Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Triggered and Trapped | Week 1
The Bait
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Matthew 24:10
1. Offenses are going to happen.
2. The opportunities for new offenses are Limitless.
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come… Luke 17:1
Offense is the Greek Word SKANDALON: the bait
that triggers a trap to close when an animal touches it
Holding on to an offense allows bitterness
to sink its fangs into your heart.
God’s plans for your future are too big for you to hold on to small offenses from your past.
Avoiding an offense is impossible
but living offended is a choice
.A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11
1. The Wisest People Overlook Offenses.
If your brother sins against you... seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” Luke 17:3-5
And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” Luke 17:3-5
2. Overlooking Offense = "Pass Over / Step Over” it.
3. Step Over an Offense = Close the Gap
with Love.
Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs. Proverbs 10:12
Two options with an offense:
Accuse – assume the worst
about someone
Love – Assume the Best
about someone’s intentions
A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11
Discussion Questions:
What’s a funny or random thing that has offended you before (like traffic, social media, or even Chick-fil-A drive-thru merging)?
On a scale of 1–10, how easily do you think you get offended? Why?
Have you ever been caught in the trap of offense? What happened, and how did it affect your relationships, joy, or walk with God?
How do small offenses (like online comments, driving, or coworkers) add up to create big bitterness over time?
Why do you think overlooking offense feels weak in the moment—but is actually a sign of wisdom and strength?
What’s one offense you’re holding onto right now? What would it look like to “step over it” instead of staying stuck in it?
Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved
All right, all right, everybody, welcome to church this morning. I'm glad you're here. Who's excited to be here? Come on, All right, that's good. I feel the energy in the room Y'all are excited for hopefully we got some cooler weather coming soon. I feel like we've been talking about fall, the change of fall, and, if you're new to Houston, we're still a long way from it. We just like to've been talking about fall, the change of fall, and, if you're new to Houston, we're still a long way from it. We just like to talk about how it's coming so close just a couple more months of heat. So welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1:Today we start a brand new series. It's going to be one of those ones, I think, that helps to stretch us, helps us to reach into becoming the people that God wants us to be, the people that he's created us, the church that he has created us to be. Somebody said amen, triggered and trapped. So before we get there, though, I want to just say how much it means to me that every person is in the room, if you're a guest, if you're new, if you're kicking the tires around. Really, it's important to us and it's a special part of who we are. I think that it's okay. If you're just kicking the tires, you can look from a distance and figure out what is being a Jesus follower about, what is being a church person about, and just try to figure it out. You can figure it out as long as you need to. You'll never have pressure to give or to serve, but for those of you who are asking, we will go and do as quickly as you give and serve for those who are members and those who are partnered with Relate to Just.
Speaker 1:We want to see the world changed and that's not just through the messages of Sunday morning or the small groups and the programs and the things that are impacting. We want to continue to do a lot of things. Lots of things are changing around the building. In fact, over the next month or so, you should hear a dramatic difference in the sound and some of the lights between now and the end of the year. And the staging and around the building, the parking lot, everywhere you look, there's things that need to be done. I know I see it more than you see it probably, and a lot of you guys ask well, what about such and such and such and such, x, y and Z? The answer is yes, and all those things are changing. We are doing and growing and getting things the way that they need to be done and a lot of things that you won't see, especially if you're an adult. The upstairs for the kids' rooms are still developing. We're so many great things in the works between now and the end of the year and I'm so like, truly in love with being a part of this church and living and doing life alongside you guys.
Speaker 1:So can't wait for small groups to kick off in the directory next week. And but we do have to talk about some harder things today. This is going to be one of those messages that I hope it doesn't step on your toes too much. In fact, I hope to give it to you in a way that you're able to not become offended, and that's really the point of this Triggered and Trapped series we're going to be talking about. We're going to dive into it this week. So, with that said, pull out your notes. We're a note-taking church. We are note-taking people because we want to grow, we want God to stretch us. But before we get into the message and points and open the scripture, I'm just going to go ahead and give you a trigger warning, since we're in the series called Triggered and Trapped. I'm just going to give you a trigger warning because we're going to talk about some things that might just trigger you a little bit.
