Whether it’s with a significant other, family member, or friend, this insightful message from Pastor Steven Furtick reveals how to look within to start mending the divides around you.
The reason it’s so hard for you to stay happy
is because it’s so easy for you to get offended.
If you want to make it easier to stay happy,
make it harder for you to get offended.
So I’m working on this “becoming unoffendable”
project.
I want to invite you in on it, because Jesus
says that this offense, however it started
with your brother and sister, if you entertain
it, it creates a living hell.
It spirals out of control.
Things can spin out of control so quickly
you don’t even know it’s happening.
The Enemy’s agenda in your life is destruction.
“The thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy.”
That’s John 10:10, note takers.
His agenda is destruction.
“Every good and perfect gift comes from above.”
God is a giver.
The Enemy is a taker.
He wants to destroy every good thing God puts
in your life.
That’s his agenda.
His strategy is division.
Jesus shared with us in Matthew 12:25 that
a house divided against itself can’t stand.
Abraham Lincoln didn’t say that; Jesus said
it.
Jesus said that if the Enemy wants to destroy
your house, the first thing he must do to
destroy your house is to divide your house.
Are there any newly married couples in church
today?
Why are you clapping for them?
They haven’t proven anything yet.
Is that pity applause?
Are you newly married?
How new?
A year.
That counts.
Would you come on the stage?
Do you mind?
I don’t want to embarrass you in any way.
Is your wife here?
She’s not here?
You have to sit down.
You would have been great too.
Anybody here with your wife who’s newly married
and you guys actually made it to church together
today?
I’m just kidding.
I’m sure she’s serving in eKidz.
Two years?
Yeah, come on, if you don’t mind.
Let’s give them a hand.
This is brave.
They have no idea what they’re getting into.
I’m not just going to preach about marriage
today, but I figure if I use a marriage illustration
I can apply it to every relationship.
Stephanie and Dan, good to have you guys.
Let me show you what the Devil wants to do
in your relationship.
God said the two shall become one.
This is exactly what the Enemy wants.
Every battle you’re going to fight, every
argument about the dishes…
The Enemy’s agenda is destruction.
His strategy is division.
I don’t know if you believe in the Devil or
not, but the Enemy is not going to be happy
until he sees you like this.
What I just showed you…
The Bible says marriage is even a picture
of Christ and the church.
What he wants to do to them he wants to do
to this whole church.
What he wants to do to them he wants to do
to you and your teenager.
His agenda is destruction.
He comes to kill, steal, and destroy.
His strategy is division, and here’s his tactic.
This is the part I want to preach about.
His tactic is offense.
Satan has an offensive strategy.
If
the Devil were not subtle, Dan wouldn’t stand
for his schemes, but the Enemy is very strategic.
Jesus is giving us in Matthew, chapter 5,
kind of a playbook of how the Enemy wants
to work in your relationship.
I know Dan is not going to let him, but he’s
going to try.
He won’t make an announcement.
“Hey, I’m coming to kill and steal and destroy.”
Right now you just spent all that money on
the flowers and the dresses and all the groomsmen
and all that stuff.
I know it has been a couple of years, and
that’s good, because what you see in those
first couple of years is that the Enemy will
usually start in a small way.
If he announced, “I’ve come to divide,” Dan
the man wouldn’t stand for that.
Come on, stick your chest out, Dan.
What the Enemy will do is just use the littlest
offense.
What Jesus is doing in Matthew, chapter 5,
is showing us how to deal with the offense
so we can keep the Devil on defense.
How many want to keep the Devil on defense
in your life and in your family?
Come on, church!
Last week when I was preaching, I ended talking
about you have this plank in your eye and
you’re so concerned about the little speck
in my eye.
Meanwhile, you’re walking around with your
big old plank, just whacking them on the head,
causing distraction, division, and all this
stuff.
It’s the contrast between the small things
and the big things.
