So I thought I would teach you a little lesson today, lightheartedly entitling, I'm offended because you're offended. And I know there's going to be some people today that are going to be offended that I'm offended that you're offended, but I'm offended that you're offended, that I'm offended that you're offended. And then there'll be some people that are offended that I'm offended that you're offended, that I'm offended that you're offended. And you know what? Where does it ever stop? We're living in such a world that is under the bondage of offense and emotional bondage. Emote. What I talked about last week was the curse of Adam and Eve. Sin was was not just that they were now going to go to hell without a savior. Obviously, that's the worst part of the curse. And the best part of the blessing is that is salvation. Salvation is the greatest part of the blessing of Jesus Christ coming to this earth. Can can you say amen to that? Go into heaven is the best part of salvation. We're going to go to heaven one day, man. All of this that is going on in our lives and and all that's going on in the world, it's going to pass away. Heaven is going to be forever. This life lasts 80, 90, 100 years. But heaven is eternal. Heaven is forever. Man, that's going that's going to be great. And we should be our goal should be getting as many people there as we can. We should be wanting to plunder hell and populate heaven. But too often, we're more focused on our feelings, and so I talked about how the curse of Adam and Eve, when they sin, was not just that they brought sin into mankind, but they became emotionally ruled people. And, boy, that's when you ruined your life, when you become emotionally ruled people after they after Adam and Eve sinned, they were ruled by the emotions of fear. They were ruled by the emotions of sorrow and depression. They were ruled by the emotions of shame. They were ruled by their emotions. And though you may not be ruled by sorrow, you may not be ruled by by fear. Perhaps you're ruled by how you feel today and what people have done to you and how you've been treated. And we take up the offenses of others as much as we get offended ourselves and we have to learn to to deal with this thing because it's just it's it's crippling. Our progress is crippling nations. It's crippling families. It's crippling churches. And why is why is the church still the most segregated place in America at eleven o'clock on Sunday? Why is why are there why why are most churches just one color? Why are communities so, so, so fearful and and so to themselves? Why are we? Why are we? Why is there not the assimilation happening in our cultures and in our communities and in our nation, in our world? Why why do people not get along? Why is it so why are so many people mad and offended and and resentful and bitter? Well, it's because of what Jesus said, that that Satan's goal is to turn a warm heart into a cold one. And and I want to let's take you through some of the scriptures about this in well, started. Matthew, chapter twenty four. Let's look let's look there, Matthew, chapter twenty four and begin in verse ten. I'm offended that you're offended. Does that offend you, Matthew. Chapter twenty four. And let's look at verse ten. He says, and many shall be offended, many shall be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and deceive many. And because iniquity and lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Now, I want to talk about this verse a little bit and go over a few other verses as well. But this is the goal of the devil in these days that we're living in. This is the goal of the enemy. And so if you want to play into the hands of the enemy, then stay offended in your life and be touchy in your life and be easily hurt in your life and stop learning how to take a joke. And if you want to play into the devil's hands, then learn to stay offended. If you want to stop playing into the devil's hands, then it's time that we learn how to stop being offended. Can you say amen to that? Because this is the goal of the enemy in these last days or any days for that matter, is cold hearted love less people because love is what love is, what causes the world. I think that the greatest form of evangelism in the world today is not signs and wonders and miracles. Don't get me wrong. Signs and wonders and miracles are alive and well in the Earth today. And God is the same yesterday, today and forever. And God wants to perform miracles and God does perform miracles and healings, and Jesus still does it today. Can you say amen to that? Well, but so and so God uses those things. But that's not the greatest form of evangelism. The greatest way to reach this world with the gospel is what Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 13 when he said by this will all men know now you can reach some people with a miracle. You can reach some people with a healing. You can reach some people by being really smart and intelligent and and having the right arguments and having the right answers. But he said by this, all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love, one for another. I wonder if I'm in the right church here and, you know, if you have love for one another, if we truly had love for one another, nothing would offend us. We could take a joke. We could take somebody's sarcasm. We could take somebodies mistakes in in their political correctness, in the words that they use and the and and the phrases that they use. And we'd stop, you know, why were we get so touchy about the smallest things now is because we don't realize that there are bigger fish to fry in life. There are souls going to hell. And no matter where you end up on the political spectrum is not going to get more people into heaven. You know, who you voted for is not going to get more people into heaven. It's the love that we have for one another that is going to cause the world to stand up and take notice because they don't take notice of play in church. You don't hear me today. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it through this service, but they don't. The world is not standing up and take notice of people playing church and being churchy. But the world will take notice of people loving one another. And that can handle people's differences and people's distinctions and people's diversity without being so touchy about their own and without needing everybody to coddle them and baby them and pamper them and make sure that their feelings are never hurt. Let me tell you something. You're going to live if you live very long in life, your feelings are going to get hurt multiple times. And if the goal in life is to get everybody to stop hurting each other feelings. And we are going to be fighting the wrong fight the rest of our lives. And. Jesus said. That notice what happens here in verse 10, many shall be offended, don't be one of them. OK, go ahead, be one of them, OK? No, I'm not offended by that. That's your that's your choice. Many will be offended and then look at what happens. And when you're offended, what happens, you betray one another. And when you're offended, then what happens? You hate one another. You want look, he's telling he's given us the recipe for why there's hate and why there's betrayal and why people quit on one another. It's because they're offended. Many, many will be offended. And that will then what will happen? People betray one another. People will hate one another. So betrayal and hate are the fruits of the route of being offended. And then what happens? Verse 11. And he says. Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. So now next thing that happens after people are offended is that they listen to teaching that will make them feel better and they listen to teaching that coddles them and they listen to something that is going to deceive them rather than make them confront their crazy tail attitude. You deceived your deceived because you don't want to deal with you, you don't want to deal with your attitude, so you listen to somebody tell you something that makes you blame somebody else. And you know what he says in verse 12 and the love. Of many will grow cold. I'm not going to be one of those. I'm not I'm opting out of the cold love, I'm opting out of my love grown cold. I want my love being hot. How about you? Where did that how did our love grow cold? We got offended. Then we betray, then we hate. Then we then were deceived. And then our hearts grow cold and lawlessness abounds. And then you do things to others that hurt them because you're you're not, you're not you're not bound by love anymore. Love does love does no wrong to its neighbor, the Bible says. But when you're not walking in love anymore, then lawlessness abounds and your love grows cold. And by the way, I got to tell you this word cold. I really I really love this word and I love what it means. You know, where it comes from. Jesus says this is the goal of the enemy is to get everybody's love to grow cold. And ultimately, what happens then? We're not going to win this world to Jesus. Nobody is going to think nobody's going to know that we're his disciples. Because if we don't have love for one another. And you might say, well, I love I love one another, I love my family, but loving one another doesn't just mean loving your family members. That's hard enough. I get it. Come on now. But that you didn't accomplish something because you love your family. You've accomplished something when we love one another, regardless of our color, regardless of our race, regardless of our background, regardless of our upbringing, regardless of our politics, regardless of our opinions, regardless of any of that, we've learned how to ride the wave of love. We've learned how love transcends those other things. Like I don't like you could be a Democrat, you could be Republican, you could be this that I don't it's not going to stop me from loving you because I don't love you based on you. I know I love you because God love me, because he love me. And therefore I will love you because he loves you. And that's how if we all just love like that scene when you love somebody because they're lovable, then it's first of all, it's not going to be often. And secondly, your love is going to eventually wear out because they're it's going to go up and down like a roller coaster. So human love is the love of the lovely. I love you because you're beautiful. I love you because you're lovely. I love you because you treat me right. I love you because you're nice. I love you because you're friendly. I love you because you're cool. I love you because you're hot. I love you because you gave me this. You gave me that. That's human love. But that that love will never endure. That love can't endure because nobody will always be lovely. I don't know if you're hearing this today. Nobody will always be lovable. So as soon as they stop being lovable, you stop loving them because you only have related to human love. But Divine Love is to love because of God's love. It's to love because you're motivated in your life by love, because you've been awakened to love. Then you can love. The Bible says that the woman who was who who poured all the perfume on Jesus head and feed and wiped his feet with her tears in her hair, she she loved much because she was forgiven much. So when she realized how much she was loved, then she was able to love much. And when you don't realize how much you're loved, you won't be able to love much. And that's why we that's why we spent years and will spend many more years digging into the love of God, the love that God has for us, because you'll never be able to love one another until you discover the love that God has for you, that you can't give what you don't have. Right. And so gifts get our teaching on the love of God and and bask in the love of God and and get focused on the love of God and study the Bible to understand the love of God, because that's what's going to cause you to love one another. You're not going to get offended and you're in and then you're going to