Speaker 1:So, with that said, I'm just going to pull the bandaid off, so to speak, and show you a couple of things, and some of you might be offended just by the words on the screen, but that's why we're starting right here. So let's go with word number. One might get you right off the bat if I just show you the word Republican and, if you're not offended yet, democrat. That that's the for the. What about the word trump? What about the word abortion or gerrymandering? We've been hearing a lot about that lately. What about gender identity? What about climate change? It's getting quieter and quieter.
Speaker 1:Just trying to prove a point, here's one that I like a lot, and that is Karen's. In first service we had someone named Karen, so I don't. And finally, the most offensive word of all, and that is cats. Some of you are offended that the word is up there. I just I can't help you. Something's going to offend you. Here's the point. Today we are living in a world of great offense. We're living in a time of great offense. There's everything to be offended about, everything to take offense over, and the offense is used in a lot of ways. Politicians use offenses to gain your vote. Fundraisers use it to raise money. Social media influencers use it to get your like or your follows. Family members use it to point out other people are wrong. You better get on my side, like we draw lines about who are you with, who are you against, and the ultimate point, the bottom line in this series, is that the devil uses it to kill, to steal and to destroy and to lay a trap for you.
Speaker 1:Matthew 24, verse 10,. Jesus is telling the disciples and this is kind of setting the tone for where we're going Jesus is giving the disciples an image or a picture of what the end times are going to look like. What's it going to look like in the later times? And I'm telling you right now, whether you believe this or not, we are living in the end times, whether it's the world's end times or yours and my end times, we have a short time left on the earth. I just happen to believe that we are in the end times and this is what Jesus says about those times. He says and there will be, then many will be offended. How many of you can agree that we are living in a time where many are offended and then he says and we'll one another and will hate one another. That's a great picture of the world that we live in. In fact, if I had time to unpack this verse a little bit more, I'd be able to show you that this is actually a progression and not just a list of random things. People are offended and then they betray one another and then they hate one another, and it's a cycle that continues over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:And we happen to, even as Christians, even as people who have been warned against it, we fall into the trap of offense. And I've got to tell you, as the pastor of Relate, as many of your pastor, I've got to tell you we need to stop being trapped. We need to stop, we need to take note and of all the ways that Satan can destroy you, the trap of offense may be his worst and his most hidden weapon. It's a powerful weapon to destroy you, but this is the one where it's hiding, sometimes in plain sight. So two things you need to know about offenses, and then we're going to change gears just a little bit. Two things that you need to know. Number one offenses are going to happen, can't stop them. You can't stop the offensive things from happening. You can't stop the offenses from. It's like a temptation, it's there. And then, number two the opportunities for new offenses are limitless, meaning that if you somehow don't take offense to one thing, it'll only be just a few more minutes before another opportunity for offense comes, because they're just want to. Sometimes it's over and over and over.
Speaker 1:If you're scrolling social media, it's the next post, or the next post, or the next five or 10 posts. Somebody says something, somebody comments something, somebody. How dare they do that? I'm going to teach them a lesson right now and I'm going to. We get it just hooks us real quick. Might be on social media, it might be on the news, it might be something that's happening in this church or in your home or in your neighborhood with the HOA. Something gets us up in arms to where we have to go to war.
Speaker 1:Some of you this week just let me know how upset you were with the fact that Cracker Barrel was changing their logo and changing their design. Some of you, right now that I've said that you're thinking that's true. I can't believe they're doing that. That's how dare they? I love Cracker Barrel and I love the way it was Some of you maybe it's like me at the Chick-fil-A line there's two lines. You order and then you move forward and merge and some people just do not know how to merge. I've almost gotten. I would never say I don't want to be kicked out of or banned from Chick-fil-A, from the Lord's Chicken, so I will never actually get into. But I've gotten really close with someone's bumper before thinking it's my turn.
