Closing the Door of Offense. | Sunday Series. Open Doors. Part 13.

Join Pastor Brook as she talks about offense.  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning, good morning, everybody. How's everybody doing today? Can you believe that Thanksgiving's just about a week away? That's a little crazy, right? Uh uh man, this month has flown by, but I guess as it gets closer to the holidays, it'll just continue to fly by. So next week we are having our thankfulness service. Okay, so we will have a meal, we are gonna have an outreach. We um partnered with Surf 68 to give out um some meals, and so we're gonna give out some to those in need. We're also gonna invite those people to come join us. So please come join us, have a meal. Also, if you have something to be thankful for and would like to uh tell us about it, would like to give us a testimony, talk to me at the back after service. We have a couple people that might say things, so if you are interested in doing that, please let me know. Today we are ending our open door series, and it has been a really good one. How many of you have gotten something out of it?

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Yes, amen.

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So I want to close today talking about a common thing that trips us up, and then I want us to go ahead and close some doors. So before I begin, let's pray. Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for this series. I thank you for the word that you're about to give, Lord, and I ask, Lord, that you just help us all to hear the words that you're speaking to us, to help us understand and help us know what to do. And I thank you, Lord, that today we're gonna close some doors so the enemy can't get in. In the name of Jesus, amen. Has anyone seen Alice in Wonderland? Anyone? Anyone? It's the old cartoon or the or the movie? Cartoon? Movie? Both? Both? Okay, so Alice is on this crazy journey if you haven't seen it. And she keeps coming to all of these doors, which is kind of like our series, right? Some are tiny and some are huge. And she's constantly having to eat things and drink things to be able to shrink to get in through them or to grow to get in through the doors. Today I want to talk about the biggest door of all, a giant door that most of us struggle with, the giant door of offense. How many of you have ever opened the door of offense before?

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Right?

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Come on, be honest. You've got to raise your hands. If you didn't raise your hand, all of us, every single one of us, at some point in our lives have been offended. Right? Let's just be real, not just once, but many times. It's impossible to go through life and not ever get offended. And a good portion of our problems come out of that offense, that same door. Anger, hurt, bitterness, sadness, pain, depression. They may look different for each of us, but if you trace them back far enough, they all come from the strip the same root, which is offense. Jesus knew this, and he taught his disciples about offense. So let's turn to Luke 17. Let's start at the top, verse 1. Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. Now this is the um ESV. Um I want to read from the New King James as well, and it says, Then he said to the disciples, it is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they come. Jesus said, It's impossible for offenses that offenses don't come, right? Offenses will come. It's inevitable. It's not a maybe, it's not possible in your life. It's we will be offended at many points in our lives. And there's a common misconception with Christians that once we give our lives to Jesus, that it's going to be easy. But Jesus didn't say that. Matthew 10, verse 16. Look, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves, so be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves, but beware, for you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings, because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me. When you are arrested, don't worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking, it will be the spirit of your father speaking through you. A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed, and all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved. And I think we feel this more than ever because of the events that have happened recently, right? So just Jesus doesn't promise us an easy life. He's a warning us that offense and trouble will come. Peter actually repeats this warning in 1 Peter 4, verse 12. Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you're going to go through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad for these trials make you partner with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious spirit of the of God rests upon you. If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people's affairs. But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name. And Paul actually agreed with this too. In 2 Timothy 3 12, it says, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Why am I telling you this? Because all offenses are coming. They're inevitable. Let's go back to Luke 17, verse 1, and let's look at the amplified this time. Jesus said to his disciples, stumbling blocks, temptation and traps set to lure one to sin are sure to come, but woe, judgment is coming to him through whom they come. The word Jesus uses in this passage, which we see translated in different ways here as offense, as stumbling block, as temptation. The word actually is scandalon in the Greek, which means an occasion to fall, a stumbling block, something that offends. And what it is is it's actually a bait, a trap, or a snare to catch animals. It's the actual mechanism that closes a trap down on the unsuspecting victims. So it's an offense, figuratively, putting a negative cause and effect