There are times that a big offense…
There’s not a week that goes by that somebody
doesn’t call me for counsel who’s going through
a marriage situation, like a divorce or a
separation.
There’s not a week that goes by there won’t
be another pastor or maybe a situation in
the church.
I get to talking to them about what happened,
and if you can go back far enough you find
that every plank is made up of a lot of specks.
To me, that’s the heart of Jesus’ teaching.
I didn’t read you the whole passage, because
I want to break it down and show you how it
happens.
He said it could be something as small as
a word.
The closer the relationship, the greater the
opportunity.
That goes both ways.
The closer the relationship, the greater the
opportunity for intimacy.
However, the closer the relationship, the
greater the opportunity for offense.
That’s why nobody can make you really mad
like somebody you really love.
Nobody can hurt you like somebody you’ve given
your heart to.
I’ve asked the question a lot of times of
people and really in my own mind…
I’ve seen people who were so loyal to each
other and if you would have asked me 10 years
ago, “Who is most likely to ever have an enemy
relationship?” or “Who’s most likely to have
a divorce?” or “Who’s most likely to not be
speaking to each other…?”
Some of those very same people…
Just in the last year of my life, even, I’ve
watched some things happen that surprised
me.
Every time you see it, you ask the question,
“How did we get here?”
Did you see how big Dan was smiling over Stephanie?
They’re going to have a great marriage and
all of that and it’s going to be awesome,
but you ask the question, “How could somebody
who had that same hope, that same smile, barely
stand to be in the room with somebody two
kids later?”
It happens and there are all kinds of ways
it happens.
I know there’s compatibility and I know it’s
not always something you can fix.
It takes one to forgive, but it takes two
to be reconciled.
I guess I want you to know that my goal today
isn’t so much to do an autopsy of anybody’s
mistakes but just to show you something that
happens.
It always happens one offense at a time.
Yes, there are betrayals and, yes, there’s
adultery and, yes, there’s abuse.
I’m not talking about those big things so
much today as I am what Jesus was talking
about.
He said if you get something in your heart
against your brother or sister and then you
nurse it and rehearse it long enough, it will
literally create a smoldering garbage dump
of fire in the very relationship that was
once a garden of potential and love.
How does this happen?
It happens one offense at a time.
How did we get here, where we’re smiling like
everything is okay but deep down in my heart…?
We come to church.
Nobody sees this stuff when we come to church.
Jesus says, “If you are offering your gift
at the altar and there remember that your
brother or sister has something against you,
leave your gift there in front of the altar
and get it right with the person it’s not
right with before you sing a song or pray
a prayer to try to cover up the fact that
your relationships are under attack.”
We were singing today in church this beautiful
worship song.
You should have seen the people singing it.
People had their hands lifted.
“Mercy is falling, falling!”
That’s what was coming out of some people’s
mouths, but if you could see what’s going
on in their heart…
Jesus says it’s possible for you to be doing
something at an outward level and at an inward
level you’re full of anger and resentment.
“Mercy is falling, falling…except on my
husband.
He’s a jerk!”
If you could hear what was happening in the
hearts of people…
How do we get here?
Jesus says it starts small, but one offense
at a time…
The Devil wants to tear Dan’s heart from Stephanie’s
heart.
God takes the two and makes them one.
The Enemy takes the one and makes them two.
How does he do it?
One offense at a time.
God knows I need this message, because I’m
not a perfect husband.
I give 97 percent of the credit for the happiness
that exists in my marriage to my wife; 3 percent
is me.
I’m pretty proud of that 3 percent.
If you put me in the wrong situation I can
get offended so quickly, just like on Twitter.
There was one woman who went off on me and
I still remember what she said three years
later.
Thousands of people have said nice things
to me, but I’m quick to find the offense.
We can train ourselves to find the offense
and then just overreact.
It starts off as “Raca!
You fool!”
Next thing you know I’m in living hell.
Watch how bad it gets.