Speaker 1:But at some point we all fall for the trap of offense. And here's what Jesus says about it in Luke, chapter 17. Jesus said to his disciples it is impossible that no offenses should come. Everybody say impossible. That means offenses are coming. They're coming into your space and into your heart. And you might just I try to be that person that says I'm unoffendable, you can't offend me, you can't hurt my feelings. I've said that to probably everyone in this room. You can't hurt my feelings, whether it's about the church, whether it's about me or my family. I want to be unoffendable to the point where I love you no matter what, because that's the example that God gives us His unconditional love. He doesn't change how he feels about us because of the way we act. That should be our standard. But Jesus says it's impossible that no offenses should come. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1:So let's look real quick at offenses and try to unpack what the word means. So offense in the Greek? The Greek word for offense is skandalon. It's the same word we get scandal from, but it's more than a public offense. It's a spiritual obstacle. So when we look at this scandalon, it's not just something that is a scandal and everybody's talking about it. It's not just a physical thing, it's not just an emotional thing. It is a spiritual offense. And the definition for scandalon is the bait that triggers a trap to close when an animal touches it. So think about it this way If you have a trap, the offense is not just the trap.
Speaker 1:The offense is the bait that's sitting on the trap, that makes you want to get into the trap. And so often we know it's a trap, we know it's bait and we still go for it because the bait's too good, or because it makes us feel a certain way, or because we feel like we're obligated. There's so many reasons we're going to over the next four weeks today and three more weeks we're going to unpack and dig into. Why do I feel the need to do this? And what? What is it about this that's so enticing, even if I know it's there? And what does any trap do?
Speaker 1:A trap is to either kill you, an animal, for instance. It's either to kill or it's to cage. And the same trap, the same idea, with an offense, our enemy. With an offense, our enemy, the devil, uses offense to bait and trap us, to either cage us to keep us from where we want to be, to stop us from sometimes it's just to stop you from going in the direction that you're going in and then he baits and traps us and then our purpose gets derailed.
Speaker 1:The promise of God in my life, the things that God wants to do in me. Instead of me saying, yes, I will do this, yes, god, I'll take a step of faith. I've never been a small group host before, but I'm ready. I'm ready to step out. I'm not super comfortable. It's like Peter whenever he gets called out of the boat and steps out on the water. There's things that God wants to take you into. And if you are distracted or derailed or caught by an offense by a lie. It could be something so small. It could just be the fact that you're supposed to be focused on this and all you can think about is Cracker Barrel. You just can't believe they're doing that. By the way, I love Cracker Barrel and I still haven't decided if I'm going to go check it out or not, but the pancakes at Cracker Barrel are so good.
Speaker 1:I don't care what the decorations on the wall or the logo looks like, but we do know that the devil's very good at his job. He's very. In fact, genesis chapter 3 says that he's more crafty than all of us, and I think we're pretty. We can be pretty crafty. We can create traps and manipulations, and we can. We can treat each other pretty badly, and the devil the devil is much better than us at it. What are? The definition of crafty from Genesis 3 is subtle and skilled in deceit. The Bible calls him the father of lies. Not just does he only lie, because that's his native language, but he's very good at lying to us in a way that we want to believe the lie, so we want to take the bait. How often do some people are offended and oh yeah, I'm getting. I'm upset about this because something scratches an itch in us. It may, it's something that we desire, and that's how his traps and his tricks work.
Speaker 1:So I want to start and I want to look at some traps. I brought some traps today and I want you to imagine the traps as we talk about the bait, which is the offense and the trap that the enemy wants to catch you in. We have all kinds of traps that have been created. This one is just a simple mouse trap. This one is a glue trap, which we won't get too deep into, but it's another idea, right? Sometimes it's.
Speaker 1:This one has the, the bait built into it. It smells like something that a little rodent might want to get in and then as soon as he touched it, he's trapped. This one you might've got on your way in we had these in a basket out there but the bamboo finger trap, you put your finger in. I don't know what the bait is here. I think just oh, I want to put my finger in there and then you're trapped. No bait needed. This one has a much bigger bait mechanism, the trigger mechanism. When they step on this side because the food is on the end here they step on this plate and then the door traps them. So it catches them alive and it's humane and it doesn't hurt them and then maybe they're trapped in there.
Speaker 1:But for today's and this series series intentions, I want you to think about this trap right here. This one is actually set and I tried to buy a bear trap. Y'all. You can't buy a bear trap. It's illegal in the United States to buy a bear trap, the United States to buy a bear trap. But imagine this type of trap. This is designed to really do some damage and the trigger mechanism is right in the center and I got a pin just because I want you to see how this. In the first service we used a pin and I thought there's no way it's going to break the ink part. But it just ink went everywhere this morning. So I'll just show you right here. It didn't break that one, but now it's trapped.
