On Sunday, our church's youth pastor preached a sermon on being offended. He told the story of Joseph and how he was sold into slavery by his own brothers. He talked about how his brothers came to the city to ask the king for food and Joseph told them that he forgave them for what they had done to him (without them even apologizing!) and made sure that they were taken care of. It was a really really good sermon and really hit home for me in a lot of ways. He's a good preacher - entertaining. He tells a lot of anecdotal stories to keep the congregation interested. He makes jokes, etc. He ended the sermon by giving us five questions to ask ourselves when we are offended. Here they are:
1. What has offended you?
2. Are you really offended by what you think that you are offended by? He gave a good illustration about how you can have a bad day when everything goes wrong and then you get home and your loved one says, "How was your day?" And you respond by completely blowing up at them. You aren't offended by them. You are offended by the things that went wrong throughout the day.
3. Does the person that offended you KNOW that they offended you? This is another really good one. Its so easy to be ticked off at something that someone did or said to you, while all the while this person had absolutely no idea that they offended you. A really good example of this for me is a woman I know that has made comments about my son. The things that she said really cut me to the bone and often made me cry. What I realized was that she was completely oblivious. She didn't know what she did or what she had said that upset me.
4. Are you truly offended by this person or is it spiritual conviction? This one really really hit home for me too. There is often times that someone confronts you with something and it upsets you - but its not necessarily the person that upset you, its the fact that you were confronted with something that you know that you are doing that is wrong or that is not what God wants for you or your life. That one is tough.
5. This one is kind of interesting. Rob started talking about forgiving the person that has offended you. He said, "How do you know when you have truly forgiven someone?" That's a good question, because you can often say that you forgive someone, but you still hold a grudge. When something crappy happens to that person, you celebrate in their misfortune - maybe because you feel like they deserved it. So the answer is, You know that you have truly forgiven someone when you can wish that person well.
I just think that this was a great sermon. It really made me think of a couple of instances that have happened recently that have caused me to be upset or offended or to hold grudges. If you allow that to continue and fester, you are really only hurting yourself and your relationship with God. You can't move on and be truly happy if you don't work that out. And you can only do what you can do. Determine the answers to the questions above. Then you have to confront that person. Tell them they offended you. Tell them why. They may not necessarily respond the way that you hoped, but at least you have made the steps to "build a bridge and get over it."
Thanks, Rob! Exactly what I needed to hear!
No comments:
Post a Comment