into motion. It's the means though which we stumble. And it stresses the method of entrapment. How someone is often caught by their own devices, which is exactly what offense is Satan's bait. It's the cheese on the mousetrap that looks pretty good because you're hungry and you deserve that cheese. What was done to you was wrong. You're owed that cheese. In fact, that cheese has your name on it. The enemy uses our offenses, whether they are legitimate or not. All we have to do is feel it. He uses our offense to push us into bitterness, unforgiveness, division. It starts with offense, but it always leads to more. It starts small, but it doesn't ever stay small. Offense is the devil's favorite tool, and most of us don't even know that we've picked it up. Jesus says that it's impossible that no offenses come. So in life, there will be traps, there will be offenses, there will be stumbling blocks. So for a moment, let's examine why people get offended. People don't wake up and decide, hey, it's Monday, I'm gonna be offended today. Well, I mean, at least I hope they don't, right? So, how do offenses come about? If we're gonna shut the door of offense, we've got to understand why we get offended in the first place. There's a reason, there's a root, there's something going on deeper inside of us. And offense is a reaction to someone. There is always a person and an action involved. Offense happens when a person's actions do not meet our expectations. When someone doesn't treat us the way we think we should be treated, when we feel overlooked or unappreciated or disrespected, and we think, after all I've done, they couldn't even say thank you. I thought they were my friend. People fail. People forget, people get it wrong. And yes, sometimes people really do hurt you on purpose because they're messed up. Your feelings might be completely valid. But listen to me, offense is always about what someone did to me or to mine, right? And when you start living in the me place and you're thinking about me, me, me, you're building your own prison. The offense itself won't destroy you. It's when you feed on it, it's when you replay it, it's when you rehearse it, it's when you nurture that hurt. It's personal, right? It's personal for us. The bait, the offense itself is not deadly, but it's when we take it and we eat it and we feed on it some more and we stew on it some more, like we've talked about Cain a lot, right? What did he do? He he stewed on that. God approved his brother's sacrifice and not his. God did not accept his sacrifice. That's the meat. And his brother's sacrifice was better in God's eyes. So Cain got offended, right? And that led to hurt, and he stewed on it some more, and that led to anger, and he stood on it some more, and that led to bitterness and jealousy with his brother. Cain picked up the enemy's bait, he fed on it. God tried to warn him. Brothers, sisters, families. There's a lot of offense in families, right? Relationship plays a significant role in the intensity of an offense. I'm gonna say that again. Relationship plays a significant role in the intensity of an offense. It's why your husband's opinion is more important than the three other people who have said the same thing. It's why it hurts when your sister does it to you, even when everybody else is doing it. Joseph's family was huge, and there was a lot of offense. Joseph also had a big mouth and was his father's favorite, which got him into trouble. But let's look at Joseph's family real quick. Genesis 37, verse 3. Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children, because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph, a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn't say a kind word to him. One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. Listen to this dream, he said. We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine. His brothers responded, So you think you will be king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us? And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them. So first, Joseph offended his brothers quite often, right? He was his father's favorite. He his dad bought him a fancy coat, but didn't buy them one. Joseph had a true dream and they all bowed down. Honestly, Joseph's brothers' feelings are pretty legitimate at this point. And many of our fence uh our offenses are legitimate, right? The brothers have the right to feel angry, they have the right to feel hurt, and it looks like favoritism to me, right? Like we talked about emotions in our emotion series. Our emotions are warning lights of a deeper problem. So at some point in life, someone is not going to like us. At some point in life, life's gonna be unfair. There will be a person that gets promoted over us, a bad person will hurt us. The offense, the emotion, the pain, the anger in itself is not bad. It could even be deserved. However, it's what we do with and how we respond to the offense that is the problem. Do you know what Joseph's brother did with the offense? They nursed it, they talked about it, they stewed on it, they planned, and just like God warned Cain, the brothers needed to master it, or it was going to master them. It was only a matter of time. Sin is literally knocking on their door, waiting for them to answer the door. So let's see what they did. Genesis 37, let's jump down to verse 18. Joseph's brothers become jealous and angry and frustrated, and they open the door. Verse 18. When Joseph's brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. Here comes the dreamer, they said. Come on, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father a wild animal has eaten him. Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams. Well, I pretty that's pretty much the exact replay of how Cain killed Abel. Or that's how what's what it looks like right now. However, there was one brother who heard God's warning. Sure he was offended, but he didn't take the bait. Verse 21. But when Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue. Let's not kill him, he said. Why should we shed any blood? Let's just throw him into this empty cistern here in the wilderness. Then he'll die without us laying a hand on him. Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father. So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off his beautiful robe he was wearing, then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty, there was no water in it. Then just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming towards them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain by killing our brother? We'd have to cover up the crime. It looks like Judah didn't want to kill his brother either. Let's keep reading. Genesis 37 26. Judah said to his brothers, What will we gain by killing our brother? We have to cover up the crime. Instead of hurting him, let's sell him to the Ishmaelite traitors. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood. And his brothers agreed. So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph's brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold them, sold him to them for twenty pieces of silver, and the traitors took him to Egypt. So, fifteen hundred years before Jesus, Joseph's brothers sold him to slavery for twenty pieces of silver. Jesus would be sold for thirty pieces of silver for the price of a slave. Inflation, right? Selling Joseph into slavery wasn't a good thing. Wasn't a good thing to do to somebody, much less a brother. It's a horrible thing. However, you must admit that it was better than their original plan of killing him. Okay. Reuben shows up and he's distraught that he didn't rescue Joseph in time. Verse 29. Sometime later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern. When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief. Then he went back to his brothers and lamented. The boy is gone. What will I do now? Then the brothers killed a young goat and dipped Joseph's robe in its blood. They sent the beautiful robe to their father with the message Look at what we found. Doesn't this robe belong to your son? Their father recognized it immediately. Yes, he said, It is my son's robe. A wild animal must have eaten him. Joseph has clearly been torn to pieces. Then Jacob tore his clothes and dressed himself in burlap. He mourned deeply for his son for a long time. His family all tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. I will go to my grave mourning for my son, he would say, and then he would weep. So Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers. And I'm just going to tell you most often the closer the relationship, the stronger the offense. Okay? And it hurts. David actually puts it so eloquently, Psalm 55, 12 It is not an enemy who taunts me. I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me. I could have hidden from them. Instead, it is you, my equal, my companion and close friend. What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walk together to the house of God. Most often it is the people who are closest to us that hurt us the most. Those we grow up with, those who are supposed to take care of us, those who make promises, who give us advice, who know us best. However, we cannot take the bait. We cannot let offense the things that have been done to us unfairly poison us. We can't allow them to sink into our heart and take root. Paul warned Timothy, 2 Timothy Timothy 3, um, verse 1. You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very, very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving, they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good, they will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that. John Bever says it like this offense is a tool of the enemy that the devil uses to bring us into captivity. And I'm going to rephrase it into the language of the series. Offense is a door the enemy walks through, and the rope that he binds us with. If you back up a few verses in 2 Timothy to chapter 2, Paul walks it out for us. Verse 23. Again I say, don't get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only starts fighting fights. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil's traps, for they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants. When we quarrel, we become locked in offense. And once we are locked in, we are held captive to do the enemy's will. Proverbs 18 19 says, A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city. And quarreling is like the bars of a castle. That's because an offense is a stronghold. And most of the time, when it comes to offense, our enemy doesn't even have to do much. We take the reins from him and start building the walls ourselves. We'll take that load of anger, maybe two loads of hurt, maybe a brick of shame. Don't forget the dash of bitterness. We become in introspective, we become inward focused. We aren't focusing on God or other people. We're only focusing on ourselves and what was done to us. Ephesians 4, verse 17 says, With the Lord's authority I say this live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of are full of darkness. They wander far from life, God gives, because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against them. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. But that isn't what you learned about Christ. Since you've learned about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. Stop telling lies. And don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives the devil a foothold. Holding on to offense gives the enemy a foothold. There are people in this world, and all of us have met them, that are living and abiding and wallowing in offense and have been for 50 years. There are brothers and sisters in Christ, and they never move on to what God has for them, their call and their purpose. They let the offense of what has been done to them take them out of the game. They don't live the abundant life God has promised them here on earth because they can't let go of the offense. Their hearts begin to harden, they cut themselves off from community, they live in fear. When offense roots in our heart, we begin to see it sprout in our lives through. Things like unforgiveness and bitterness and hurt, a hardened heart, anger, frustration, depression. And we see the weeds, and but we can't just keep mowing over them. The shoots keep sprouting up. We tr we keep trying to make the yard look nice, doing anything to get rid of the weeds, which keep coming back over and over and over. So we have to look to the root. And once we recognize the root of offense in our lives, I know it's painful, but we have to choose to rip it out and we have to choose to shut the door. Offense isn't just about what they did to me, it's about what's going on in me. So how do we tear out the root of offense? Number one, we find the root. So let's talk about things that cause offense. Things that cause offense. Unmet expectations. I watched a lot of rom-coms growing up. So when I started dating and got married, I expected certain things. A good portion of our disappointments in life come from unmet expectations. Did I explain my expectations to chance? Nope. Why not? Because that's just what guys do when they like a girl, right? No. Life is not a fairy tale. It is impossible for a person to meet all of our expectations. Especially when we don't tell the person what they are supposed to be doing. We expect people to act a certain way. Ways we've seen modeled to us. Family must look like this. Chores need to be done this way. Priority should be this. And when people and things and actions and situations don't meet our standards and aren't done the ways we expect things to be done, we get offended. We become upset. We get angry. We deserve to be treated a certain way. We should be valued. I want you to understand that when I say the word offense, I'm not talking about shallow surface level offenses. Like the lady in the school pickup line who told you you look really sick today when you thought you looked dope. All of us have those kind of offenses daily, right? On a regular basis. It's life, and we have to learn how to get over the shallow things. We learn too. And we should try to never make the minor offenses into major ones. Okay? Proverbs 19:11 says, Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. I'm talking about real offense. The kind that hurts, the kind that settles deep in your soul. Maybe the person who was supposed to take care of you couldn't be the person they were supposed to be. Your mom or your dad couldn't be a real parent. Or your spouse couldn't meet a real, legitimate expectation like being faithful. All of us have expectations for people we are in relationship with. Maybe you can't meet your own expectations. You messed up, you sinned, you let someone down, so you become internal. You withdraw, you feel guilt, and you feel shame, or maybe even depression. And sometimes we even feel this way about God. We have all these expectations for God. He should do things a certain way. And when he doesn't, or when we go through a hard time, guess what? We get angry, we get offended at God. God's timing is not our timing, and his ways are not our ways. And many times we won't understand what he's doing. He often answers our prayers differently than what we want. All of these things are offense with us, with others, with God. We all have these incredible standards that we set that will be broken. Because we're all fallen creatures. We mess up, people fail, we even fail ourselves. God doesn't fail, but our limited human understanding of His does. Offense happens, and even if we deal with all of our offenses here today, we laid them all out and we said, I'm done with offense. More will come tomorrow. So we have to know how to deal with them. In this life, Jesus says they're inevitable. So what do we do when people don't meet our expectations? What do we do when these people fail? Because they will, and when they do, it will hurt. Abel was murdered by his brother. Hannah was accused of being drunk when she was crying out to God. Noah became drunk and was mocked by his sons. Jacob stole his brother's blessing. Esau tried to kill his brother for it. Jesus was betrayed, deserted, and crucified. There is a lot of drama. There is a lot of offense. There is a lot of hurt and a lot of betrayal in this life. So how do we tear out the root of offense? Number one, we find the root. Number two, we feel the emotion. When we have unmet expectations, it's okay to grieve. And it's okay to be angry, and it's okay to feel our feelings. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 1 says, There's a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to root, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, and a time to weep, a time and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, and a time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. So there is a time to mourn. There is a time to grieve, there's a time to feel hurt, but then we have to move on. We have to heal, we have to build, we have to laugh, we have to mend, we have to dance. We take time to feel the emotion, a time we can't wallow in it forever, we can't stay in that moment forever, we have to move on, and we also need to realize that sometimes our unmet expectations are not realistic. So things that cause offense unmet expectations and unrealistic expectations. So we are at fault when we expect unrealistic expectations. Let me give you another example. My stepdad filled up my mom's gas tank for her for 30 years. She never put gas in her own car, or very rarely. He always kept it full. Always took care of that for her. So I grew up in that household, right? This could have been what I expected a husband to look like. I