Speaker 1:Something it could be different things for all of us baits us and makes us want to step into the trap. Something makes us want to override our own feelings of danger, our own sense of, okay, this is dangerous. Maybe we know there's a trap there, but sometimes the bait is just that enticing. But the deal is that offenses don't just happen, they have to be taken. Offenses don't just happen, they have to be taken. And so we take them, and sometimes it's peer pressure and it's I got to be offended because everybody else is offended. But what happens is when you take the bait, then the trap stays with you, and a lot of times we take the bait and it traps us and we can't move from there. It holds us there. This one in particular has a chain that's staked into the ground so that once you catch an animal it holds you there. And so often that's exactly what happens to us and we get offended.
Speaker 1:And I might have been offended back in 1989 when so-and-so said something and part of my life is stuck right there in 1989 and I cannot move forward, I can't grow. We talk about God stretching us and using us and speaking to us, and some parts of our life are paralyzed because we cannot move forward in that area. And sometimes it's my whole faith, my outlook, my pursuit of God, my pursuit of his purpose in my life is paralyzed because I can't move forward, because some part of me is trapped, some part of me has taken offense. But anytime you hold on to an offense, you put bitterness in your heart and that bitter you don't. You're not just taking the offense into your life, you're bringing in something that the Bible calls a root. It begins to grow and becomes bitterness. Holding on to an offense allows bitterness to sink its fangs into your heart.
Speaker 1:I love my favorite small group. Of all of our small groups is freedom. If you've never taken part in that small group, I would challenge everybody in the room to get in freedom, because we, step by step, we go through and we allow the Holy Spirit to. Okay, god, where am I holding onto an offense? Where am I not forgiving? Where am I?
Speaker 1:And I first took freedom and I went into this process and into this. I first took freedom and I went into this process and into this. I think it's a process of sanctification that God says I'm going to work on you. It's an intentional so for freedom, that's what we do. And the first time I ever took it I thought someone asked me. My pastor asked me to take it and I said I don't really need that, but he asked me to. So I guess I'll be obedient and go through.
Speaker 1:And the moment I got in like week two, week one, I was like, yeah, I know all this. But by week two, week three, I started realizing I actually have a lot of things that I'm holding on to. Maybe you're sitting today thinking, nah, this is a good message, sounds good, I like it, but it's not really my thing. I promise you there's some things that have trapped you. You don't even know that you're in a trap. That's the worst kind of trap and whenever we get into the trap then we become bitter. It starts affecting us. The bitterness, the toxicity, the sourness from that it starts affecting all the other parts of my life. That's why freedom matters, because we're intentionally going through weeding out Where's the devil working in my life? I got to get it out. I'm going to let God bring freedom. We all know someone who's bitter. I've talked to people who say, pastor, I know I'm bitter, but we just don't know how to get out of it. We don't know how to let go. We're going to talk about that in this series a little bit. But bitter, accepting the bitterness and reaching for that. We're never better for letting bitterness in, and yet we think because it feels good in the moment. Sometimes it does feel good.
Speaker 1:In my 20s, early 20s, I had a really close friend who was in ministry and worked at our church, had known him for a long, long time maybe 10 years and we had become very good friends. Our wives were friends, everything was close in our family and one day he became offended over something that had nothing to do with me nothing to do with the church, really, but some things that were happening in his family and the people around him, and he got so offended and so brokenhearted over it. It started affecting his life and his job. He quit his job at the church. He quit, basically quit the church, quit. He started pushing everybody away and it hurt my, it hurt my feelings so bad that he we couldn't talk about it. It's like he was closing himself off and in it's almost like slow motion. I could see him putting up walls and I was like stop putting up the walls, let's talk about this, let's figure out how to find healing through this. Let's go the right direction.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that someone who's offended is harder to win. A brother offended is harder to win than a walled city. And that's what I felt was happening. But I learned a really powerful lesson in that season of going through that with him that when I'm offended, I think that I'm just dealing with this thing that they've done to me, but truly I'm not the only one who's hurting. I'm actually hurting everyone else around me. I was hurt so bad by him and tried to work through it and like I felt like I was being stolen from, I was being broken because of his pain and we often don't think about all of the damage that's done because we took the bait of the offense.