Jesus said it can get so bad if you don’t
deal with it, if you don’t learn how to deal
with this, if you don’t deal with the little
things, the little foxes…
He says if you don’t settle matters quickly
with your adversary who is taking you to court…
That confused me, because in verse 21 we were
talking about your brother or sister.
We were talking about somebody you’re close
to.
In verse 25 we’re talking about your adversary.
I always assumed these are two different people.
What if it’s not?
What if the same person you called brother
and sister in verse 21 is the same person
who will be your enemy in verse 25 if you
don’t learn how to deal with offense?
It happens.
Have you ever thought about that?
He says the person who doesn’t deal with the
offense…
It’s interesting how he says it.
“If you don’t settle matters quickly.”
That’s so powerful.
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary
who is taking you to court.
Do what you can while you are still together
on the way, or your adversary may hand you
over to the judge, and the judge may hand
you over to the officer, and you may be thrown
into prison.
Truly I tell you, you will not get out until
you have paid the last penny.”
The prison of offense.
It all started with “Raca,” the small offense.
It all started in the parking lot.
I was backing out and this guy is honking
his horn at me in his pickup truck.
This was just a couple of months ago.
I took the boys to see the Christian football
movie Woodlawn.
We’re leaving the movie and this guy is hollering
at me because his wife wants my parking spot.
The problem with his wife wanting my parking
spot is she is pulled up so close on my parking
spot I can’t get out to give it to her, and
now that’s somehow my fault to this guy in
the pickup truck.
He offers a course of action to me.
“Hey, get out of her way.
She’s waiting on your spot.”
Then I figure out that this is his wife, because
I’m putting it all together.
I rolled down my window and I said something
back to him.
It wasn’t any profanity or anything like that,
but it was a “Raca” type thing that I said,
something about his wife’s driving skills.
You know, something like that, just something
insinuating.
Then he wants to get out of his truck, and
he’s not bigger than me, so now I have to
get out of my Maxima.
I have to, because my boys are watching this
and I need to be a good example that if a
man gets out of his pickup truck and challenges
you, it doesn’t matter whether you have an
Elevation sticker on your car.
You have to handle it.
Why are you clapping for me?
I’m so bewildered.
I got out and I said, “What are we going to
do?”
It was just a question.
I don’t know what happened next.
I think to this day…
I still don’t know, because his tone changed
dramatically.
I don’t think he was intimidated by me.
I think he realized who I was, because it
was right here in town.
I think he put the sticker and the thing together,
because all of a sudden he turned real spiritual.
He was like, “Well, God bless you, man.
We’re just all trying to get where we’re trying
to go.”
I was like, “Yeah, we are.”
Around this time, Graham comes out of the
car.
He’s 8.
He comes over and stands by me.
He said, “You have your boys and I have my
wife.”
I said, “It’s cool, man.”
He got back in the car.
When Graham got in the car I said, “Graham,
what were you going to do?”
Graham said, “I was going to kick him in the
shin if I had to.”
Elijah, my older son, speaks up and says,
“Daddy, a better question is what were you
going to do?”
I said, “Whatever needed to be done, son.
I hadn’t thought that far about it.”
He said, “Well, think about it.
Let’s say you get in a fight in the parking
lot of the movie theater.
Not only are the news people going to put
you on the news, but we might not even ever
see you again.
We’re in the back of the car and maybe they
leave us and then maybe you end up in prison
and maybe we don’t have a dad.
Did you think about that?”
I said, “That’s right, son.
I’m giving you an example of how not to handle
a situation.”
We went and ate some Mexican food.
Here’s why I told you that story.
When you are in these moments (I’m not talking
about with somebody in a parking lot; I’m
talking about somebody you love), you’re not
thinking through the fact that this is going
to end up with you and me and an attorney
sitting down talking about dividing our assets.
That’s not how division happens.
The Enemy’s agenda is destruction.
His strategy is division, but his tactic is
those little offenses.