20Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,
no one who does what is right and never sins.
21Do not pay attention to every word people say,
or you may hear your servant cursing you—
22for you know in your heart
that many times you yourself have cursed others.
(Ecclesiastes 7:20-22)
Ecclesiastes is an Old Testament book written by King Solomon, one of the wisest men who has ever lived! The book is full of wisdom and appears pessimistic when first read, but it’s only pessimistic when God is taken out of the picture. The book tells us that everything is meaningless, but it’s only meaningless without God.
Today’s passage shows us that everything that people say about us is meaningless. We have our identity rooted in Christ rather than what others say to us. Too often, however, we let our emotions ride up and down based upon what we hear people say about us, how many likes we get on social media posts etc.
There is a way to live a life that’s unoffended, and Pastor Jonny spoke to us this week about how.
Choose to forgive people before they hurt us
It’s fashionable to be a social justice warrior on social media these days, getting offended about the latest thing that’s fashionable to be offended about and rioting, protesting and virtue-signalling to show how offended we are. This is fake offence. It’s a little more difficult in life when people say things about us and our personality/character,.
The way to deal with this is to understand that “hurt people hurt people”, and “bitterness leaks”. The person saying offensive things to/about us likely has issues of their own and they are being offensive themselves as an outlet. We need to get into the habit of choosing to forgive people before they say anything to us, ensuring our heart is swept clean to avoid being part of a chain reaction of offence.
Jesus had a parable on a similar topic:
23“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold h was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. i He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
(Matthew 18:23-35)
As we can see from the above passage, God’s grace is freely given, therefore we must be grace-based people ourselves. Just because someone gives us offence doesn’t mean that we have to store it up in our heart as unforgiveness and possibly become offensive to the people around us.
The best time to forgive someone is before they hurt you, the second best time is now
Don’t pick the offence up
When someone gives us offence, sometimes it hurts because it holds a seed of truth.
We need to remind ourselves of our status as a child of God, and respond to the person offending us from that position of strength. If there is any truth in the person’s offensive speech, then we need to take out the emotion, analyse their point objectively, and potentially use it as a point for self-improvement.
The person who is speaking offensively might have issues of their own, and they might be lashing out in anger. Remember the Ecclesiastes passage, that we have all offended others and that none of us are sinless. Knowing that, we have the ability to ignore it and respond to the issue being discussed, rather than dwelling on the offensive part of the person’s speech.
Learn to “shake it off”
We need to learn to become people who are unoffendable, shaking off offence and becoming immune to it, letting offensive speech bounce off us like water off a duck’s back.
Jesus refers to shaking of offence when instructing His disciples to go from town to town to spread the Gospel:
14If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.
(Matthew 10:14)
We need to learn to follow the instruction of Jesus, not take things personally, and walk away from offensive people, shaking the dust off our feet.
So let’s focus this week on praying for our friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, and even enemies, and choosing to forgive them in advance for anything offensive they may say to us.