Speaker 1:God's plans for you. I need you to hear me say this God's plans for you are too big to let something small from your past affect it and steal his plans for you. Because this one little thing and it doesn't seem little at the time In fact so often the bait of offense feels like it's the biggest thing in the world. Often it can take the priority of everything else in our life. It can jump right to the top of the list. So for four weeks we're going to look at offense, but today I want us to look at what it takes to overcome the small offenses and to ignore the bait. I'm going to show you what we're going to do with that bait. And it could just be something someone says, it could be something someone wrote, and we're going to get lots and lots of examples in this series but avoiding an offense is impossible. But watch this Living offended is a choice.
Speaker 1:You do have a choice whether or not you step in the trap or whether or not you take the bait. So here we go in Proverbs, chapter 19, verse 11. It says a person's wisdom yields patience and it is to one's glory to overlook an offense. So everybody say overlook an offense. Overlook is a big, big, big, big word and I'm not asking you to ignore an offense, I'm asking you to see it and overlook it. Number one, and I'm going to give you three points today. Number one wise people overlook offenses and you can choose to be wise or unwise. You can choose to ignore the concept altogether and then you'll just end up in a trap, you'll end up in an offense. But not everyone is going to choose to take the path of the wise. But I can tell you that the wisest people in your life, the strongest people in your life, they overlook offenses. In fact, there's some people in your life. I try to be this person. You couldn't hurt their feelings. They're going to love you, no matter what. That, to me, is the path to real glory, but not being offended and being pulled into unwise situation.
Speaker 1:Here's a great example from history and from sports. That's Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson, in an all-white baseball league, steps an African-American man who is incredible at playing baseball. At baseball and all the people coaches and players and the audience members continue every day relentlessly throwing racial slurs at him, throwing the worst kinds of vile comments to try and hurt him, damage him, remove him, to break his spirit. But not just saying bad things. They would try to slide into bays and break his ankles. They would try to cut him with their cleats. This was hatred.
Speaker 1:And what did he do about it? You may know he didn't take the offense and get all mad and get out there and bluster on the field and scream no, he just kept his face and his focus on baseball. He'd go out there and focus on winning and he did win. And yet what do we do? Somebody says one bad thing to us all of a sudden. Who cares where we were going? Who cares about our focus? Who cares about the purpose of me standing here when I was younger, as a teenager and in my 20s again, my brother, who's four years younger than me.
Speaker 1:He's a lot better of an athlete than I am and we would play basketball at the church and he would play. He played rough and he played a lot. He just had a big mouth. That's the part of the problem. He would come in and he would talk so much garbage to everyone that we'd play with. And sometimes at the church I would tell him hey, you got to stop. You can't say that we're at church, we're in the church gym, you can't act like that. You can't say that. You can't use that kind of language. He's like, yeah, but we got to get them upset. We got to get in their face, and he would. His strategy was they were better than us. We have to get them upset so we can win. And he would.
Speaker 1:Because when it doesn't listen, an offense can derail, can completely bypass all of your, all of your thought process, all of your purpose, all of your talent, all of your skill, all of your gifting. You could have committed to God I'm going to live my life this way. I'm going to. You've committed way. You've committed to people. I've made promises, I've made vows in my marriage and the first offense that comes along. You know, I know what I said, but I'm upset now. I just circumvented every commitment, every promise, every intention, every commitment, every promise, every intention, all of the rationality in my head, all the parts of me that say I've got a plan for my life and God's got a plan for me and I'm going to follow it, no matter what.
Speaker 1:All the devil has to do is give you a tiny little. He has to just bait you with an offense and you'll circumvent all of those things. He has to just bait you with an offense and you'll circumvent all of those things. Sometimes it's a social thing, sometimes it's a thing that everybody else is talking about. So you think, oh, this must be right. So if the devil can offend you, he can override and control you. If the devil can offend you, he can override and control you. If the devil can offend you, he can override and control you.
