Speaker: Ming
Our worship just now was very special, I felt someone pull on my clothes in a very obvious way. I thought it was one of you, I just realized it was the Holy Spirit. Some among us came out of extreme hardship, I also know that during this period of time everyone is facing different circumstances, whether personally or familial.
We know that the more intimate the relationship the greater the hurt, right? It’s like people who don’t know hurt us a lot less, so the more harm takes place between people who are intimate. My background is in Law, you can find the most vicious words in litigation files. A divorce court or family conflict is where you can hear the most vicious things said.
I used to be an international notary. I’ve had one case where an elderly mother came to find me, at the time she was blind. Do you know how many kids she had? She had 9 kids, 9 daughters. She showed me something and she cried, why did she cry? She said her 9 daughters came together to cheat her out of all of the property that her late husband left her. Now there remains no one to take care of her. This case seem to indicate that the more intimate the relationship, the greater the hurt, universally speaking.
The family is supposed to be a protective, provisioning, place to grow and learn to love, right? Yet often becomes the source of suffering. We can see that wars fought in the past are the same way, we see from history that a lot of wars arise from brothers fighting for the seat of power. Father fighting against son. These are the most common themes.
When these things happen in the Bible, you complain about me and I complain about you. You are bitter against me and I against you. You blame me and I blame you, right? Or you hurt me and I hurt you. You know that the Bible calls these things “things that cause people to stumble” or “stumbling blocks”
What is a stumbling block? Luke 17:1 says: “it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come”, this is something that God admitted before, we will encounter these things. What is a stumbling block? A stumbling block something that displeases or offends you.
People who have stumbled, and are hurt, of course will bear fruit. We all know what fruits those are, hurt and anger, and they are not of God. Hurt, anger, suspicion, bitterness, hostility, envious. And then, the result would be humiliation, brokenness, separation, betrayal, and even fallenness.
People who are offended often do not know they have fallen into the snare, or fallen into a trap, so they will be really focused on how other people treat him, and cannot see the situation of his own life. If you can’t see the situation of your own life, you cannot admit to the problems in your life.
One of the strategies that the enemy uses to deal with us, is to make us focus on ourselves, see where I might be hurt, where I might need protection, where I was offended, and where I am uncomfortable. This is one strategy that the enemy uses within relationships to make us fall into snares and traps. This will cause relationships to worsen and develop cracks. The bible says, we are hurt by the offense of others.
The cause for certain things may be complex, and for other things may be simple. There however is a truth that does not change, the person you care about may hurt you, why? Because you labored for them, therefore have expectations for them. The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Why are stumbling blocks are so overwhelmingly common? In the Bible, which verse speaks of the cause? 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, “Knowledge puffs up, while love builds up.” So these things happen around us because we lack genuine love within ourselves. We know to say, “is it our fault? It’s not our fault. It’s that person’s fault, that’s why he offended me.”
However, Jesus was very clear in Luke 17:1 that stumbling blocks cannot be avoided, as long as we live in this world. It is impossible to not offend people, even so when we are in the church, a lot of brothers and sisters are surprised and confused when others offend them. They think of themselves as being oppressed. When we have these types of thinking, bitterness begin to develop in our hearts. We need to be prepared against these types of situations. However, we need to see if we have the right kind of response to this situation, this response will determine how we respond in the future.
There are two types of people who get offended. One type is the type that actually suffered loss, and another type is those who think that they have suffered loss. With the second type, the conclusion they draw aren’t usually based on reliable sources, and even if it were, the conclusion may be twisted, often made through false assumption or gossip.
We just sang a song <<We Are the Reason>> in English. It’s lyrics basically says, why did Jesus suffer? Why did Jesus go on the cross? Why did he have to go through so much suffering? Who is the reason? We are the reason.
We know that Jesus, during his lifetime, faced a lot of stumbling blocks. Remember who betrayed him? He was betrayed by his disciple Judas, and then at that time even Peter denied him, and what about the rest of the disciples? Each ran for their lives. Only John followed from afar. God took care of them for three years, but when God went to the cross, what were their responses? They either avoided him or ran away.
But what did Jesus do on the cross? He forgave everyone. When God plants seeds of love, we can truly reap the harvest of love. Only when God plants love, we can harvest love. Because of the sacrifice of love, it became possible for the people in the world to truly love God. If not for this sacrifice, people will not be able to love God.
When we labor out of love for someone and do not receive repayment: if we act out of love for someone, and expect repayment, then there will be expectations attached to our love. Expectations will lead to disappointment, the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.
If we really place special expectations on our brothers and sisters, we can easily set ourselves up to stumble. The higher the expectation, the greater likelihood of stumbling, because when God’s sons and daughters stumble, their focus and attention will be shifted to themselves, in order to carefully maintain their rights, and spend their effort on preventing that person from hurting me again in the future.
We can see that, when we are unwilling to risk being hurt, we cannot love unconditionally. What is the love that God speaks of? What is the love spoken of in 1 Corinthians? Love is patient, love does not boast, is not proud, does not rejoice in wrongdoing. What is that love? It has no conditions right? The English term he used is “agape”, meaning unconditional.
Apparently, unconditional love includes giving others the right to hurt us. At this point, a lot of people will say they cannot do unconditional love, but how can you give love without risk being hurt? I want to ask everyone, is this possible? No. Unless you are selfish in your love, and often defensive.
