Hi, this is Nathan W Bingham, and before we get to today's episode, I wanted to encourage you to download the free Ligonier app if you haven't already. You can easily get the app by searching for Ligonier in your app store of choice, or by visiting ligonier.org slash app. As a Renewing Your Mind listener, you know that most days our resource offer has a digital component, something you can stream or read, and you can access those resources in the app. The Ligonier app also makes it easy to listen to each day's edition of Renewing Your Mind, plus there's thousands of other free resources in the library that you can read, watch, or listen to. And if you're a Ligonier ministry partner, when you log in, our complete teaching series library will be unlocked so you can study on the go.
So be sure to search for Ligonier in your app store and make the Ligonier app something that you use every day. Now onto today's episode. We are all called to bear our injuries and our griefs and our pain and the insults we receive with patience and love and gentleness and longsuffering. That's required of all of us because it is part and parcel of the Christian's life that is to be an imitation of Christ. When someone accuses us of something that isn't true, it hurts.
If you use social media, you may have experienced someone commenting on a post of yours and insulting you. When that happens, how do you respond? How should we respond as Christians? This is the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we start a new study in R.C. Sproul's series, Keeping in Step with the Spirit. Until Friday, you can request access to this 20-message series on growth in the Christian life.
Plus, we'll send you a newly released 90-day devotional that contains reflections on the Christian life when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Well to begin our time in this series, here's Dr. Sproul to share a personal account of hurt and how we as Christians are called to have a charitable response. Have you ever had somebody say something unkind to you? I think we've all had that experience. Have you ever had an experience where you hear that somebody has said something untrue about you publicly?
I think we've all had that experience. And certainly those of you who are in ministry know what it's like to have that kind of thing happen that we call slander or malicious gossip and so on, and how painful that is in order to bear it. But the question I'm concerned about today is how do we respond to that sort of thing? This morning I wrote a letter to a friend of mine. I wrote him in response to a letter I received from him last week where he wrote me this nice friendly letter just bringing me up to date on what's going on with his life, and he happened to include in that letter a copy of a newspaper article that recently appeared in the LA Times. And the basic drift of the article was a vicious personal attack.
And when I saw that picture and read that article I would say to myself, how would I feel if I opened the newspaper one day and read such a scurrilous attack against my integrity in print like that? And I felt very deeply, and that was the occasion of my writing to him. But there was another reason that prompted my letter to him, and that is that recently I had a similar experience, not in the newspaper, but where a person I believe was my friend and comrade had made some very unkind statements about me publicly, and the word got back to me. And I was most distressed about it, and I had to struggle in my feelings, and my feelings basically vacillated between two different emotions. The strongest emotion was one of despondency.
I was really hurt. And the second emotion was a growing sense of anger about it. And as I struggled with that, I was also at the same time engaged in preparing for this series of lectures for the radio on growing in the Christian light. And I was preparing for this section we're about to look at, namely the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so in those preparations, I went back and reread what I believe is the greatest Christian classic ever written about the virtue of love in the Christian life and the fruit that flows from spiritual love, and it was written by Jonathan Edwards. And the book is entitled Charity and Its Fruits.
And dear people, if you've never had the occasion to read Edwards' book entitled Charity and Its Fruits, go over land and sea and every bookstore you can comb until you find a copy of it and read it. It really is must-reading for all of us, and I have to confess that I had read this before. I had lectured on it before, and I had basically forgotten the message that was in it. And so I was rereading it.
In fact, I was rereading it this morning. And he has a chapter in there on how love bears personal injury and pain, how Christians are to respond to false charges, to angry assaults from other people. And the more I read what Edwards said, the worseer I felt, the more I said, wait a minute, I have just allowed myself to slip into despondency, to lose the joy of my salvation, and to have feelings of anger and even potential bitterness because of this personal attack against me. And Edwards in Charity and Its Fruits says many things.
I'm going to read just a couple of comments that he makes. He says this, the spirit of Christian long suffering and of meekness in bearing injuries is a mark of true greatness of soul. It shows a true and noble nature and a real greatness of spirit to maintain the calmness of the soul in the midst of injuries and evil. He says earlier, men that have their spirits heated and enraged and rising in bitter resentment when they are injured act as if they thought some strange thing had happened to them, whereas they are very foolish in so thinking, for it is no strange thing at all, but only what was to be expected in a world like this.
They therefore do not act wisely that allow their spirits to be ruffled by the injuries they suffer. Now, what Edwards is getting at here is that the Christian has to keep his eyes focused on God and on his relationship with God. Now, I've been involved in a controversy for over a year that was somewhat acrimonious and theological controversy and so on, and there were all kinds of statements made publicly and so on. It was a time of great distress for me, and I met with my pastor about this, and he said, well, how are you doing? And I said, well, actually I'm not doing very well. And he said, what's the matter? And I said, I'm not sleeping at night.