stop betraying people. You're going to stop just giving up on people and quit on quitting on people. It's just amazing how people betray one another. And we don't call it that. But it's it's what happens. You just quit on each other. We quit on people. We people quit on you and you quit on others. And and it's a betrayal we betray we we don't hold confidences. Well, we don't somebody tells us something and then ten other people know it within an hour because we don't know how to carry people's confidentialities with respect and honor and voice. You tell me something. You can tell me something now. Most of the time I don't want to hear it. But if you tell me something, I'm not going to tell anybody because what good is that going to do? Make me look better. Make you look bad. I don't want to that's not going to do anything and all things are lawful, not all things are profitable. Well, we're getting off the track a little bit, but here, listen to this word. So he says, and the love of many will grow cold. The love of many will grow cold. So this word cold in the Bible, it comes from the Greek word psycho. Syco. Psycho, and it means this to become cold or to become cool by blowing, there is a cold wind blowing in the world today, another translation says of this word cold. It's spiritual energy that is chilled by a poisonous wind, a spiritual energy chilled by a poisonous wind. You want to know why you were making progress and then you stopped because you got offended, because your heart grew cold and it go it makes you go psycho. To have a cold heart is a psycho heart. Now, you think about it, the people that do crazy stuff, the people that do crazy things to others, it's we call them psychos. Why why would a person behave in a psycho way? It's because their heart has has grown cold, their love has grown cold. And when your heart and your love has grown cold, then you're dull and insensitive to whatever you do to somebody else. It doesn't matter because your heart is cold. This is what this is what causes you to go nuts. This is what causes you to go crazy. The greatest sanity you'll ever have is when you feel loved and the greatest craziness that will ever exist in your life. You will become crazy and you will behave crazy. You become crazy and behave crazy when you let your heart get cold because the cold heart means a psycho heart. You can study it later and see for yourself. This world is going psycho, what does that mean? Cold hearted cold souls, empty of love, empty of care for people and how we treat them, the consequences of how we offend or are offended by them. That's what it is to have a cold heart that results in a cold culture. And churches can be that way where we're cold, we just kind of us for and no more. We have a country club Christianity where it's just, you know, just a few of us that we were we got our click or we got our group. And and that's not how we're going to win this world of Jesus. They need to see the love spreading. They need to see grace being given. They they need to see people come to church that are imperfect, flawed people. We need to see how the church behaves when people blow it. We need to see how the church reacts. We need to see how Christians react when somebody hurts them and when somebody behaves poorly and when somebody does something that that does not meet our expectation. And you know, what usually happens or what often happens in those cases is we become self-righteous. Oh, how could they do that? And how could that person do that? And how could that preacher do that? And how could that a husband do that or that wife do that or this? How could these people fall in that? Well, I would never fall in that way. You know what? That is the absolute worst lie of all that you wouldn't fall in that way. Maybe you just haven't had opportunity. Maybe that hasn't maybe maybe you're maybe your vulnerability is in some other area and you're judging somebody else's weakness based on your strength. How about looking at their weakness, based on your weakness? And you know what it will do to bring some humility when you realize, whoa, I've got as many weaknesses maybe in different areas, but I've I got as many weaknesses as that person does. I got as many vulnerabilities, vulnerable spots as that person does. And that's why the Bible says woe to the one who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We need a good dose of humility in our lives. We need a good dose of love. We need a good dose of of common sense and sensibility that folks, we are living in a world that is. Why do people betray. Why do people hate? Why are people deceived? Because they're because they've been offended. They've been offended. Somehow. We look at this world and we go, why are they psycho, because they've been offended. Why is the heart cold? Do you see the pattern? It starts with being offended and it results in betrayal than hate. Deception. And what happens here? The love of many grow cold. And when the love of many grow cold, then that's when people go psycho. Cold is translated from from the Greek word, psycho or psycho. And it means you go nuts when your heart is cold. You go crazy when your heart is cold, you make bad decisions. When your heart is cold, you do stupid stuff. When your heart is cold, you're insensitive to other people. When your heart is cold, then you begin to to hurt others. And so where does how does that stop? We got to go back to the root of it. What's the root of it? Verse 10 said many will be offended. That's the root of it being offended. And so we got to get to the root of it so that we stop the cycle that brings people into a cold hearted, crazy psycho way of living. It makes sense to anybody. Violence, abuse, racism, hate, political strife, terror, anger, all of these things come from a psycho heart, a cold heart and what is a cold heart come from being offended and then the downward spiral and the domino effect. Where does it start being offended? Somehow in our psycho minds, we seem to care more. For an animal. Than we do for a struggling human being. A mother with children, a mother with a small infant, a mother with a baby in her womb. This is a generation of psychos. Those with a cold mind towards people I heard recently about a dog that needed to be put to sleep. And he was paralyzed, deaf and blind, but there was a sweet lady who tried to help him and a local organization raised fifteen thousand dollars to help this dog get wheels for his back legs, physical therapy in a pool, a weekly psychology visit. And he and you know what I mean. After all of that, he lived seven more months. Now, granted, it's