Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Sticks and Stones...The Sin of Being Offended


When I was growing up, several times a day our class in school would have recess. We would line up and go to the playground and then run like the wind to participate in all kind of activities. Lots of lessons were learned there. My favorite was when I was defending my championship status on the tether ball court. I was not that athletic, I was just taller than all the other kids in my grade so tether ball was my game. In tether ball, there is a distinct winner and a distinct loser in each game. That was the fun of the game…the challenge. We knew that at the start so when I or my opponent lost, we would say something like, “Well, you just wait until tomorrow,” and then go happily back into class. No one got their feelings hurt because they lost…it was just the way it was. My first lesson was that in life there will be those who win and those who lose but we continue to try. Another lesson was: be careful how you get off the teeter-totter! That was the good part of the playground.
But there was also another lesson:  Not everyone on the playground likes me or wants to play with me. I had my share of people who would say unkind things about me. Things like, “How is the weather up there?” Or kids whispering behind my back, “There goes horse face, Mr. Ed!”. Did it hurt? A little, yes but when I got home and told my parents, my mom would generally say, “Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me!”
We know that this is not true for words do hurt us. Deep wounds from abusive people fester in a person’s life because of the negativity constantly spoken. I understand that as I had to struggle through many things said to me from my own mother. Words hurt but there is a different air today. The world has become overly sensitive. The word “offensive” is rampant and I find that we are afraid to say anything for fear of being offensive to someone.
I want to make a distinction in what I am going to be talking about. There is a big difference between verbal abuse and being offended. Abuse is treating a person with cruelty or violence regularly or repeatedly or treat in such a way as to cause damage or harm. Abuse is the constant belittling of someone until they believe what the other person says.  I will not be dealing with that nor do I want you to think it is the same thing.
On the other hand, being offended is getting our feelings hurt because someone doesn’t agree with everything we have said or believe. I do not want you to I think I think it is fine for people to intentionally hurt people with their words. I do not, but I do think we are hyper-sensitive in today’s world and I find that to be one of the tactics the enemy is using to divide us…especially in the church.
           
Matthew 24:10 says:

  • KJVIn the last days... then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
  • CSB Then many will fall away, betray one another, and hate one another.
  • HCSB Then many will take offense, betray one another and hate one another
  • ASVAnd then shall many stumble, and shall deliver up one another, and shall hate one another.

Luke 17:1 “He said to his disciples, “offenses will certainly come but woe to the one through whom they come!”

Wow, I hope you see that in the last days, offenses will come and many will: stumble, fall away.  In this verse, the word “offenses” is the word skandalon means according to Vines Expository Dictionary, “Laying a trap in someone’s way!”
Add that definition to Matthew 24’s word for falling away or being offended, the trap is being set by our enemy to cause us to stumble and no longer be the face of Jesus to the world. 
What Jesus is saying in these two verses to His disciples simply put is, "If you take the enemy’s bait and become offended by what is being told to you, you will betray one another and hate one another."
There are two lessons we can learn from this. First, in the world are people want to live the way they want to live and if the Word of God is spoken to the contrary, the person reacts by feeling offended. They then call the person who spoke the words a bigot, or other such name.  Hate grows between the two and eventually there is a falling away from the truth. Congregations are divided because instead of speaking truth from the word of God, we live in fear of hurting someone’s feelings. We then begin to accept anything that in our minds is good. That is the trap! Jesus said he "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matt. 10:34 The sword is the Word of God which will offend many.
Because God’s Word is offensive to our own sense of right and wrong, many churches are falling away and stumbling and hatred is spewing from our mouths. This is the problem with taking the bait the enemy puts before us. If we know the truth and stand by the truth, we are not offended by the truth but are comforted by it. satan seems to be winning the war of truth in our world by using the bait of offense.  We cannot allow this to keep going.  It is time for us as a people of God to stand strong on the truth, no matter if it hurts someone’s feelings.

Secondly, while that is the bait of denying truth, the principle of this “bait of offense” can also be applied to “getting our feelings hurt.” Does this sound familiar?  Years ago, someone said something to someone and that someone told someone else and that someone else told someone else and before we knew it, we were all up in arms taking sides and those sides are still in effect but no one remembers why. It is worse than the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. It is bait on a trap and when we take the bait, it soon consumes us; we get our feelings hurt and somebody must pay. And pay we have. Long time relationships are destroyed because of this. Sometimes whole congregations are affected.
This is a very dangerous bait. Think about the 4 stomachs of a cow!  When a cow takes some grass or grain into their mouth, they chew on it for a while.  Then they swallow it.  Later on, they bring it back up and chew on it some more and swallow it.  Bring it up two more times and by then every nutrient in that food has completely been assimilated into the body of the cow. It is the same way with the bait of satan. He puts the bait of offense on a trap on the very places we are walking. If we don’t watch it, we will be fall and stumble. We begin to chew on it for a while, then swallow it…only to bring it up again and again until that offense has consumed every part of our life.