I can't get this stuff out of my mind. It has me so upset that I'm tossing and turning in my bed. And I said this to my pastor, and he understood this is why I was telling him this, that I was concerned about this because of what it was saying about me. I said, I'm embarrassed to tell you this because I know that my trust is to be in Christ, and I am to rely on God as my shield and my very great reward, and I see myself now so disturbed in my soul and so disturbed in my spirit that I'm worrying about my reputation, I'm worrying about my feelings, I'm worrying about my friendships, I'm worrying about everything else except the kingdom of God.
And I'm not proud to tell you this. I said, this has been a revelation to me that's not very pleasing because I am allowing matters to disturb the serenity of my soul and the calmness of my spirit that ought never to disturb me. And as I read Edwards this morning, Edwards reinforced that concept to me, and he is saying in that work, that there is nothing that another human being can do to us that can ever hurt anything but our worldly pleasures. A person can injure our body. A person can steal our money.
A person can cause us all kinds of economic distress, and they can destroy our reputation, all of which things have to do with the cares and the pleasures of this world. But we have an inheritance that is laid up in heaven, a treasure there where nobody can steal it, and nobody can cause it to be rusted or corroded, and it is preserved and protected by the Lord Himself, and He guarantees this future inheritance. And so basically Edwards is saying, what are you so exercised about, R.C., other than worldly concerns?
Now I know we could stop away and say, well Edwards, that's you. You are a spiritual giant, and you can handle these things, and you don't worry about personal affronts and injuries and all of that sort of thing, but you're extraordinary. You're super Christian, and after all I'm human, and how can I not be distressed when I'm hurt by people I thought were my friends and so on? And yes, it is true that it's part of our human nature to respond with sadness or anger or bitterness. All of these things are eminently human, but I want to say two things about it.
Yes, they're human, but they're part of our fallen humanity. Those are not part of the manifestations of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And yes, I believe that Edwards was super Christian and attained a plateau of spiritual dynamism that is something I'll never experience in this world. Nevertheless, what he's calling me to in this situation is nothing extraordinary. We are all called to bear our injuries and our griefs and our pain and the insults we receive with patience and love and gentleness and longsuffering. That's required of all of us because it is part and parcel of the Christian's life that is to be an imitation of Christ. We are not Christ, but as we are being sanctified, we are being molded into His image, and we are being conformed to the image of Christ, and we are to strive to live like He lived. And how can I get on my knees and complain to Jesus that people are making false accusations about me?
Can I hear Jesus look at me and say, really? I didn't know that ever happened. What crime was Jesus not accused of in His earthly ministry? His contemporaries constantly plotted to kill Him. They slandered Him every opportunity they had. And the Bible says that our Lord opened not His mouth, and like a lamb that was led to the slaughter, He went, He accepted these vitriolic attacks, and in the very moment of His passion, prayed for the forgiveness of those who were attacking Him. And He was sinless. Every charge that was leveled against Christ was a false charge. Not every charge that's leveled against me is a false charge. I can't stand up and say, wait a minute, nobody should be criticizing me because I'm above criticism.
That's crazy. And what do we do? Even when the criticism is valid, we get mad, and we get hurt, and we get bitter. But Jesus always was innocent, and He still loved, was patient, was gentle, was kind, and never once sought revenge. Now, He is the perfect image of the fullness of the Spirit of God. Now, obviously, we're not going to attain an equality of virtue with Jesus in this world, but we are to show a certain Christ-likeness here. We are to manifest the Spirit that was in Him, that He has given to us. He has shared His Holy Spirit with us, and He calls us to nurture and to cultivate the fruit of that Holy Spirit.
Now, I can only say this. When I read that reminder by Jonathan Edwards, it didn't illuminate suddenly all of the pain I've been feeling or the distress about it, but it certainly put it in a different light, and I thought, wait a minute. I've been so concerned about what other people are doing, I haven't concerned myself with what I am supposed to be doing as a Christian. And even though at a horizontal level I feel that I have been unjustly treated, when I look at my relationship to God, can I say to God, God, you are not just in allowing these things to happen to me? I can't. And so the next question I have to ask is not why God, an accusatory why, but a genuine why.
Why? And I don't have to go look very far to see the answer to that, in one hand at least. I can see this occasion as a golden opportunity in my life to learn something about the fruit of the Spirit. Because it said, Sproul, you allowed your soul to get distressed, you allowed yourself to get angry, you allowed yourself to have at least a potential for a root of bitterness to spring up in your soul, and all of those things are destructive, and all of those things are sin. And instead of seeing this as an occasion to imitate Christ and to grow in your sanctification, you have been resisting my Spirit.