amazing to see an outpouring of love for a dog, but and it's surely a kind gesture, but why don't we see that kind of love poured out on people? It doesn't take a lot it doesn't take a lot of searching to find someone in need, people go run to a, you know, a homeless dog, but a homeless guy. Oh, that guy's trying to get something from me. People run to an injured dog, oh, help the poor creature. I'm not an animal hater, don't get me wrong, but I'm a people lover, you know? God bless. God bless the animals. God bless the animals. But they're not going to hell if they don't get saved. We are. God bless the animals. But you know what? Animals might make you feel better and you might get a lot out of you might get a lot of comfort from animals, and I'm not against and, you know, a dog being a good friend. But but I don't think he should be your best friend, because if your dog is your best friend, your. The cure to being offended is to realize you can't control other people. No one can control your destiny but you and God. But you can control how you react and respond to other people. Amen. You can respond to that, you can control that. You seem to be offended, it comes from the Greek word scandalous, and I don't have time to get into it today in deep as deep as we could, but it's the word scandalous or the word offense. It's it's that piece. It's the part of the trap that if you had a trap, a mouse trap or an animal trap of any kind, it's the it's the part of it's the trigger of the trap where you put the bait on the trigger so that the so that whoever is coming for the bait while they're eating the bait, they trip the trigger and it snaps on them. And that's that's what being offended is when you're offended, you're eating the bait that Satan has put out there for you. And what happens is as soon as you eat the bait of being offended, life is going to snap on you. Life is going to just flip on you, and you're going to be trapped by your own offense because you ate the bait of somebody mistreatment or somebody you feel victimized. And look, not this is not to minimize harm or or wrongdoing that has been done to people or to races or to people, groups of any kind. It's not to minimize that, but it's to it's to minimize how we react to it is to minimize how we respond to it. And we have to realize this is what it is. To be offended is to eat the bait. So the politicians are out there. And what do you do? You end up eating their bait and the false preachers are out there. And what do you do? You end up eating their bait and gossipers and people that are speaking negative things about others. What do you do? You end up eating the bait and what happens? Life snaps on you and you get offended. Then you start betraying. Then you start, then you start hating. Then you start walking in in a cold hearted craziness and you start making bad decisions. And remember, we talked about emotionally rude people are people that end up making bad decisions. And that's why you that this is why we have the lives that we have is our lives are made up of the decisions we make and our decisions are responding to our emotions or our choices. And so you have to make up your mind that I'm going I'm not going to be ruled by my emotions. I'm going to be ruled by the word of God in the spirit of God and ruled by the love of God. And then you're going to make good decisions and good decisions, produce a good life, bad decisions, produce a bad life. But what produces bad decisions being ruled by your emotions is what produces bad decisions. All right. Here in this. So so how do we stop being offended practically? Well, we have to pick we got to stop picking the wrong battles. We there's bigger fish to fry than a sports announcer named Robert Lee being moved off of a job because it's too similar to the name Robert E. Lee because somebody might get offended by his name. That's crazy stuff. That psycho. That's psycho stuff. I don't know if people I don't know if you guys have followed the news or follow stuff like that, but I'm like aware of stuff like that and I hear stuff like that. And I'm thinking, what is wrong with people like who really cares that an Asian man's last name is Lee? Like, this is psycho stuff, Helen. Why aren't we more concerned about more relevant issues, why aren't we more concerned about children being abused and and families being, you know, being being torn apart and and drugs infesting our country and our world and churches that are self-righteous? Why are we concerned about stuff like that? We're picking the wrong battles. You got to pick your battles better. Bigger fish to fry. We're going after souls. We want people saved. We want people discipled. We want people growing. We want but you can't grow and you're offended, Jesus said in Mark Chapter four. He said, when the seed falls among the thorns, this is people that have heard the word. But because they heard the word and immediately they received it with joy and then they got offended and they stopped walking with God. They got offended and it choked out the word of God. The only thing that can choke out God's word is you being a. Well, one of the only things that can choke out the word of God is being offended, in other words. And if the word is choked out, then you can't grow because the word makes you grow. So if you're if you're offended, you can't grow. You can't continue in God's word and continue to grow and continue to be the best version of yourself. Well, we've got to stop picking the wrong battles, what is our battle? You know, our battle is for the minds and hearts of people, not for making sure everybody says the right things and and has the right phrases and uses all the right terminology while they while we well, while souls are being lost and going to hell. But they're using the right words on their way down. Yeah. Yeah. Does this make sense to anybody? I mean, we've got to wake up people, white people, black people, yellow people, brown people. I'm a light brown brother, what are you I don't know, but who cares? We have to stop letting color and race and politics invade the church and we have to let the church begin to invade politics through the power of prayer, through prayer. Through prayer and diversity and