. Some of the gifts or... well, actually, I don't want to say gifts. As I said, I'm looking ahead to Pentecost, and I want to focus somewhat on the difference between gifts and fruit. But these still come from the Holy Spirit. While we're asking God to give us these traits, we want to ask God to give us patience, give us the ability to forgive, and keep in mind how patient He is with us. How much He's forgiven us. As we see it, if we'll turn back to Mark 11. Mark 11 and verse 25.

Sometimes when you quote from Jesus Christ, it just seems so plain spoken. I think... sometimes I think I should just read several of those Scriptures and shut up and sit down. He says it so well, and He does so here.

Matthew 11, 25.

Now, that should be a pretty good motivation. You know, if we want God to forgive us, we better be willing to forgive others. And God already is patient with us. And so we should be patient with others. And that's where I've got to say, I made the mistake... I'm not sure how many years ago it was, but once I had the conscious thought of thinking, Boy, Frank, you're pretty good at being patient.

And I could've congratulated myself, patted myself on the back about how patient I was. And I'm sure God was looking at me going, I'll have to show you yourself a little more the way I see you. Because it seemed like ever since that point, I learned how much I was not a patient person. And one of the best ways to learn that is having a little boy. But also little dogs. Even before Connor came along, I walked the dogs and I discovered they want to stop and sniff every little thing.

Arbeige on Freeze can spend 20 minutes sniffing one leaf. And I want to get going. I want to get to Phoenix by sundown. Come on, come on, what's wrong with you? No, I'm not as patient as I thought. And then, of course, when you're giving a little child instruction, I told you not to do that.

Don't do it. He goes up and does it. No, I said not to do that. And then I stop and say, well, how many times does God in here tell me, don't do that? Do it like this. And then again, don't do it. And then I find myself going and doing it. And he's probably looking at him, what did I tell you? It's so easy. But God is patient. He doesn't whack me upside the head or say, I'm done. I'm getting rid of you.

I think even in the days before Noah, he let mankind go for, I think, probably a couple thousand years before he said, okay, I've got to clean things up and start over. But boy, he was pretty patient. Well, the way God is patient with me, I need to become, I need to let God's Spirit work in me, develop that patience. And for some people, it's harder than others. So there is, as I said, personality traits make it easier for some than others.

And I'm conscious, I was thinking in terms of a classic example in American culture of people not letting something go is that the Hatfields and McCoy's feud. And I think we're not far physically from where that happened, you know, across the Kentucky-West Virginia border. I was going to say, was it West?

Yeah, it was West Virginia, because I think it developed after the Civil War. But, you know, there was offense, and people held on to that, and it escalated. And so people were fighting and dying, sometimes not even knowing the cause of it, because it was other people in the family and generations earlier.

Now, we don't want to be that way. And I'd say, if someone does something that's offensive, sometimes even if we can't forget it right away, we still have to put it aside and move on. And this is another thing that someone pointed out to me that I thought was very useful. Because you might say, well, okay, I'll forget it later, but you don't have to wait to forgive. And the reason for that is forgiveness is never something that's earned or deserved. And God doesn't forgive us because we deserve it. He forgives us because He loves us and wants to.

And if a person is never going to earn your forgiveness, well, you don't have to wait to give it to them until they are repentant. You can do it right now and hope that they'll come around later. Let's turn to Matthew 18 to see what Jesus told Peter about forgiving and how much and how sincerely to do it. Matthew 18 and verse 21. In a famous situation, Peter came to him, that is Jesus, and said, How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?

Up to seven whole times? Now, I'm exaggerating a little because you sort of get the feeling of, Peter was proud of himself to suggest as many as seven, and Jesus said, no, no. I don't say you're up to seven, but seventy times seven. And, wow, I wonder if Peter was going, are you kidding me? But let's look ahead to verse 35.

Not that all of what's in between isn't worthwhile, but coming back to that forgiveness, he said, So my heavenly Father also will do to you, that is, He'll punish you for your sins rather than forgive them, if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses. You have to be willing to forgive our brother up to one hundred and forty times. And actually, I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't saying, count, and when it gets to one hundred and forty, when you get to one seventy times, no, wait a minute, one hundred and forty, what am I saying? That's four hundred and ninety. You get to four ninety one, let him have it. Now, I think he meant it's such a big number, it's so much bigger than what Peter was suggesting, it's not worth bothering to keep count. But, it still has to be forgiveness from the heart. Not a superficial show of forgiveness, while we're still smoldering with resentment inside. Because Satan is real good at fanning smoldering embers back into a glowing flame. I like that analogy, because for several years at summer camp, I taught an activity where I taught the kids how to build fires. And I specialize in saying, you've got to get that in there, and you've got to get down below, and sometimes you'll have a glow, it looks like your fire went out, but if you treat it right, you can get the flames going again. And it almost always would work. I think emotionally, we're like that. If we don't totally put out the offense, Satan knows how to clear the way and blow on it and get a flame going again.