Because I believe that God does bring this sort of thing into our lives for our edification, for us to remember where our treasure is. And so when I wrote my letter today, I told him, when I saw that newspaper article about you, I was angry, not at you, I was angry at the newspaper. And I said, and I tried to imagine how I would feel if I were in your shoes. But I have to tell you, I have been singularly impressed not only by your courage, but by your Spirit in this.
I have not heard Him scream in bitterness or lose His cool or be depressed because of this. He just calmly goes about the ministry because He understands these things. And I wrote Him to say, thank you for being an example to me when I was so easily distressed by these kinds of things.
And I'm saying this to you because I have a feeling, I have a hunch, and it's more than a hunch that I'm not alone in this, that most of us, if not all of us, go through these same kinds of struggles. And we want so much for God to vindicate us, that we want Him to punish other people, and we want Him to bring revenge and all of that sort of thing. When wait a minute, what we should be saying is, Lord, help me in this experience to learn of you and to get my attention back where it belongs. One last thing I'll say about this that in this distress in the last year, I went back to Genesis 15, I don't know how many times, where God spoke to Abraham and said, Abraham, do not be afraid. I am your shield and your very great reward.
I know that those words were addressed to Abraham and not to me, but they said something about how God relates to His people. And I prayed at that time. I said, oh Lord, please be my shield because that's what I need. I need a shield. I feel like I'm naked and these arrows are coming at me and they hurt when they hit, and I would like to have a shield.
And I don't want to be holding up a shield. I want you to be my shield. And I have seen God be exceedingly sweet and tender, shielding me.
I said to my wife this morning, I said, I don't know how I would feel if a national newspaper had a picture of me with these kinds of comments about me in the press. I said, think about it, honey, how much I've been shielded, how much protection I have received from the grace of God. God is our shield. Anytime we feel a little bump in the road or a little arrow that hits us, we think that we're naked and we don't have a shield.
Just think of how much has missed us and how much God has protected us, and He's been our shield. Well, my focus has been on that part of God's statement to Abraham. I will be your shield, and I miss the second part, and I will be your very great reward. And yet how many times does Jesus say, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all men are evil against you falsely for great is your reward in heaven.
I forgot about the reward. I forgot about the treasure that is mine, and I began to think woe is me, poor me, alas and alack, when I have already received the greatest gift a human being could possibly possess. All of the riches that are contained in the gospel of Christ are mine. When you own that, who cares about a few little bumps and a few little injuries and a few little pains along the way?
That's the whole point that Edwards is making here. It's not hard to be patient and kind and loving and long-suffering if you keep your attention on the One who is your shield and the reward that He has given to you by His grace. Today I have looked to some degree of personal anecdote at how we bear injuries that we receive from other people.
There are a couple of practical things I'd like to say to you in conclusion about that. One is, you know, we're called to exercise that love or charity that covers a multitude of sins. Just think of the sin that's been covered in us by the covering of Christ. And we're supposed to cover our brothers' and sisters' sins as well, not in a sense of lying or deceit.
That's not the kind of cover-up I mean, but in a sense of bearing them graciously and in a loving attitude. And it helps us when we realize that for the most part, the wounds that we feel at the hands of other people are rarely committed with the kind of malice we assume they are. Most people do not mean to hurt us as deeply as we are hurt. And when we hear that we've hurt somebody else, we're quick to say, oh, I didn't mean to do that.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring that much pain into your life. And the pain that we experience, we have the sense that most people don't intend that degree of pain either. And we have to remember that, and we have to think about them and the struggles that they're going through and why they are feeling the way that they're feeling. And Edwards puts it this way, as love to God prevails, it tends to set persons above human injuries in this sense that the more they love God, the more they will place all their happiness in Him. They will look to God as their all and seek their happiness and portion in His favor and not in the allotments of His providence alone. And the more they love God, the less they set their hearts on their worldly interests, which are all that their enemies can touch. Keep that in mind as you seek to manifest the fruit of the Spirit.
That was R.C. Sproul on this Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind. As we seek to live the Christian life, we seek to walk in step with the Holy Spirit, not resisting our growth in grace and our growth in holiness. And the series that you heard a message from today was recorded to help you understand the work of the Spirit, both in producing fruit in our lives and in putting sin to death. It's an extensive study, 20 messages, and you can have lifetime digital access to it when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Your support keeps Renewing Your Mind freely available to Christians all around the world. And when you make your donation, we'll also send you a copy of a new 90-day devotional, Our Great Salvation. These daily readings cover four areas, the character of God, His blessings in salvation, our privilege of worship, and our lifelong pursuit of holiness. So request both resources today at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes. As God works in our lives, He produces fruit. Tomorrow, Dr. Sproul will consider the fruit of love, so be sure to join us then here on Renewing Your Mind.