Speaker 1:When I was younger a kid, junior high and high school if we were playing on the street or in the gym, our go-to was we would say yo, mama is so stupid and they would get mad. This was before. It was a joke, when it was still like you, don't talk about my mama. Nowadays we don't say those kinds of things, but we still get offended and upset and we still go to war over stupid things. We just have justified those things and it's no longer a yo mama joke, it's something social or it's an injustice. That's been done.
Speaker 1:And I'm not asking you to ignore injustice. I'm asking you to use wisdom to overlook offenses. So how do we overlook offenses? We're going to take that idea of overlooking an offense and we're going to take it. We're going to go a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1:Number two overlooking offense means to pass over or step over. To pass over or step over so you can walk through life. Let's imagine it this way I'm walking through my life, I'm living my life. God's leading me, I'm leading my family, leading my children, leading my marriage. I'm walking, I'm walking and then all of a sudden, boom, there's a trap. It's sitting right there, it's set and let's assume there's some bait on there. I have a choice. What am I going to do about this? Point number two is that I need to overlook this, and the way that I do that is to just, instead of reaching in and getting caught in the trap, I need to overlook this, and the way that I do that is to just, instead of reaching in and getting caught in the trap. I need to step over it.
Speaker 1:How many of you guys have ever seen the Swiss Family Robinsons movie, the old movie? In that movie the Robinsons are protecting their island from pirates and at one point one of the young boys, he, digs a big hole because he's trying to catch a tiger and so he sets a trap for this tiger and then the tiger falls into the trap and then he eventually they use the tiger as a trap for the pirates and he covers over the hole, which anyone with reason in their head would look at that and say, okay, that's a hole, I can hear a tiger like growling around in there. But the pirates fall right into the hole. They just walk right onto the palm branches and fall right in and get caught by the tiger. Sometimes, if we were just looking, if you just open your eyes and start thinking, okay, maybe there are some traps out there, where would they be? If I just had a discerning eye of wisdom to start looking, then the Lord can show me where the traps are. Okay, that's a trap, it's not a game, it's not just something that I should be a part of because everybody else is talking about it, just because everyone else cares about Cracker Barrel Doesn't mean that I have to get up in arms and go to war on the internet about it. It's a trap that I have to get up in arms and go to war on the internet about it. It's a trap.
Speaker 1:And I'm using Cracker Barrel as an example just because you got some things and I don't want to touch too closely to the things. In fact, the list on the screen this morning when we started, I had my trigger warning list. That list was longer and then throughout the week I kept thinking, no, I better take that out. Someone's really going to get offended if I put some actual things on there. And this morning when I got here, I walked up to the booth. I'd already sent them my notes and Janelle, thank you, she took a few. I said take that one off. I just it's not sitting well with me. Somebody's really going to get their feelings hurt. So I'm using Cracker Barrel because there's some things that you're holding on to and I want to get close enough to it, but I don't want to hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1:I need you to let the Holy Spirit show you. Holy Spirit, where is this trap? Give me an eye to see it. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear. Give me wisdom so that I can recognize the work that the enemy is trying to trap me in. So here's the reason we don't do this. Okay, let's just go back to our trap. Here I'm walking, we don't ignore the trap, we don't step over the trap because a lot of times we think that this trap, it's weak if I don't participate. Well, that's just weak. If you can't take the bait and put your hand in there and get trapped, then that's weak. If you're not willing to stand up to this injustice, then you're just weak If you all the things.
Speaker 1:But I want you to watch what happens in Luke, chapter 17, when Jesus is speaking to the disciples. He says if your brother sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you saying I repent, you shall what Forgive him. Don't hold on to it. Don't hold it. I'm not going to forgive you because you don't really mean you're sorry. Watch what the disciples response was in verse five, as he I believe he's stretching them. Watch what his response is that the apostle said to the Lord stretching them. Watch what his response is that the apostles said to the Lord increase our faith. In other words, you're asking a lot, lord, like you've asked us to do a lot. You've asked us to feed 5,000 people. We did that. You're healing people, bringing the dead back to life, but you want us to forgive people seven times. In fact, he ends up saying 70 times, seven. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:It's not uncommon for people to be upset at the church because something's happening in the church that they don't like and so all of a sudden, I'm not going to tell your problems and your stories. I'm not going to tell the whole story. So when you go out on the internet you decide that you hate us because someone your kid got kicked out of the nursery. I'm not going to go on the internet whenever you say this pastor is so terrible, he hates us, he kicked us out of the nursery. They just don't accept people. They're not forgiving, they don't love people. I'm not going to put your kid bit 23 other kids and so we had to get them out of the nursery. I will let you say whatever you want on the internet and I will not be offended. It hurts my feelings sometimes, but then I just have to give it to God and overlook that offense.
