How to Handle Those Who Hurt You - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 14th. How do you respond when someone is mean to you? Today's lesson warns believers against the natural tendency to be resentful. Here's some help in learning to respond in love to those who hurt you. When someone deliberately and willfully attempts to hurt you, how do you respond? Hurt is a part of life.

It's a part of our society. There'll never come a time when you and I will be free from all hurt or all attempts that hurt. So what you and I have to ask is this. Are we responding rightly when people attempt to hurt us, either by the things they say or the things they do? Some of the strongest words Jesus ever gives the believer. He gives to us concerning our response to those who attempt to hurt us. And he says it so clearly beginning in the sixth chapter of Luke. So he begins by saying, But I say to you who here love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. And whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Now, friend, that is one more order. Amen. But that's not all. Give to everyone who asks of you and whoever takes away what is yours.

Do not demand it back. And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way. That's the verse we call the golden rule. And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return. And your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High, for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. And do not judge and you will not be judged. And do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Pardon and you will be pardoned. Give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

They will pour into your lap, for by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. Now, one of the things about this passage of Scripture is that oftentimes some of these verses are misunderstood and we will use them to defend ourselves in some circumstances. But if you will look in verse twenty seven and twenty eight and notice the kind of hurt that he's talking about. Listen, he says, But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, that is, those who are positioned to be against you. Do good to those who hate you, who maliciously, who maliciously respond to you. Those who curse you, that is, with their lips. I mean, they say all kind of things about you. For those who mistreat you in all different ways and those who hit you. So we're not talking about somebody saying, oh, I just don't like you.

We're talking about some pretty tough things. Now, how do you respond? What is your first response? Is it when you are accused or when you are maliciously gossiped about?

When someone either deliberately chooses to hurt you or will say things that end up hurting you. How do you respond? So I want us to look, first of all, at the responses of a child of God. I want us to look at the resources out of which we're to respond. And then I want us to look at what he says here as to the rewards when you and I respond in the proper fashion. Now, I want you to be sure to keep your Bible open and keep a pencil and a piece of paper. And I'm going to give you the things that he says we're to do. But most of all, I just want you to primarily jot down the things that God says to you about you. Now, when I came to this passage, I'll have to tell you, I had to back off.

I had to say, now, wait a minute, hold it. I'm not sure that I'm ready to preach that to somebody else until, first of all, I had fully examined my heart to be sure, Lord, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, I choose to respond in the fashion in which you require. And I'm telling you, there isn't anybody alive who can do that within their own strength in their own human nature, because humanly speaking, following the fall thousands of years ago, you and I are not meant to doing that.

Amen. I want us to be sure we understand what he means by the words he uses. So let's begin, first of all, under the term of responses. What is the believer's proper response when those who will hurt us or attempt to do so?

All right. Number one, he says, beginning in verse twenty seven. But I say to you who here love your enemies.

Now, friend, let's face it, that's a big order. We're not talking about just loving someone who thinks you're not the greatest person in the world. The Bible says love your enemies.

That is, they have positioned themselves by disposition, by attitude to be against you. When he says love your enemies, what word does he use? There are three Greek words, eros, which is passionate love, phileo, which is sort of a friendship or deep friendship kind of love and agape love. He doesn't use the first two.

He uses the last one. That is, he's talking about a deeper level of love than just being simply. Well, hello. And maybe that kind of friendship. He says our response is to be the type of love. And here's what he means here. And we must interpret all of this in the light of what he's trying to get across to those who are listening to him. He says that our response to those who would harm us must always be. To respond to them in a fashion that is for their benefit, not for ours, so that we're going to respond in a fashion that is not to defend ourselves. We're going to respond in love, because if we respond in anger and bitterness and resentment, we do not become a part of the redemptive mess of God in the life of that person. We simply become engaged in and stoop to their level of becoming their enemy. Now, let's think about this matter of love here for just a moment, because somebody says, well, you're to love your enemy just like you love your wife.

That's not what the Bible says. You to love your enemy just like you love your friend. No, you don't develop a love relationship with your wife the same way you develop a love for your enemy. When God says through his word that we're to love our enemies, it is an act of my will. Now, to love someone involves my mind, but it also involves my emotions. When it comes to loving our enemies, more than likely, we're going to have to make a choice by an act of our will to love them, because we are not going to fall in love with them. So therefore, when I choose to love them, my emotions will follow the decision, the act of my will. So when he says love your enemy, Jesus understands that that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. You say, well, just love your enemies like you love your wife, like you love your friend.

