Video Transcript: Discerning God's Purposes at the Firetrap of Offense

In this lecture, we want to examine the Lord's purposes at the trap of offense.  Just as the enemy’s main purposes were to hinder you and prevent you from advancing in your life and walk with Jesus Christ, the Lord has objectives and goals at the trap of offense, things that, remember, the Lord is always at work. And He's at work in every offense in every conflict, providing opportunities, continuing His work that He's begun in you, and in those with whom you're in conflict. 

When I was practicing law, in Chicago, and on mornings when I would get dressed to go to court, sometimes I would select a tie that didn't quite match my suit.  I’m a little color-blind. And so some mornings I would come down the stairs and my wife would say, “honey, you need to change that tie, it doesn't match”.

Now on most days I would say thank you because I realized that she was protecting me from being embarrassed in front of the judge and the other attorneys in court and so I would go back upstairs and put on a different tie. But some days, I would come down the stairs and if she made that same comment that the day before I found to be helpful and a blessing to me, maybe I'm running a little late, or maybe I'm a little grumpy, didn't get much sleep last night, or maybe I'm already thinking about things that are going to be arguing in court that day, but for some reason the same comments that she makes to me, “honey, you need to go change that tie,” triggers in offense in that dynamic of offense.  

And that's a pretty innocent and a minor offense. But offenses can be minor, they can start out as a little matter. And many times I would go on to court, I would might say something to her on my way out the door, like, “you know, I'm a big boy, I can dress myself,” and so I would go on to court, and then during the day, the Lord would be calling to me and I knew that I was offended and that I needed to get out of that trap. 

Now some days I would ignore that calling of the Lord and His voice and I would just not do anything about that offense.  And the trap of offense is deceptive in that way and it's deceitful in that way because we think that over time, as time passes, and I haven't dealt with that offense yet, it'll just go away.  And eventually I'll forget about it, or they'll forget about and it'll be like it never happened.  And the wildfires kind of calm down.  

But then the wind blows just right and another comment is said and the fire starts up. And I recognize that I'm still in that trap and in my relationship with my wife, I will continue to say hurtful things and build on the previous offense.  So what is the Lord that we're doing in those situations?  What is He calling us to do?  And I want to share with you in this session four things that the Lord is doing, four purposes of the Lord at the trap of offense. 

The first purpose is to deliver us from the trap of offense to get us out of the trap.  The Lord doesn't look to us to do the work.  Remember that He is the deliverer.  And He is the one who will show us what we need to cut off to get out of the trap of offense.  So if His first goal is deliverance, His first purpose of the trap of offense is deliverance, what are the ways that He's provided for us to get free from the trap of offense? 

The first is to overlook at offense to not get in the trap in the first place. 

In Proverbs, Chapter 19:11, we read, “A person's wisdom yields patience; it is to one's glory, to overlook an offense”.  So oftentimes in minor offenses, we can overlook it.  And so the question becomes, well, when is an offense a minor one that we can overlook and when is it too serious to overlook it?  And my rule of thumb in those situations is that if a person makes a comment to me, or does something to me that I think I can overlook, I'll put it before the Lord and I'll say, Lord, grant me the grace over looks at offense, and treat that person is just the offense didn't happen. 

Now, the next time I see that person, if that offense comes to mind, it's a signal to me that I have not forgiven that brother or sister and I need to I deal with this situation in a different way.  And it may not be that the offense was such a major offense or even a minor offense but it is an indication to me that the Lord's at work doing something in that situation, that for whatever purpose He is pursuing, He wants me to continue to seek reconciliation and restoration with this brother with that I'm offended, and I need to get out of that trap. 

So if we can't overlook the offense and we recognize that we need deliverance, there's a second step, and that is to reject the bait. And this is what Jesus did in Matthew, Chapter 16:21-23. 

Jesus is talking with the disciples and He says, “From that time”, I'm sorry, it’s Mark 16:21-23. Jesus said, “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and then He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”  Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never Lord,” He said, “this shall never happen to you”.  And Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me, an offense to me.  You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concern”. 

Anything that Jesus saw that would hinder from pursuing His relationship of obedience to the Father, He considered an offense.  And here He rebukes that potential offense in here and the person is Peter and Peter's words, and he says, “Get behind Me, Satan, you're a stumbling block to me”.  