Speaker 1:And leaders in the room, whether it's business leaders, team leaders, small group hosts, people if you're trying to help lead, you got to know this. You don't always have to defend yourself. Parents, you do not have to defend yourself. You do not have to your kids. You do not have to convince them that you're right. You know why? Because if you're trying to convince people out in the world that you're right and you're justified in the way that you're right and you're justified in the way that you're acting watch this your friends don't need an answer. Your enemies won't believe you, no matter what you say. So stop defending yourself and stop being offended.
Speaker 1:Here's number three, and then we'll wrap it up here. We step over an offense. By how do we practically do this? By closing the gap with love. What does that look like? Proverbs 10, 12 says this hatred stirs up conflict, but love what Love covers all wrongs. Love covers a multitude of sins. So how do I step over this trap? How do I bridge where I feel like I'm going to step in it? I'm going to reach into it. I'm going to fall into this trap. How do I get over this? I cover over it with love, and here's how that works.
Speaker 1:You have two options with an offense, two options with an offense. Number one, you can accuse and you can assume the worst about people. Or number two, you can cover over with love and assume the best about someone's intentions. So I can assume you're going to assume one or two. That's the, that's the the. The key in your mind is I'm either going to assume the worst or I'm going to assume the best. This works. You think it doesn't work. It works.
Speaker 1:Watch this. If I'm in traffic, y'all know how I feel about driving and about how I feel about y'all's driving and everybody else's driving. If you're driving, you have an option. They just cut me off. I can either accuse and watch this.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that the devil, one of his names, is the accuser. So when I take that role and I start accusing and I start pointing fingers and you, this guy, just cut me off. And God, he tried to run me off the road. He's trying to kill me. He probably doesn't even have a driver's license. Where'd you learn how to drive, man? And then, all of a sudden, we start accusing all these things. Or I'm sure he was on his phone, he was texting and driving and all the worst things possible.
Speaker 1:Or I can assume the best and think, man, he's probably just in a hurry, he's not paying attention, he's not on his phone, he's just man just inconvenienced me, put me into a dangerous situation. He made a mistake. All of us make mistakes. You see the difference between assuming the best or assuming the worst. Sometimes we can assume the best because we're in a great place, great attitude. But can we default? Can we change our default back to assuming the best about people?
Speaker 1:1 Corinthians 13 describes love is patient, love is kind, it goes on. It says love assumes the best, it always believes the best. That's the kind of decision that we should be making. That's the kind of decision that we should be making. Instead of saying this is the worst, most idiotic human on the planet because they just almost killed me, I can just say, hey, they were having a rough day, I've had a rough day, but the offense is bait to trap you.
Speaker 1:Last verse is this a person's wisdom yields patience, and it's to one's glory to overlook an offense, like just want to zero in on that yields patience. We have to be the kind of people that don't get upset so fast, the kind of people that give room for the Holy Spirit to lead us in love. But if our fuse is so short that we just dive right into an offense and I'm not gonna let anybody talk to me that way I'm not gonna let anybody cut me off, I'm not gonna let them say that to me online. I'm gonna teach them a lesson Like if we become that person, there's no room for the Holy Spirit to work in us. So let's slow down. Let's give God room.
Speaker 1:I want to close today with just two things. I'm going to invite the band to join me back on stage. I want to close with two things, and they're very simple and they're very practical, and it might not be something you want to close with two things and they're very simple and they're very practical, and it might not be something you want to do, but let's work together to let the Holy Spirit lead us through this series so that we can be people who walk in freedom, people who are not trapped in offenses. Having taken the bait of Satan Number one, the first thing that you got to do is that I want every person in the room. Having taken the bait of Satan Number one, the first thing that you got to do is that I want every person in the room. In just a minute we're going to worship and close.
Speaker 1:But I just, I want you to think and I want you to name something or someone that you're offended of right now. You don't have to tell anybody, you don't have to say it out loud. I just, in your own space, in your own heart and your thoughts, I just want you to physically name a person or a thing, the offense that you know. How you can tell if you're offended. It's because every time this subject comes up, you're raw, it's just you say you're okay, you say you've forgiven them. But every time, every time this subject is breached, it just gets you, it just pulls all your emotions back out. It doesn't matter how many years have gone by. The moment you hear that person's voice or their name or that issue, the subject comes up and you're back in 1989, from the first time it ever happened, back in the trap.
Speaker 1:So can you just name that thing? And then, number two, I'm not asking you to ignore it or make it better or pretend like nothing happened, because some of the worst things are the most offensive things. But, number two, I'm asking you just to decide to get over it and to let it go. Okay, two, I'm asking you just to decide to get over it and to let it go. Okay, god, if this is the way you want me to live and you want me to cover over the offense with love and let the sin go and step over it, god, you have to empower us to do that. So would you stand up on your feet? We're gonna worship for just a moment and I just want you to decide in your own heart okay, god, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll not be distracted by offenses. I'll not be distracted by the enemy's bait, where he'd like to take me off of God's plan.
Speaker 1:Let's decide that today we're going to come back and pray in just a moment, but let's make this moment, this song, this two minutes, a commitment to God that we're gonna follow him. Let's go. You can have it all. You can have it all here. I am, here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all here. I am, here I am. You can have it all here. I am, here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all here. I am, here I am. You can have it all. You can have it all. You can have it all.
Speaker 1:So let's say a prayer and commit in our own hearts to release, to step over, to cover over with love. I believe that God can speak to you right now, more than anything I've said. He can speak to you and show you a highlighted area, a person, a place in your heart where you need to forgive. Let's pray Today, god. We give you every one of these areas. We commit ourselves to living the life that you've called us to, to being people that walk in love, that assume the best, that walk in forgiveness, that are unoffendable, that even when offenses come because they will come that we walk and we release. We love people. Speak to us, holy Spirit, move in our hearts while we're driving and working and living, and in our homes and in our neighborhood, in our job, school. Lord, just do a great work in us, change us and mold us and make us into the kind of people that live and love the way that you want us to. In Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:And I've got to just give you one last urging. If you know that you've got that thing that you just I know I'm not, I'm just not ready to forgive. Yet I'm not ready to let this go. Can I tell you that you need to be at freedom and just next week you can sign up. Angela and I will be leading freedom. We'll be you'll hear more about it over the next few weeks, but we can systematically go through and let God help us to heal so that we're in a place where we can forgive, where we can let go, where we can oversee, overstep, pass over offenses and forgive, live and walk in forgiveness Before we go today.
Speaker 1:I need you to know this we want to forgive because he first forgave us. He first loved us more than we deserved, more than we could ever earn. When we talk about salvation and surrendering our life to him, it's because he gave so much and he wants so much for us, and he promises us eternity. The only thing you have to do is give him everything, surrender your life to him and begin to follow Jesus and, from this moment forward, start a life where you are following after him. The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and that's what we call upon. That's why we call on. The name of the Lord will be saved, and that's what we call upon. That's why we call on the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:We do that in a prayer, so I'm going to invite you to just would you bow your head right where you are and close your eyes and let's just take a moment, and I won't embarrass anyone, but I'll invite everyone in the room to repeat these words and let's start a journey of faith with a heavenly father that loves you, cares about you and wants to walk with you through life. It's as simple as committing, dedicating your life to him by saying a simple prayer of faith. Would you say these words out loud Dear heavenly father, today I choose to follow you. I choose to give you my life and let you lead. So make me new, breathe new life into me, help me to forgive, help me to walk in love, help me to let go of unforgiveness, help me to let go of sin and forgive me for my old life, and I'll follow you in Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 1:Let's put our hands together for those who said that prayer. I love you, guys, and I'm excited about what comes next and what's coming in the fall. I'm going to invite the prayer team to join me up at the front If you want to pray with someone before you leave. They would love to pray with you. Otherwise, we will see you next week. God bless you.