Now, I am going to meddle.  When was the last time you got your feelings hurt by someone? How did you react to it? When you see or think about that person do you still have unforgiveness in your heart? Has unforgiveness turns in to anger and that anger turns to bitterness? You see the trap?  The enemy knows exactly how to work us up into a frenzy. Unless we do something to intentionally keep ourselves from stumbling, we will find ourselves falling away and hating others.

So, let’s take a little test to see if you have fallen:

  • The Spiritual Pride of denial. We deny that we have been hurt, so instead of dealing with it, we repress it. We pretend everything is alright because we don’t want people to think badly of us. The problem is, we are not very good actors and it comes out in many different ways…passive aggressive ways of hurting that other person.  A public shunning of that person.  Discomfort when we have to be with that person. So, how’s that working for you? There is a constant walking on eggshells around you.  People begin to avoid you because you are about to blow at any moment!
  • The Victim scenario. You feel justified for feeling the way you do. People tell you, “You have a right to be angry!” and you believe them. You become a victim and desire to have people surround you and agree with you…you begin to gather troops together to attack the other person. You begin to share how unfair things are with everyone around. You often destroy someone’s reputation because of your anger toward that person.
  • Internalizing. When you think of certain people you become angry and bitter. The offense is never far from your mind. It is as if the offense just happened even if it has been several years ago.
  • Social avoidance. You have stopped doing things or going places you love because that “someone” might be there.
  • I can’t help it. You use the excuse that “you are only human” to not deal with your situation.
  • Taking sides syndrome. You cannot be friends with someone because they are friends with the person who hurt you.
  • Final falling away. You cannot seem to have a consistently positive relationship with God. Reading the Bible is a chore… You then become offended with the Word of God because of things like: “forgive your brother” Love your enemy.  You argue with God that He just doesn’t understand what that person did to you. That is the final falling away…the disobedience of doing what God says to do.

Jesus knew this was going to happen and so He warned us in the scriptures to avoid it. The solution is to forgive! Do not hold anything against another.  This very thing of offense is causing us to stumble and it is destroying the very body of Christ. The world takes offense at everything but we in the church ought to be different.  Listen to what James says:

James 4:1-7 
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us ?  But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
    but shows favor to the humble.”
 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [Quit taking the bait!]

So, what can we do if we find we are taking the bait of satan?

  • Stand always for the truth of God uncompromisingly.  Don’t allow it to offend you because it offends those who don’t believe it. Speak truth in love.
  • When someone says something to hurt your feelings, talk to them about it right away. This is uncomfortable but pray first and then go to the other person. There have been times when I simply misunderstood what the other person meant or that person was not aware that it would hurt you.  Do not let it fester. Nip it nip it nip it!
  • Don’t take yourself so seriously!  Don’t be so sensitive. We need to have a sense of humor about ourselves and we need to thicken our skins.  If you find that you are constantly having your feelings hurt by others, perhaps “the others” are not the problem.  Learn to laugh at yourself. I have a one week rule…if what is happening to me right now won’t really matter in a week, I let it go. Too often we focus on things that really do not matter in the long run and often that destroys relationships.
  • Realize some people are just mean.  You have heard that “hurt people hurt people.”  Instead of being all angry, begin to pray for that person to have peace in their own hearts. Do not take to heart what they say.
  • Realize that sometimes we are wrong and we need to be offended because we are not doing what God commands. The truth hurts!
  • Realize that God esteems you and that nothing anyone else says about you usurps His thoughts toward you. Keep your relationship with Him utmost. Remember that people not only lied about Him, they also spoke unkindly to Him, and then eventually killed Him, he never held it against them. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:34
  • Forgive, forgive, forgive. This is hard, I know but it is a command from the very mouth of Jesus. Remember that forgiving doesn’t mean that what the person said was ok…it means you are going to trust God with the situation.  It really doesn’t do us any good to focus on the offense and destroy ourselves in the meantime.

I have had to intentionally ask God to help me in this regard. There was a time in my life when I found myself in a personal pity party just about every week. It was a very dark time and I realized one day that I was focusing only on me…I had taken the bait, hook line and sinker and the only person that was hurting was me. I began to ask God to help me in this and slowly I gained the victory. I am my heavenly Father’s precious child and no one can ever change that. 

Do I still get my feelings hurt?  Sure, but I have learned that the bait is poison and is not worth the time. With God’s help, I am able to live life nearly free from being offended. You, also, must be aware of this trap and avoid it at all cost. We are to be the light of Jesus in a very dark world. This world is imploding because of being offended at every turn.  They need to be shown how to live life free.  Today, do not look at the world and judge until you have taken the offenses out of your own heart and realized that sticks and stones will break you bones, but with Christ’s help, words will never hurt you.