No, it's not going to be that way, because you're going to have a whole different relationship. But the undergirding factor here is that we are to develop a relationship with friends to do what? To build them up and they build us up. But loving our enemies who have no intention of building us up, who position themselves against us, we must seek their best good, whatever they do to us. And if you and I can always be looking out to see how can I help the other person and how can I respond in such a fashion that is redemptive to them and that God may somehow be able to change their attitude, then we are free of the guilt of animosity and bitterness.

You see, anytime you and I respond in improper fashion, we are the ones who will suffer. And regardless of how enemies may suffer, we assume part of the suffering, unnecessary suffering when we do and follow the same attitudes that they have. Now, we're not talking about a sentimental kind of, well, I just love everybody. Everybody should love everybody. And therefore, if you're a Christian, you're just going to love everybody. No, sometimes that takes some real effort on our part. Now, when Jesus says he loved everybody, remember that he had a deeper capacity to love than you and I do.

But he also gave us the responsibility. So we're not talking about some sentimental type of love. Yes, we do love everybody because even though Jesus loved everybody, sometimes he confronted them. Now, listen, love isn't weak. Genuine, true, agape love is a strong kind of love. It is the love that is able to take abuse without defending itself. But it is the quality of love that also, because it is redemptive by nature, is able and willing and ready and courageous enough to confront the other person when confrontation with them is for their best benefit.

So we're not talking about some kind of passive always backing up. We're talking about agape love. God loves you and me, and in his love for us, he confronts us. And in our love for those even who are our enemies, sometimes we may need to confront them. I don't mean an aggressive kind of an attack, but to ask the question, for example.

And we find this in the scripture. Ask the question, for example. And that is, you know, why do you feel the way you feel about me?

What have I done to you? That isn't defending yourself. That is simply asking a question. It is simply seeking understanding that you may be able to redeem the whole situation.

You remember when Jesus says there in John, when he was accused and when the soldier slapped him, he said to him, if I've answered wrong, tell me how I've answered wrong, but if I have not, why did you hit me? So we're not talking about a mealy kind of love. We're talking about genuine agape love that's always redemptive in its ultimate purpose. So first of all, he says, we're to love our enemies. Secondly, he said, do good to those who hate you. Now, hatred is a maliciousness. That is, it is a deep, overwhelming sense of desire within a human heart to do the other person in hatred.

The Bible puts in the same category with murder in the book of 1 John. He says, if you hate your brother, the Bible says what? He says you're guilty of murder.

And notice what he said. He said, not only love your enemies, but do good to those who hate you. You know what that says to us? That the proper response to those who would wrong us or harm us or hurt us is that we are to take the initiative to do something good in their behalf. Now, they may have wronged you, hurt you deeply.

You may have a great pile of evidence for just walking off. But you see, I have no right to be passive toward my enemies, toward those who hurt me. He says I'm to love them.

That's aggressively. He says I am to do good to them. And the third thing he says is to bless those who curse you. Now, you know what the word blessing here means?

It means I'm to say something good about those who said something evil or wrong about me. He says bless those who curse you. So he says not only are we to love our enemies, not only are we to do good to them, we are to bless them. And then he says we are to pray for those who mistreat us. Now, you see, I do pray for my enemies, but what do you pray? God take care of them.

Now, all of us may feel that way sometimes. We want to move from the New Testament back to the Old Testament, because you know what David prayed about his enemies? I mean, sometimes David says, God, just wipe them out, cut them down, slice them up, put them in the meat ground and get rid of them, God. And he was praying that with all the sincerity of his heart.

You and I come to the New Testament, what does Jesus say? Not wipe them out, not destroy them. What? Love them. Do good to them. Bless them. And here he is saying that you and I are to pray for them. Now, I'll tell you about praying for your enemies. Two or three things.

Number one, listen. If you start praying for your enemies, here's what you're going to find out. You're going to find out the true condition of your heart, because as you begin to pray for your enemy, you know one of the first things God's going to do in response to your prayer for your enemy?

He's going to surface the attitudes or the things in your heart that are not right. You start praying for your enemies, he begins to surface things in your heart, he begins to show you maybe attitudes that are not right. The second thing you're going to discover as you pray for your enemies is this. Either you're going to have to change your attitude toward them or you're going to start praying for them. You won't pray long for those who hurt you and wrong you, for those who harm you and say all kind of malicious things about you. You won't pray for them long unless your attitude about them goes from anger to love.

And the third thing I want you to remember is this, that the most powerful weapon you have in your armory as a child of God is prayer. And here's one thing you can begin to pray for your enemies that I believe that God will eventually answer. Not, Lord, defeat my enemies, destroy them, but Lord, would you position the person who's hurting me in such a fashion that they will have a need for me and I will have the opportunity of expressing genuine Christ-like love in their behalf. Now listen, I know what's happened in my own life at times when I've had folks mistreat me and maybe sometime my first response was to defend myself or to pray one of David's prayers.

God, would you just take care of that? But after I get over that, I've seen over and over and over again as I begin to pray for God to place a need in that person's life and give me the privilege of meeting the need. Now if my motivation is to get the best of them, God's not going to answer that. But if my motivation is I want to be redemptive and Lord, if you put them in a position of need and then show me the need and give me the privilege of stepping and meeting the need, it is amazing what happens to the other person. Because you see, your prayer becomes redemptive. When you start interceding for those who hurt you and wrong you, I want to tell you, my friend, if your prayer is godly and your motivation is pure and your motivation is not that they'll stop hurting you and not that they'll stop gossiping against you and not that they'll stop being malicious but your prayer is redemptive, God, I wanted to see you do something in that person's life, God is going to work some fascinating things in the life of that other person. And you see, what you will have done, you will to some degree have become, listen there carefully, the savior of the other person's life. I didn't say save their soul. But some people in their hatred and bitterness and animosity, they will absolutely destroy themselves if someone doesn't step in and redirect their thinking and their thought patterns and their actions and their attitude. They will be eaten up with bitterness and resentment and hatred.

Listen, those things are as bad as cancer and more than likely one of these days, we're going to discover they may be a contributing factor. And so you see, what happens is God will use your inaccessory prayer for those who may despise you and hate you and abuse you. God will use your prayer to be so redemptive, you will literally by your prayers save that person from wrecking and ruining and ultimately destroying their life. He says we're to pray for our enemies.

Well, listen to what he says. Not only he says that we to pray for them, but he says, notice, whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also. Whoever takes away your coat, not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you and whoever takes away what is yours. Do not demand it. And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same fashion.

I want to take verse twenty nine and thirty, thirty together here. What he's saying is this. We are not to defend ourselves. That doesn't mean that we just stand there and get beat up.

We let somebody come in our house and just back a truck up and empty it while you and your family stand and watch them steal you. Sightful, not blind, just steal from you. That's not what he's talking about. He's simply saying, listen. When you're wronged, don't defend yourself.

Then how am I to respond? Turn to First Peter, chapter three for a moment. Look at a couple of verses here.

And let's begin with verse eight and read verse eight and verse nine. He says to sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted and humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead, not returning evil for evil. Doesn't mean understand and get beat up.

I'm just not to return evil for evil. And that's what he's saying here when he says, whoever hits you, turn the other cheek. Jesus stood and as the soldier hit him, the Bible doesn't say that Jesus turned the other cheek and said, hit me on this side. Rather, he said to that soldier, he said, why did you hit me?

Did I answer improperly? Look in John chapter 18. Let's let's read that verse together because somebody may say, well, now, wait a minute now.

We're talking about turning the other cheek. Chapter 18. Jesus is being questioned by the high priest and so forth. And so in verse 21, why do you question me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them.

Behold, these know what I said. Verse 22. And when he had said this, one of the officers standing by gave Jesus a blow saying, is that the way you answer the high priest? Now, Jesus response was, if I've spoken wrongly, bear witness of the wrong. But if rightly, why do you strike me? He wasn't defending himself.

He was saying, why do you do that? So when he says this, we're not to stand and allow ourselves to be beaten up. On the other hand, he says, don't defend yourself. You may have to walk off.

You may have to listen to a lot of abuse. You don't have to abuse back. You don't have to retaliate. You don't have to try to get vengeance.

We don't have to try to defend ourselves. And what he's saying here is when you and I are wrong, whether verbally or otherwise, he says, don't engage in the same kind of response toward the other person. Thank you for listening to How to Handle Those Who Hurt You. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is the presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.