could have expected Chance to do this for me. I didn't, but I could have. Would it have been fair for me to expect chance on day one or day 50 to fill up my gas tank without ever saying anything, without him even knowing about it? No. Most of the expectations we have for people are never spoken aloud. We have these expectations for them, and we never even tell them what they are. We assume that they already know what we want, what we expect them to be. After several days with these unmet expectations, or months or years, I could begin to think that Chance doesn't love me because he doesn't take care of me in that way. I could be hurt, I could be angry, I deserve to be treated well, right? It could be the same for Chance. When Chance's dad came home from work, the house was clean, dinner was made, the kids were quiet, dad was greeted at the door with a kiss. Our marriage and our life did not look like this because I wasn't a stay-at-home mom, right? I worked a full-time job and our kids were in sports and activities, and most of the time I wasn't even home myself until 9 o'clock at night. There was no possible way I could meet that expectation of looking like what he had when he grew up. He could have taken offense at me and gotten mad at me because I didn't treat him like the husband he should be treated like. Did chance deserve a clean house and dinner made and a peaceful night and a happy wife? Sure he did. Right? Could I give all that to him? No. At that point in our lives, I could not meet his expectations. Sometimes it's us. Our expectations are too much. We expect everything to be perfect, and life just doesn't play out that way. And sometimes it happens to us, but either way, the way we deal with the offense is the same. We feel the feelings for a moment, but we don't allow it to lead us into sin. It's also important to understand that we need to recognize, communicate, and bring to reality our expectations. How do we tear out the root of offense? Number one, we find the root. Number two, we find we feel the emotion. Number three, we take our focus off of ourselves and place it upon Jesus. Philippians 3, verse 12. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So this is the most important step. We cannot remove the root of offense without taking the focus off of ourselves and what was done to us and placing our focus upon Jesus. All of all other steps are contingent upon this step. Hebrews 12, verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which cling so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Our expectations should not be found in people. Our expectation should only be found in Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. It's not about us. It's not about what the person can do for us or how well they can treat us. Isaiah 49, 23, those who hope in me will never be disappointed. So let me phrase it this way: everyone will be disappointed when your hope is placed in people and not the Lord. This is the process that we're doing right now in this step that is called renewing our minds, taking our focus off of ourselves, placing it on Him. We are syncing ourselves up with Him and lining them up with His Word and His will for our life. It's about His truth. Romans 12, verse 1. And do not be conformed to this world any longer with its superficial values and customs, but be transformed and progressively changed as you mature spiritually by the renewing of your mind, focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes, so that you may prove for yourself what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect in His plan and purpose for you. Does this mean that we don't trust people that we cut ourselves off? No. It just means that we or they are no longer the objects of our focus. We focus on God. It's not about us anymore and what they can do for us, but becomes about what we can do for them. We need to have a healthy understanding of people. And Jesus tells us how we are supposed to approach others. Matthew 5, verse 43. You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor, fellow man, and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love, that is unselfishly seek the best or higher good for your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may show yourselves to be the children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes the sun rise on those who are evil and on those who are good, and makes the rain fall on the righteous, those who are morally upright, and the unrighteous, the unrepentant, those who oppose him. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brothers, wishing them God's blessing and peace, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles who do not know the Lord do that? You therefore will be perfect, growing into spiritual maturity, both in mind and character, actively integrating godly values into your daily life as your heavenly Father is perfect. We are supposed to love them even when they don't meet our expectations. We shift our focus off of ourselves and place it on Jesus. We let Him lead us through the offense. We ask Him to help us view them, we ask Him to help us love them. Love is patient, love is kind, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking. We can only love these people in this way through Him. He has to help us. His Holy Spirit is inside of us for this exact reason, but we still have to line our minds up with Him regularly. Our default mindset is not on God. Our default mindset is on ourselves. So we renew our mind by spending time in prayer and the word daily. Um let's go back to Luke 17 verse 1. Um Jesus is teaching his disciples about offenses. Jesus said to his disciples, Stumbling blocks, temptations, and traps set to lure one to sin are sure to come. The woe, judgment is coming to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone, as large as one turned by a donkey, were hung around his neck and he were