love, because if we can't demonstrate love and diversity in the church, how are we going to change the government? How are we going to change our community? How are we going to change our nation if we don't have love here? We don't understand. The need for laughter and comedy, this is why people I'm I know I got I got to show you this video in a minute, but but we get we'll stop being offended when we appreciate humor and when we appreciate comedy. This, you know, the one mark of the I think the probably the number one mark of somebody who's offended is they have no sense of humor. They're not laughing, they're not joking around, they're not teasing. And you got to be able to tease one another and laugh at one another and joke at one another. And the people that I like to hang around with the most are not people that are all deep. The people that are light hearted and don't take themselves so seriously. Because, you know, comedy is is like comedy is the whole art of, you know, of talking about the elephant in the room. So that he can get out and everybody can take a deep breath. But you look at the most oppressed countries in the world, there's no comedy, there's no joking, there's no laughing, there's no fun. Zero fun. You want to live like that, you know what, you know, when fun stopped in the Bible in Genesis Chapter three, when Adam and Eve sinned, they stopped having fun and they started living in fear and worrying about every emotion and everything that was going on around. They were all all of a sudden, they were now sensitized to how each other treated them before they send they were loving on one another and giving of one another. I mean, sex all the time, Adam and Eve. I mean, they you know, you got to read between the lines. They were making love. They were having fun. They were joking around, screwing around with each other. Fun stopped when Adam and Eve sinned. And now all of a sudden, they're they're overly sensitive to how the other person is treating them all the time. He's trying to control me, she's trying to control me, he's acting like Ahab, she's acting like Jezebel. All this happened right there after Genesis Chapter three, no more fun in the garden, no fooling around, hanging on the trees, laughing at each other, you know, make poking fun at life and stuff and things, not having to pull down people that sarcastically to feel better about ourselves. We don't understand the value of comedy and laughter and joy and and taking a life lightheartedly and making you know, and you look at the I mean, look at the thing that I believe and you can this is my opinion. So don't go and hang your hat on this. But in the in the in the worst time of America when slavery existed, you know what the the slaves had a had a a skill and a gift and an ability to lighten the lighten the mood with song and with with with with praise. And we got a lot of great hymns from those days from from slaves that had this began to make a joyful noise to the Lord because they began to praise God and worship God in the worst time of of of life, in the worst possible things that could be done to them. And I believe that that praise, that song, those hymns that that Cry of the Heart was the first piece of emancipation that came to the two to this nation in that way. And again, that's my opinion. That's my view. I'm done sharing my opinion on that. But you can take that however you want to take that. But I think we can all learn a lesson from learning how to laugh and learning how to rejoice in learning how to praise and learning how to sing and learning how to have a good time in the midst of a bad one. Because if you have to have if you have to have everybody treat you right before you start singing, everybody treats you right before you start praising, everybody treats you right, before you start feeling right, then you are a suffering victim of everybody else's emotions rather than taking captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. And if you don't want if you want to stop being offended, then look at Psalm 119, verse one sixty five and it says this he says, Great peace. Have those that love the word of God. Put the King James Bible there, if you will, King James version, great peace. Have those who love your law, which means the word of God, great peace, have those that love the word of God and nothing shall offend them. What will offend them? What will offend them. So you know what? If you're offended today and if you're offended by anything I said or anybody, anybody says, look, I'm going to say things that could offend you, but not but but shouldn't offend you. Because if I say something that could offend you, it's your choice whether you're going to be offended by that or not. I was talking to somebody the other day and they and I said, man, you got to stop saying negative stuff and you've got to stop being so negative and you've got to stop being full of anger and hate and negative things coming out of your mouth. And he looked at me like like I was crazy. And I said, Is this offending you? And he said, yes, I'm offended by what you're saying. And I shook his hand. I said, then we're done, because once a person's offended, there's nothing else to talk about. They got they trying to trap you because they're trapped and we could just go on and on about this and I wish I wish you would. Didn't want to. I wish we didn't have to have a break between services. But but, you know, I love the word the word love, by the way, here it's the word to be attached to something, to be attached to something. It's the same word that is used for a mother who has an umbilical cord attached to her child. So when it says great piece, have those who love the word of God, that means they're attached to God's word. They're connected to it. They're attached to it. They're one with it. They get their feeding from it. Remember, like that's where the mother sends all the nutrition to the child is through. So you're getting your nutrition and you're getting fed from the mother or from the word of God. When you are the when the word of God has an umbilical cord to you, nothing will ever offend you because you're taking your feeding from the word of God rather than everybody else's opinion.