I give out love, this person doesn’t hurt me, but in fact, unconditional love already includes giving others the right to hurt us, this is what Jesus did. Apart from this, we also have another ungodly response to pain, what is this? That is to hide everything we feel in our hearts. What is this method? It is to use pride to cover up. Pride is an unwillingness to admit to our current situation. I am doing really well. I don’t have any problems. I won’t be offended by others. Others cannot cause me to stumble.
Invalidate yourself, lie to yourself, refusing to face the truth. Pride will cover up the true condition of our hearts. Therefore in the process of my mentoring others, I see a lot of people like “I don’t need to ministering to. I am doing great, I don’t have any problems. This is a type of pride that results from the hardening of the heart. Refusing to face the truth, will twist a person’s vision. This we all know.
When you can’t see the situation clearly, you cannot be willing to change from the heart. True repentance needs to be done from within the heart, then we can be truly delivered, otherwise pride will often turn us into a victim. Oh, you offended me, okay, I am a victim. What is my attitude? I did not receive fair treatment. I am being oppressed therefore I have reason to defend myself.
I have legitimate reason to defend myself, and without real repentance I am not willing to forgive, because I believe I am innocent and wronged, which conceal my true condition within. Sometimes we really do face unfair treatment, but just because we faced unfair treatment doesn’t mean we can allow ourselves to hold onto other people’s offenses. Both of these things will prevent us from truly repenting.
I’ll speak a little bit more. Matthew 24:10 says many will fall away and betray and hate one another. God speaks of this in the gospel of Matthew, that when the end time comes, this must happen, a lot of people will stumble, a lot of people will be offended.
When we are offended, we are unable to be like God, to bring out His love. Love is never supposed to be self-seeking, but a wounded person will want to seek more of that self-protection and self-satisfaction. In this kind of situation, we are most likely to lose the love of God that we initially had, in order to protect ourselves.
Self-protection will lead to fear, and cannot release life. I believe a lot of us have been to a lot of conferences and read a lot of spiritual books, received a lot of new revelations. However, when we face situations where we are violated or offended, the first thing we need to do is to forgive. If we refuse to repent for this sin, then our lives have not really understood truth and will enter confusion. When we enter into confusion, our lifestyle will run into problems. Therefore, regardless of what revelations we receive, if the fruit that it bears is a different kind, then it will bring confusion and deception, and not the truth.
I’ve already spoken about a lot of theory, a coworker just asked, why did all this happen to God, happened to Jesus, why do all these hardship and violations often happen to us? If everyone would go home to read about Joseph, then we will see this part clearly. Remember the story about Joseph? Joseph was sold by his eleven brothers to Egypt, and became the ambassador of the Pharaoh. First he was thrown into the pit, and then into prison, and ultimately became the Prime Minister of the Pharaoh. At the end he fogave his brothers, when Joseph experienced somuch hardship and at the end sees his brothers, what did he say? He said this is the work of God.
What he’s saying is: now please don’t hate and worry about yourself for selling me into this. This is God sending me ahead of you, to save our lives. Joseph knows God’s hand in a situation. I believe a lot of us here do not have Joseph’s experience. He is one of the characters in the Bible that faced some of the bigger trials.
He used suffering to learn to obey. I believe if you were Joseph, you would be only thinking of one thing, I am so miserable. Joseph definitely had reasons to be bitter, definitely had reasons to complain, because his brothers wanted to kill him, his family abandoned him. He could have chosen bitterness, but he didn’t, so his choice is very important.
It seems like everytime we see him, his situation gets worse and more depressing, almost as though not only can he not see God’s promise to him, but even his chance to continue living might be taken from him. We see that Joseph learned to obey through his suffering. Through his brothers God made turned him into the vessel that he became in the futured. Initially I believe Joseph would treat his dream as evidence of his favor with God. However, you must understand that he did not understand that his authority is to be used in service, it does not make him set apart. When he didn’t understand that authority is to be used in service, then this dream cannot make him set apart.
Often when we are facing trials, we often place our eyes on what is impossible to accomplish. often neglecting God’s might, because feelings of failure often causes us to blame others. Who are the others? We find scapegoats to take responsibility for our difficult situations, maybe it’s God, maybe it’s other people. Because we are facing a very important truth, and that is “God, you could have put a stop to all this chaos, but you didn’t.” We often blame God in these situations.
We hear of a lot of similar situations. “If it weren’t for my wife, I would have been a full-time minister by now.” “If not for my parent’s divorce, I would have lived a normal life” “If it weren’t for this person in place of authority, or this pastor inhibiting my giftings, I would have served God without obstacles.”
You guys hear a lot of similar sayings right? If the story of Joseph took place in our churches today, you know, a lot of people would do one thing: “I want revenge”. These people mistreated me, I want revenge. I want to give you something to look at. If Joseph was like this, there would not have been the twelve tribes, because the twelve tribes came out of his brothers, from the brothers of Joseph, including Judah, and from Judah came the Christ. We want to make one thing clear, no one, including the devil, cannot make you depart from the will of God.
However, there is one person who can make you depart from the will of God, who? It’s yourself. Your self, only you yourself can make you leave God’s will. It’s true, we face a lot of unfair treatment from the world, and will stumble because of them,but do you know? How many times do the righteous fall? That verse, seventy times seven, he will get up nonetheless. Does God know about our environment and emotional blows? God knows completely, but he will leave us a way out. Therefore he says in 1 Corinthians 10:13 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Praise God.