hurled into the sea, than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble in and lose faith. Pay attention and always be on guard, looking out for one another. If your brother sins and disregards God's precepts, solemnly warn him. And if he repents and changes, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times and says, I repent, he must forgive him. That is, give up resentment and consider the offense recalled and annulled. Jesus says, If your brother comes to you and repents and changes, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times a day, you gotta forgive him. So how do we tear out the root of offense? We find the root, we feel the emotion, we take the focus off of ourselves and place it upon Jesus, and we forgive. Number four, we forgive. There is a forgiveness process, and I want to talk about it for a moment. Unforgiveness is probably the most common stronghold that the enemy chains us up with. If I could sum up the entire Bible with one word, it would be forgiveness. Forgiveness is the story of the Bible. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he said this Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Jesus came and died for our sins against him. He offers us forgiveness for free. It's a gift. We did nothing to earn it. All we have to do is receive it. How can Jesus forgive our sins when we can't forgive others for their sins against us? For forgiveness to be given, forgiveness is required. Forgiveness keeps us in fellowship with God. When you refuse to forgive, it builds a wall between you and Him. You must forgive so that you can be forgiven. The first step to healing is the willingness to identify those people who have hurt you so that you can forgive them, so that God can deal with them. Forgiveness doesn't mean that what they did was okay. It doesn't mean that they're off the hook. It just means you're saying, God, I'm giving this debt to you. They owe me, but I'm turning it over to my Father, and you handle it. You're saying, Lord, I'm laying down my right to get even, to seek revenge, to make them pay, because you trust that God is a righteous judge, and He will handle it in His way and His time. Forgiveness isn't a feeling, it is a decision. Romans 12, verse 17. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head, not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. We have to trust God with our problems, which means we have to trust him with forgiveness. We have to forgive them and let him take that problem from us. We have to let him handle the situations. We are simply asking God to take care of it for us. Here you go, God. Letting go and letting God. Right? That's what that's supposed to mean. Peter asked Jesus, How much must I forgive my brother? And Matthew 18, verse 21 says, Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I have to forgive him? As many as seven times, and Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. Jesus said, Your forgiveness should be unlimited. Every time he asked for forgiveness, you should give it. So and he actually doesn't leave us there. He actually continues and tells us a story. Let's just continue. Okay, therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. And out of pity for him the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him he began to choke him, saying, Pay what you owe me. So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me, and I will pay you. He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgive you all the all that debt because you pleaded with me, and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all his debt. So also my father, my heavenly father, will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. How can we expect to be forgiven by God for this huge debt of sin if we won't forget forgive someone whose debt is considerably less? Again, forgiveness is not a feeling, it is a choice. And now I'm going to flip the coin for a second. And since we're talking about forgiveness and offense, I want to say what happens when we cause the offense. Even if it's unintentional, right? Matthew 5, verse 24, verse 21. You have heard that it was said to the men of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be guilty before the court. But I say to you that everyone he Continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice against him, shall be guilty before the court. And whoever speaks contemptuously and insulting to his brother, Raqqa, you empty-headed idiot, shall be guilty before the Supreme Court, and whoever says you fool shall be in danger of fiery hell. So if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and while there you remember that your brother has something, such as a grievance or legitimate complaint against you, leave your offering there at the altar and go. First make peace with your brother, and then come and present your offering. There are things that cause offense that you can't apologize for. You can't apologize for speaking the truth in love. God's truth is going to offend. You can't apologize for following Jesus or standing firm in your faith. You can't apologize for doing what is right or for following God's word. You can't. I have a person in my life that hates me. The only way this person would ever be happy is if I didn't exist. Which I don't think would even really make them happy. But the problem's not with me. They would just find someone else to hate. In order to make this person happy, I would have I would have to apologize for being me. Like I would have to apologize for existing. We apologize when we do wrong. We don't apologize for doing right. We apologize for the role we played in the conflict when we have done wrong. And if you unintentionally hurt some someone's feelings, we apologize. I'm sorry you feel that way, right? We can't apologize for who God has made us to be. Again, forgiveness doesn't let the other person off the hook. It