And of course, I've got in red ink here to remind me, what I'm saying we need to do is humanly impossible. We can't do that, and that's why we need to ask God to give us the patience. Ask Him to give us the ability to forgive. Now, we will be able to do it, and we are able to do it with the power of God's Spirit. But we don't want to forget that on our own, we won't do it. We won't do it properly.

And I think that's a very good lead-in to my fifth point. The other thing and other thing. I've got a couple other things, but we want to ask God to give us greater humility.

Now, there are many aspects that come into this. As I said, we need to humble ourselves to realize that we're not going to be able to deal with offense on our own. And we also need to realize, a lot of times when there is offense, it's because of human pride. Our own pride, if we're offended, or perhaps someone else's if we cause offense. You know, someone might do or say something, and our first reaction is, Don't you know who I am? You can't treat me like that.

Let me share another story. This is one I don't think I've been around long enough. Well, I was probably around then, but not paying attention with the converted eyes I should have. But Mr. Hanley shared the story of me of back in the days when our congregations were larger, and many church congregations put together men's softball teams. And they would often travel sometimes great distances for these big tournaments. You know, living in Ohio, I was familiar. There was one up...

I want to say Findley, Ohio, but also Toledo. I think they shared back and forth having these big softball tournaments. Mr. Hanley tells the story of once he was there watching, and somebody got a hit, and he's coming around the base pass, the other guy gets the ball, and boom! They collide. Guy goes down, and one of them jumps up with his fists and says, You can't do that to me! I'm a deacon!

And the other fellow says, Oh yeah, well, I'm a deacon, too! They're ready to go at it. Neither one of them were actually seriously hurt, but their pride was hurt. And they let the idea of a position... that's a position of service. It's not meant to look at me as a deacon. It's meant to be, look, you have a job of being willing to serve. And I don't even know who the men were. I'm sure that they probably were converted and quickly felt pretty sheepish about that. But it's amazing how when a moment of anger stirs up, we can start saying, How dare you treat me that way?

Don't you know who I am? We don't want to do that. But real humility that God gives us is the cure. Let's look at Philippians 2. Philippians 2 and verse 3. I love that story. I'll probably find ways to use that again in the future, because it's just kind of funny.

But also very telling. Philippians 2 and verse 3, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, of thinking you're something that you're not. But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Interesting. There's two aspects to that real humility, I think. One is the way we see ourselves. You know, having a clear and a real understanding that we have faults and weaknesses and shortcomings. And going back to our previous point, when we ask God to forgive us of sin, that should help us to humble ourselves, so we're more willing to be patient and forgiving of others.

And it's not easy to admit mistakes. It can be even harder if we are letting ourselves be arrogant or filled with pride, or sometimes even if we're not in the wrong. Sometimes we say, I'm not being arrogant, I am right. And we have to sometimes force ourselves to say, well, maybe you're not. And even if you are, don't get a swallowed head about it. Be willing to admit, right or wrong isn't always the biggest thing.

And I make a note to talk to myself on this. Well, I remember when I was first ordained, a friend of mine that I've known for many years, pointed me to the story of King Saul. Because Saul, you know, he was a big imposing figure, but he did a pretty good job until he got kind of filled with himself.

And when God sent Samuel to him with a message, he says, when I first called you, you were little in your own eyes. But Saul stopped being a little in his own eyes. And I think that's a danger of serving in the ministry. And my friend was telling me that, because he wanted to remind me, try to stay little in your own eyes. And so, I want to tell myself, and I trust many of you, if it looks like I'm not doing that, you'll come to me and tell me. I've had good friends, you know, sometimes correct me on things like that.

But there's another aspect of humility. If you still have your Bible open there in Philippians 2 and 3, near the end of that, it says, Let each esteem others better than himself. That doesn't mean you consider yourself so worthless that everyone else is better. But look at others and hold them in high regard, including whoever just offended you. That's our humble attitude, holding people in high respect. If we do that, how many offenses will we avoid causing in the first place?

If I think of myself, you know, if I think to myself, everyone is my superior in some way or another. And, you know, it doesn't take long thinking to see that it is. Every one of you here has a superiority, some strength of character or experience that surpasses others in the room.

We can each find something that we're really good at. And when we deal with someone else, we have to realize he's better than me at something, better than me in some way. If I humble myself and properly respect others, it'll be easier to see those strengths and abilities. I'm pausing. I'm going to finish that point and go on to point six.

That is the 9... I don't do point sermons very often, but it's an easy way for people to know where you're at. The sixth point is to ask God for a true spirit of thankfulness. True spirit of thankfulness. This relates to the previous point, because as I said, when we're humble, we start to realize that many of the strengths we have and the benefits we have were given to us.

Things that we couldn't do on our own anyways. And of all people, those of us called into God's Church should perhaps be the most thankful. Now look at what we've been given. We've been given forgiveness from our sins, a reprieve from a death penalty. The wages of sin is death. We brought that on us, but God wants to give us the gift of eternal life.

How thankful must we be for that? And God has then given us a spiritual family that we have to surround us and go with us on this journey. Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 3.

The Apostle Paul was a very talented, very intelligent, very... I lost the word... A person that had many benefits and traits and strengths, and yet he was very thankful for others. And that's what I want to read this verse. 2 Thessalonians 1 and 3 says, We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren. Paul was saying, I'm so thankful for you. Because your faith grows exceedingly in the love of every one of you, all abounds towards one another. What a great thing... As I said, Paul wasn't saying, you should be thankful that I'm here to serve you. He was saying, I'm so thankful for you. And that's the point. It's tough to be offended when you're in a thankful attitude. The two just don't go together. And a person that's motivated by gratitude doesn't often cause offenses in others. We don't always appreciate each other as much as we should. But if you look around at your brethren and think about it, it's hard to find a group of people like this outside of God's Church. People you can trust, people they care for your welfare, they'll pray for you when you're sick, when you're in a trial, they'll invite you into their homes, share their food, they're willing to wash your feet on the Passover. Not only because God told us to, but you really want to do that. And there are people that will forgive you when you offend them. And I have seen that, and as I said, I haven't been in God's Church as long as many of you, but I've been long enough to see that that holds true. And it might take a little while, but God's people, they're the ones you want to be with when times get down and when times are tough. When we're really appreciating each other, those offenses tend to vanish away. And then, point seven. I'm rolling along here. It must be...well, I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I think I was talking to someone saying, Connor's come down with a fever in the last couple days, and that happens with toddlers. But sometimes when they get that way, it means they wake up in the middle of the night. So I've probably had more coffee than usual trying to get myself up and going this morning, because about three in the morning we were up taking care of him.

So, anyways, that has nothing to do with my seventh point, but just sort of how I might have got there as fast as I did. But point seven, and definitely the most important of them all, is to ask God for greater love of others. Ask God to give you the love of others. Love is important for a lot of things, but let's turn to John 16, the Gospel of John, verse 16.

Interesting how this is phrased, and once again I want to read the version from the King James, because New King James says to stumble, and being offended is stumbling emotionally, but I like using the term offend.

John 16, verse 1, he says, These things I've spoken to you that you should not be offended. He's talking to his disciples, and he says, I've told you these things so that you won't be offended.

Well, that begs the question, what things did he tell them? Well, he told them a lot of things that night, but let's back up to the previous chapter, chapter 15, and verse 9. We'll see some of what he told them. And he did focus on this theme a lot. 15, verse 9 says, Look at verse 12.

Okay, love. That's what he said. I've told you these things so that you won't be offended. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends.

He comes back to that theme again in verse 17. These things I command you, love one another. Christ was bringing up this important truth. If you truly love others, it'll be hard to be offended by them. Even though they'll do things that could be counted offensive. And once again, I think, well, on a human basis, it's hard to love anyone more than you do your children, especially when they're little and they haven't had a chance to go do some things that could really hurt your feelings. But I thought, if I loved all of you as much as I loved Connor, it would be hard to be offended by you. Now, I think of that because Connor does say some things. He's gotten a habit. Sue and I have noticed he likes each of us for different things. Like, lately, when he's been feeling kind of sick, he goes to Mommy, I want to sit in your lap. Well, you can sit on Daddy's lap. I want Mommy. But there's other times he wants me. He's done this to Sue. We send him to wash his hands before lunch. He said, can Daddy help me? And Sue's right there, ready to help him. And she said, aren't I good enough to help you wash your hands? I want Daddy. Now, you could take offense at that. But she loves him more than she loves me, I'm pretty sure. And that's okay. She's not offended. You know, it's growing. As I said, if we have the love of God in us for our brethren, we won't be easily offended. And as I said, if we had any doubts about how to love, Jesus makes it pretty clear. Obey his commandments. That's the way that we love. I'm going to just cite Psalm 119.165 because it's brief, but it's a very powerful phrase. Psalm 119.165 says, Great peace have they which love your law. Love and law go right together. It says, Nothing shall offend them. Loving God's law, meaning you're living it, it brings that peace, and you don't get offended. And the same love that helps us to not get offended goes a long way to helping us not cause offense. Let's also turn to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4 and verse 8.

Here we tie this love again and tie it into what could cause offense. It says, Above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins. I like that hopefully we're growing to be more like God so that about the only thing that does offend us would be sin. But that godly love, that agape, should make it so that we can forgive sin. Put them behind. When he says, Love covers a multitude of sins, doesn't mean covers them up, brushes them under the rug, but means willing to put them away. Say, Okay, I'm willing to forgive. Bury the hatchet, so to speak. Bury the sin. Earlier we read in Matthew 5.44 as we turn there. So I'll just read it again. I printed it in my notes. Where he said, I say, Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Remember, great love covers a multitude of sins. Do good to those that hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. If someone's doing that to you, it's easy to think you'd be offended. But we're called to something different. God called us for something better than just seeing those offenses. He wants us to love the same way he loves. And he's willing to cover our sins with Christ's blood. Now, it brings up the question, can we do this? Can we really? And the answer is, no. Not on our own we can't. We need the love of God that's given to us through His Holy Spirit to do it. And that's why, and once again, I'll give credit where it's due. As I said, Mr. Handley helped me with this sermon. Because I haven't spoken on the subject before and wanted to. But he said, don't make the point just to love others, but to ask God to help you love others. Ask God to help you to have that love for others. And then put it into action. And that brings us back to Romans 5 and verse 5, which I've also read, it seems, a lot of times lately. The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us to have that love in a way that we can't develop on our own.

Over the years, people have fallen away, left God's Church. And I'm not worried about the corporation, but people have left the way of life and stopped advancing in their spiritual journey. But often because they became divided, took offense at other Christians and wanted to separate themselves. And that offense is a common reason for people to give up on this way of life. Often, somebody in the Church, and way too often it was a minister, did something or said something that caused offense. And they used it as an excuse or a reason to leave. Many times the offense wasn't the real cause, but the effect of a deeper problem.

Often it was because, as Christ said in Matthew 24, 12, He says, Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will wax cold. If our love is starting to grow cold, then it's harder to overlook offenses.

But I think, can you imagine if one day you're standing before the throne of God and you say, Well, yeah, back in 2013, I stopped living this way. I stopped going to Church and I separated myself because so-and-so said something and I couldn't get past it. Can you imagine telling God something like that? And He would say, I called you into the Church, that person didn't, and you shouldn't leave because of them.

People in God's Church who have the love often have a selfless attitude and a serving attitude. And so they're willing to give of themselves in every way possible. Matthew 16, 25, let's turn there for one of our last scriptures.

Matthew 16, 25 points out what should be our attitude as far as showing that love that will help us not be divided and conquered. It says, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. So if you're only in it for yourself, you're going to lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And that doesn't refer to losing your life necessarily as in dying. It's easy, someone's about to be hit by a truck and you push them out of the way and you get hit instead. But more often it's losing your life a minute at a time, giving it up in service to others. And that service could be listening to someone when they want to open those lines of communication to help work out an offense. Or it could be serving in many other ways. But the substance of our life is the time that God gave us. And when we're laying down our life in acts of service, we find that we can take a lot of offense. Or we can let things pass by that might cause offense. Because we strive to see each other in the light of God's love. We're all one spiritual family. And on occasion we're going to do things that are offensive to each other. Or others will do things that are offensive to us. You know, offenses seem about everywhere. And Satan wants to use them to divide and conquer us so we can destroy us. You know, offense destroys friendships, marriages, families. It could destroy congregations. But we can avoid that if we draw on the instruction of God's Word and deal with offenses when they come. And to summarize those points, one of the first things, set up the lines of communication quickly. Do that realizing that you can't do it on your own. We have to have God's help. So ask Him for certain things. Ask God for wisdom and understanding. Ask Him for patience and the ability to forgive. For humility. Ask God to give us a spirit of thankfulness. And most of all, for God's love. God will give us that, and then we can fulfill Christ's words where He said, Blessed is He who shall not be offended because of me.

Prayer request. Yeah, Mr. Jimmy Kozlak was admitted yesterday for cancer surgery, and the surgery was successful. He's on his way to recovery, and in the UK hospital in Lexington, if all goes well, he should be ready home by next Friday. So that's terrific. So great. Let's continue to pray for Mr. Kozlak, though. Successful surgery is a good first stage, but we'll pray for God's continued healing.

We'll conclude services with another hymn, followed by the closing prayer by Mr. Tom Hoe.

Let's go to hymn number 19 in our books. hymn number 19.