Twas the Night Before...

Starting a series today called “Twas the Night Before....”

Before what? Christmas time is a time that really seems to magnify things. If something is good, the Christmas season will magnify the good and make it better.

At the same time, what is maybe a little painful through out the year can seem worse when we get to the Christmas season.

Today I want to talk to you about overcoming offenses.

Today I want to talk to you about overcoming offenses.

How many of know someone who is easily offended? If they knew you were raising your hand they would be so hurt.

I think often times we would all say that we get more offended than we should. And lots of times those small things weigh us down more than they should.

Example: when you let someone in the car line and they don’t wave to say thank you, or you open the door and someone just walks in and doesn’t say thank you

Technology has helped us to find more creative ways to get offended.

Your friend doesn’t follow you on instagram and follow all of your posts or even worse they follow you and then one day they don’t. How dare they!

Or you text and they slow respond. Who am I that you don’t respond immediately! I see the bubbles, so you started and you didn’t finish.

You get really offended, then the holidays come and the same person is always late, they don’t bring any food and what do they bring tupperware, so they can be sure to load up on the lunch plate they want.

Someone tells you I don’t like the way you raise your kids and it’s game on baby!

It’s so interesting around the holidays how the littlest things can set us off in the biggest ways. Something that’s supposed to be Christ honoring becomes very destructive to the relationships of the people we love most.

The reality is that many deep hurts and wounds begin to emerge this time of the year. Some of you have been betrayed in a significant way. Someone has lied about you, or let you down. Some of you have been abused. Some are going into families that have been very dis-functional.

My prayer for you is that you don’t go into the celebration of the birth of Jesus and open gifts, hating someone across the room or despising someone that’s close to you.

I pray that we never enjoy the grace of God without extending the grace of God to other people.

Example of what God did for me at 19:

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Your life is to short and your calling is to great to live offended.

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James 4:13–14 NLT

Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

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Psalm 39:5 NLT

You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.” Interlude

Life is a mist. Here today and gone tomorrow. Kids grow up. We are called to reflect God’s love on this earth.

Life is to short and your calling to great to live offended.

Small people carry big offenses. You gotta let it go! Why?

Your life is to short and your calling to great to live offended.

I’m not gonna let small things drag me down.

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Proverbs 19:11 NIV

A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.

What does it mean to overlook an offense? It doesn’t mean to pretend that it never happened. It’s overlooking the fact that it did. It’s a conscious decision to let it go.

It’s a moment of forgiveness in real time. I’m going to choose to rise above this, in the moment, and not let this offend me.

The meaning of “overlook” in Hebrew means to pass over. It’s to one’s glory to pass on over and offense. To get above it in your heart, to rise above it spiritually. So close to God that you’re not going to let a meaningless offense take you off of God’s calling.

It’s to one’s glory to overlook, rise above, to pass over offense.

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. Rene’ Descartes

Why? Your life is to short and your calling to great to let something small distract from God, who is so big

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Micah 7:18–20 NLT

Where is another God like you, who pardons the guilt of the remnant, overlooking the sins of his special people? You will not stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing unfailing love. Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean! You will show us your faithfulness and unfailing love as you promised to our ancestors Abraham and Jacob long ago.

Old Testament Theology, Volume 2: Israel’s Faith Getting Over

Getting over” rebellion suggests more than merely “overlooking” it (BDB), something more deliberate and less distanced. When we speak of “getting over” something and “getting beyond” it or “getting through” it, we reflect the fact that we have been affected by whatever has happened. Getting over/through/beyond requires time, but also a certain willingness not to get stuck. Yhwh decided for a while not to carry on putting up with rebellion, but then determined not to get stuck in a stand-off with Israel but to get over its rebellion for the sake of “the leftovers of his possession,” for what was left of the people who belonged to Yhwh.