doesn't mean we go put ourselves back into that bad situation. Forgiveness doesn't validate what was done to us. And it and it definitely doesn't give them per permission to do it again. Forgiveness makes us right with God and it allows us to begin the healing process. Many people confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. Forgiveness cancels the debt and makes peace, peace within yourself and with God. There's a peace there. Reconciliation is about healing the relationship. To forgive, reconciliation is not required. Reconciliation heals the relationship and gives the person access back into your life. Access has to be earned. A relationship is built on mutual effort and trust on both sides. Rebuilding trust is a process. The other person must want to mend the relationship and is required to do their part. They must understand your pain and validate it as real. There must be consistent change and consistent effort in order to reconcile with somebody. They must be repentant and have that genuine desire to want to make things right. There must be accountability and an effort to repair the relationship. Forgiveness does not mean you forget. One of the most commonly repeated sayings in Christianity is that you forgive and you forget. Jesus tells us how to handle our offenses within the family. Matthew 18, verse 15. If he listens and pays attention to you, you have won back your brother. But if he does not listen, take along with you one or two others, so that every word may be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he pays no attention to them, refusing to listen and obey, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile unbeliever and a tax collector. Often we enable bad behavior and call it love. We call it forgiveness. We can't tolerate destructive behaviors, especially when their actions violate God's word. When they call themselves Christians, love comes from God and must follow His definition. A lot of people allow continual abuse to happen and they call it family. We have to call out sin and follow the process that God gives us. Jesus set it out for us. If someone were to come to us for advice, any of us, we would probably tell them this process. But for some reason, we won't follow this process with our own families. We cannot build trust that keeps getting broken. A relationship gets built. And we must recognize that God's commands to love and to forgive clashes with the realities of what we do. We cover things up and we allow things that our families do to that dishonor God. That's not God's love, and that's not for that's not what forgiveness looks like. We cannot allow sin. We don't harbor it, we don't protect it, we don't celebrate it. We confront it in our brothers and sisters. James 5 19. My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, consider this whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins. If they are a brother or a sister, a Christian, and they don't listen, then we set boundaries. Okay? And even if they do listen, you can set boundaries. So, how to tear out the root of offense? Number one, find the root. Number two, feel the emotion. Number three, take our focus off of ourselves and place it upon Jesus. Number four, forgive. Number five, set boundaries. The healthy cannot be bound with the sick. This is why the Bible says, do not be an equally yoked. We often allow the sickest person in the room to set the tone of our family get-togethers. All relationships can be difficult at times, but they cross the line when they become destructive to our well-being. It's not unchristian to require people to treat you in healthy ways. Jesus, in fact, just told us how to do it. If someone sins against you, you tell them. If they don't listen and change, you tell them again with witnesses. If they still don't change, if they do it again, you take them before the church. If they're still doing that same thing, if they're still sinning after all of this, if they're still abusing you, you treat them like a tax collector and you have nothing to do with them. Those are our boundaries that we put in place. Set your boundaries. Forgiveness is required, but relationship requires responsibility and mutual trust on both sides. Both parties need to mutually be working on the relationship together. A relationship is not one-sided. And I want to talk about access for a moment. We can love people, we can forgive people. We don't have to give them access or a relationship. Those things are earned. Let me give you an example. All of us have houses, cars, bank accounts, email addresses, social media accounts, and we protect those things with passwords. We protect them for a reason. And it's not against God's word if I don't give you access to my things. I love you guys, but I'm not giving you access to my bank account, right? There's only a few of you that I would even give a key to my house. When we give someone a key to our house, it's because we trust that they understand how to be responsible with what they are given. If there's any indication that they won't be responsible with that access, we should restrict it. We won't don't give them the key. Many of us aren't wise with guarding our hearts. We allow everyone to have full access to it. Do you actually know that it is command to guard our hearts? Proverbs 423. Above all else, guard your hearts, for everything you do flows from it. You've probably heard this in regards to dating and relationships, but it's true in all relationships. The word here to guard is an active word to guard something, not passively. We don't guard our hearts and protect it from love. We protect it so that we are able to love. If we're constantly letting our hearts be trounced upon and allowing everyone to hurt it, we will be consumed with pain and chaos and not be able to love like Jesus requires. This is how people become become carriers of hurt and not conduits of God's