Jesus would not be hindered in his relationship of relentless reliance on the Father.  And He calls for the same to us to encourage us to develop that relationship of relentless reliance on Him, that when we see the potential of an offense before us, that we’ll see it for what it is and reject the bait and not take offense.  This is more than overlooking in offense, this is seeing the bait for what it is and rejecting it. 

If we take the bait, and we find ourselves in the trap of the offense, the third way of deliverance is to cut off the offending source.  In Matthew 18:8-9, Jesus said, “If your hand or foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It's better to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet, and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away, it's better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell”. 

So what does it mean to cut off our hand cut off our foot or gouge out our eye. This is hyperbole that the Lord is using and we can look at it a number of ways.  One way to look at it is that the heart’s desires are exposed when the bait is taken.  And maybe it's a desire that the Lord is after. But maybe it's something we're doing with our hands, someplace we're going with our feet, something we're looking at with our eye.  Whatever it is, the Lord shows us and reveals that to us as we seek Him at the peace.  And as He does, He doesn't ask us to become a better person, try harder.  Just cut it off, let it fall to the ground, and come follow me.  Return to the Peacefire.

Now sometimes we’ll not be able to reject the bait; we’ll take the bait and get trapped in the firetrap of offense.  And we will get pretty comfortable there.  Because when we take offense it feels good to our natural desire to our flesh, and we feel justified in our taking of offence. And when we feel justified, we can get comfortable and we think we're right, and from where we sit, our perspective is right.  We think we have a right to despise that other individual.  And we get comfortable there and we're not able to cut off the offending source.  And when that happens, know that Jesus Christ is going to pursue you. And He's going to rescue you from that trap of offense.  And it's what I call the fire rescue.  

And you will be, eventually the Lord will get you delivered and return you to where you ought to be available to Him to serve in the midst of that conflict because when we remain in the trap of offense, where we have cut ourselves off from being available for the Holy Spirit to use us in the midst of that conflict, if we're being driven by our desire for whatever it is in the Wilefire that has our attention that caused us to take offense, that desire that caused us to take offense is now controlling our heart.  And we're justified in our offense, in taking offense.  And until the Lord rescues us from that trap, we're going to be, we’re going to be stuck there. 

So deliverance is the first objective of the Lord, in removing us from the trap of offense and His first purpose of the trap of offense. 

The second purpose of The Lord of the trap of offense is transformation.  The trap of offense exposes things in our lives, it exposes those hidden desires.  When we take offense at a comment or at an action that's directed at us by another, it reveals to us something about our desires.  Of course, we'll focus on why we have a right to be offended, but at the Peacefire, the Lord is going to show us we don't have that right to be offended, and what it is we need to bring to Him and ask Him to change in us.  It's a sign of His love for us.

In Ephesians 4:22-24, the Apostle Paul writes, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”  

And oftentimes in conflict, what is exposed in our desires is the exact thing that the Lord wants to change.  And as a Christian leader, you're going to be involved in conflicts with others in helping them to bring peace back to their relationships.  And you can use the trap of offense and you will observe the trap of offense dynamic at work in their relationships and in their conflict.  and the Lord will give you insight and understanding as to how to help them get free from the trap of offense and get back to a place where they can restore relationships, as well as things that the Lord wants to transform in their lives, anything that doesn’t look like Jesus Christ.  And again, the Lord is not asking us to take those things and try harder to be better; “just give them to me and I’ll change you,” He says.  You are His workmanship.

So when we have been exposed at the trap of offense and our desires are laid out, the Lord doesn’t want us to hide them or to justify them, and boy, will the flesh want to do that.  When we take offense and we have a right to be offended, by our deceitful desires, the Lord will expose that and we’ll want to hide it, or justify it and explain it away.  But the Lord’s path for us, He wants to transform us, He wants us to come to Him, to bring those things to Him, not to not be embarrassed at all, but to come to Him as we are and by His grace, He will transform us into the image of Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Jesus Christ is never shocked when we sin. He knows who we are. He knows what we're made of.  And He knows what He's at work doing in our lives.  So when you find yourself in that compromised position, you're offended or you've caused offence, or you've done something that's caused conflict, go to the Peacefire, received the Lord's forgiveness, receive from Him that grace and mercy that is freely given to all and present yourself and let Him fill you with his Holy Spirit and send you back into the Wilefire to accomplish His purpose and redeem what has been lost. 

The third purpose of the Lord is a trap of offense is reconciliation.  And when we talk about reconciliation, oftentimes we'll want to go right to the relationship that's conflicted.  But the primary relationship that's conflicted when we are in the trap of offense is our relationship with the Father not just our relationship with our brother or sister that we're in conflict with. 

The Lord tells us in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, let me get the speck out of your eye when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” 

We often think about removing the log from our own is maybe something that we've done to contribute to the conflict in that by removing that log and confessing that things to the Lord, now we can go and tell our brother or sister why we're right and they're wrong. But I challenge you to think about the log being the planks that build and construct your position of self-righteousness, your arguments of justification as to why you deserve the lantern.  Getting the log out of your own eye is removing everything from your path of vision that tells you why you deserve what you want in the conflict, putting it aside, so that the only thing that you can see is Jesus Christ. And restoring that relationship with Him, reconciling your relationship with him, and letting Him then send you back to the Wilefire to serve Him as He sees fit, and then to reconcile your relationship with your brother, sister. 

Jesus Christ pursues lost sheep, those who are in conflict, those who are trapped in the trap of offense, because of his love for them, not because they're right or wrong.  In a conflict, we often justify our response to a brother or sister who's offended us because we think we're right, and they're wrong. But the Lord loves them just as much as He loves you and I, whether they're right or whether they're wrong, and our response to them, He desires us to respond to them the same way that He responds to us. That same grace, that same mercy, that same forgiveness that He's extended to us, He calls upon us to extend to others. 

So the reconciliation of relationship is not because our brother or sister deserves it, or even because we deserve it, but because the Lord requires it of us. It's who He is. And it's who He calls us to be, again, not because anyone deserves it but because He has purchased us. And He has given us his love. He's given us his life. And He asks us to share that life with others, and to treat others the way that He has treated us.

In 1 John 2:9-10, “Anyone who claims to be in the light, but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.  Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.”

So we've covered three purposes of the Lord, at the firetrap of offense, deliverance, from the trap, transformation, reconciliation, and the fourth purpose is to destroy the works of the devil.

In 1 John 3:8 we read, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared, was to destroy the works of the devil.”

To destroy means to loosen the set free to release the bondage. Oftentimes in conflict, one of the things that is exposed is someone being in bondage to something.  Maybe it's fear, maybe it's pride.  Maybe it's a thing like money.  One of the purposes in conflict with the Lord reveals at the trap of offense is any bondage and then He comes to destroy that bondage to set the captives free. 

And so when something is exposed in your life, or in someone's life that's close to you, maybe a member of your church, maybe someone employee at your business, a coworker, the enemy tries to get us to judge them, to criticize them.  How could he have done that?  How could she have said that?  And all the while, we're not recognizing that the Lord has exposed something of bondage that He wants to destroy, and that this conflict is that person's next best opportunity to get free from that bondage, and the Lord wants to use you, as his ambassador, to go into that Wilefire and to minister to that person. And that can only be done when we get the log out of our own eye.

Come to the Lord at the Peacefire, seek Him, ask Him to reveal his purpose to us that changes our priorities in responding to the conflict and going back into that Wilefire to minister to that brother or sister. And to see the Lord's set that captive free. 

Scripture tells us for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. 

We all fall into traps of offense. We all cause others to be offended from time to time. Again, the opportunities presented to you through this course are not intended to keep you from taking offense or keep you from causing offence.  It's going to happen.  Jesus said it will happen.  But what opportunities we have when offense occurs is to take our disobedience before the Lord, let Him forgive us, let Him cleanse us, let Him change us, deliver us from the trap, and then go back into the Wilefire and avenge our disobedience.  Go to that brother we've wronged and confess our sin and ask Him to forgive us.  Go to that sister that we've lied to and confess that lie and ask her to forgive us. These are the opportunities that the Lord provides to us at the trap of offence; His purposes.

The Lord is always at work, delivering people, transforming His people, reconciling relationships, and destroying the works of the enemy. 

God bless you. We'll see you next time.

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