To put it another way, Yhwh gets angry, but does not hold on to anger so that it becomes a permanent running resentment that makes it impossible to restore the relationship. To put it yet another way, Yhwh treats the people’s wrongdoings like an enemy one defeats in battle. In hand-to-hand fighting the warriors that get shot or stabbed fall and get trampled underfoot. At the exodus the warriors got thrown into the depths of the sea; Micah pictures Yhwh doing that to Israel’s failures. Micah’s “Who is a God like you?” is a familiar rhetorical question (e.g., Ex 15:11), but it usually points to the fact that there is no god as powerful as Yhwh. Here the question points to a quite different characteristic that marks Yhwh off from other gods. Yhwh casts Israel’s sins, not Israel’s enemies, into the depths of the sea. Yhwh loves the sinner but hates the sin in the sense of being committed to the sinner but repudiating, opposing and attacking the sin so it can no more stand as an obstacle that makes it hard for Yhwh to relate to the people. Trampling and throwing are different images for the same reality as carrying and getting over. The reverse way to express that is to ask, “Do not expel me from before your face” (Ps 51:11 [MT 13]). The stain of wrongdoing would make it impossible for us to come before God in worship; we would inevitably be thrown out, like someone in dirty clothes at a royal banquet. There is a dress code here. But the fact that God cleanses and renews makes it possible for God to keep us there.

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With God’s help, I’m getting over this.

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I’m getting over being easily offended.

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Ephesians 4:2 NLT

Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.

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We tend judge others by their actions and we judge ourselves by our intentions.

Example: I didn’t mean it that way. If you really know my heart…

Example: I didn’t mean it that way. If you really know my heart…

Some example of how you did this…..

It’s easy to want other people to give us the benefit of the doubt, but we don’t want to give others that same benefit.

We need to recognize that when someone is having a bad day, gives a bad response, seems uncaring, unkind, unfriendly, short. Their bad response is not all about you. Their bad day is not all about you. Their bad driving, no matter how bad, is not about you. They didn’t wake up thinking how can I make Brent’s life more difficult.

When someone is short with you ask the question:

I wonder what’ up with them?

What are they going through that’s causing them to hurt?

Instead of judging them, have compassion for them.

I want to live this way because I’m getting over being easily offended.

How much time do we spend building a case against someone when they are not even thinking about us.

How much time do we spend building a case against someone when they are not even thinking about us.

My life is to short, my calling to great to live offended.

With God’s help…

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I’m getting over big offenses

For many Christmas stirs up betrayal, abuse, lies you’ve experienced etc…

When we’ve been hurt we have a couple of choices.

We can rehearse what happened and when we do this it feeds the bitterness, anger and drives it deeper. Or…

We can, with God’s help, release it. I’m passing over, I’m overcoming, I’ll overlook.

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Colossians 3:13 NLT

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

How do you forgive someone who seems unforgivable?

How do you forgive someone who comes after your wife, your kids?

We forgive as we have been forgivin. We have been forgivin a lot.

I forgive the same way I’ve been forgiven. Freely I received, freely I must give.

When we consistently release in time we will say I’m not getting over it, I am over it.

Story of Joseph

Sold into slavery by his brothers, who didn’t like because he was Jacob’s favorite

Thrown into prison after rejecting Potipher’s wife because he was falsely accused

Left in prison by two guys that he helped get out of prison because they only cared about themselves

Through all of this God’s favor was on his life and he ends up as second in command of Egypt.

His brothers show up looking for food and because Joseph and risen above their betrayal they found favor with him

If Joseph had done what many of us do by rehearsing how we are going to let them have it, his story might be different. But instead, he let the grace of God work through him.

If Joseph had done what many of us do by rehearsing how we are going to let them have it, his story might be different. But instead, he let the grace of God work through him.

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He didn’t rehearse it, he released it.

He told his brothers, “God used what you meant for evil, for my good.”

What used to hold me back, because of God’s grace, it has now made me stronger and I’m over it. Jesus has forgiven me, so I will forgive others. Why?

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Your life is to short and your calling to great to live offended.

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When we forgive, it doesn’t change what happened in the past but it can change what God can do in the future!

Your life is to short and your calling to great to live offended.