love. Hurt people, hurt people. They've let too many people in. They haven't set the boundaries that they should, they haven't torn out the things that they should. Love can be unconditional, but relational, but relational access never should. God loves us, but he actually sets boundaries. Sin separates us from him. God has boundaries. Now, iniquity is a different type of sin. It points to a motivation and not an action. It's not just what the person does, but it is the action behind it. Both sin and iniquity have consequences and change the access we have to God. But iniquities are more. Iniquities are patterns of hurtful and harmful behavior. A hurtful statement and action can be called a mistake. I snapped at you because I was frustrated about something else when I shouldn't have. Okay, so that's a mistake. But a repeated pattern of hurtful statements or uncaring attitudes or even unjust expectations is much more than a mistake. These patterns are misuses of the purpose of a relationship. Unchecked misuse of a relationship can quickly turn into abuse. God uses boundaries to guard access. When the temple was constructed, God only gave one man level one security clearance. Because the high priest was the only person that could maintain the higher highest standards of purity and responsibility to be able to enter into the Holy of Holies. If another person violated those boundaries, they would have been killed. When Jesus came to make atonement for our sins, we were forgiven and were given a free gift. But we are also required to forgive. God offers all people love, but not all people will live in eternity with Him. Why? Because that sin separates us from God. So if we never repent of our sins and accept the new heart he gives us, if we don't make the choice to follow God, there's a boundary in place. And that boundary is eternal separation from God. Iniquity causes separation with people as well. Like God, we must require responsibility from the people we are in relationship with. I know people don't like responsibility these days, but in order to be in a relationship with you of any sort, you should require responsibility. You deserve more than that. In order to grant them access to your lives, you should require responsibility. Too much access without the correct responsibility is detrimental. And let me say that again. Access without responsibility is detrimental to a relationship and detrimental to you. Do you require people to be responsible with the access that you've granted them? You should. You are valuable. You are valuable to God as a child, and access to your life should require responsibility. Do you have the appropriate consequences in place for people who violate your boundaries? I want you to understand that a lot of times we are giving level 10 access to people who are capable of only level three responsibility. And that's the real source of the problem. You might not ever get that other person to increase their level of responsibility. They'll never be at a 10. So you giving them access, level 10 access, when they can't have level 10 responsibility, you're hurting yourself. You might have to meet them where you're at, and you might have to recognize and realize they might not ever be there, they might not ever get there. And this is this is as far as that relationship can go with them. This is my boundary. They might not ever grow. Level three responsibility only gets level three access. This is a boundary. You reduce the amount of access to what the person is capable of. And if they grow someday, then okay, then you can increase it. People who are irresponsible with our hearts should not be granted full access or full reign of our hearts. And this is the same for all access. Today I want to give you the opportunity just to lay down your offenses. Okay. Um, everyone, I just want you to close your eyes and bow your heads for a moment. If you say today that offense is something I deal with, and I need to lay it down today, I want you to be bold. I want you to stand up. So if you say that offense is something that I deal with, it can be a specific offense or it can be offense in general. I at some point in my life, I am I deal with offense and I need to lay it down today. I want you to be bold and go ahead and stand up. Everybody's eyes closed, no one looking around. Now, next, if any of you have unforgiveness in your hearts for someone, maybe it's an offense, someone who has hurt you, someone who has wronged you, anger, pain, you had different expectations. Maybe you're harboring unforgiveness for yourself. Maybe you're harboring unforgiveness for God. If that's you today as well, I want you to stand up. All who are standing, I want you to raise your hands. If you have offense, anger, bitterness, hurt, pain, unforgiveness in your heart, this is your time right now. It's a time to forgive and give it all to God right here and right now. And you're saying, I trust you, Lord. Here is the debt that they owe me. I lay that down to you. I trust you to take care of it. I lay it down. So you right now, today, you are choosing to step onto the path of healing. Let us pray. Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for each and every person today that's standing. I thank you for each and every person that has their hands raised. I thank you, Lord, that we are not going to be a people of offense, Lord, that we lay those offenses down. Maybe it's someone that's hurt us, Lord. Maybe it's um ourselves, Father, or maybe it's you, Lord, and we just lay those offenses down. We we say that those people no longer owe a debt to us, Lord. That that you're we know and by faith know that you are going to take care of the situation for us. And we give that to you, and we step on the path of healing today. We forgive them in the name of Jesus, and we just thank you, Lord, for this wonderful day. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated.