Conflicted Part 2: Grace Under Fire

In this series we look at a Biblical approach to handling one of the most common challenges we face in our lives, conflict. Not just arguments or disagreements, but genuine conflict that can tear relationships apart and break our hearts. The Bible speaks directly to the issue and teaches us how to have peace and make peace in these moments.

This week: When You are Wronged

Transcript

0:00

I was eighth grade. I was not this big in eighth grade. I was a skinny, scrawny kid in middle school, about 13, 14 years old. And at our school, we had top lockers and bottom lockers. And one of my good friends, locker, was next to me. His name was Tommy, and we had known each other for many years. And one day we're sitting there, and Tommy opens his locker, and when he does, he he bumps me a little bit. And I was like, Well, why'd you do that? And so you know what I did? I bumped him back, and then he bumped me again, and then I bumped him again, and literally within seconds, we are on the ground fighting in the middle of the hallway in our middle school. It's my friend over something stupid like a bump and a shove. As the teachers came out and they grabbed us and took us to the office to get in trouble. We actually started laughing on the way. Like, what did we just do? Like, how did we go from friends to mortal enemies over something so stupid? But the truth is, conflict shows up everywhere, doesn't it? Internally, circumstantially, relationally, culturally, politically, and even in our churches spiritually. And if we don't learn how to handle conflict God's way, it's going to eat away at our joy, our relationships, and even our witness to the world. And that's why we're doing this short series called Conflicted, because the truth is how we respond when we have been wronged or even when we wrong others doesn't just affect that one moment. It can shape the rest of our lives. And it's true, there are many different types of conflict. Last week we looked at this conflict of perspective when we look at the same thing and see something from different angles, right? There's all other kinds, relationship conflict, conflict of values, belief, when there's limited resources. We could go on and on. And unresolved pain has a way of quietly poisoning everything around us if we don't deal with it. It creeps into our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, and even our relationships with God. So today we're going to step into the next part of this series, and we're going to be looking at a different kind of conflict, and it's pretty painful conflict. It's called dealing with pain, painful conflict when somebody has wronged you. How do we have grace in the most difficult of circumstances? Somebody does something that hurts you intentionally or unintentionally, and you have to decide how to respond. If we're going to be honest about the destructive ways we naturally respond when somebody hurts us, we typically don't respond very well, like I didn't with Tommy. He shoved me, I shoved him. When somebody hurts us, we're going to push. But tonight we're going to balance how we typically respond with the perfect example of response, which was Jesus. How he handled being deeply wronged and what that means for us when someone sins or hurts us. So when we hurt, our natural reactions often fall into some predictable, understandable responses. You'll probably find yourself in one of these words up here, or think about when somebody does something to hurt you, how do you respond? We can, first of all, retreat, right? We can withdraw, give people the silent treatment, create that emotional distance, build walls of resentment. And this often makes genuine reconciliation much more difficult because we've created distance instead of dealing with the issue. Or we can what I call ruminate, right? We can just think about it all the time. What did that put that? Do you know what that person did to me? It just eats away at our soul. We can't get it out of our mind and it keeps the wounds fresh, fuels anxiety and depression, steals our joy, and traps us in bitterness. Or we can do what we often do is retaliate, right? We explode in anger, lash out, somebody says something or does something to me, and I do the same thing to them, maybe with even more force. And this can cause significant collateral damage to other relationships and deepens the original pain. Or I think most of us fall in this last category where we hold on to it and we just live in resentment. We look at that person and we just remain hostile, angry, despondent toward them, not wanting good for them, we want evil for them. And this slowly poisons the relationship almost to a point where we ask, can it even be saved? These responses may feel justified in the moment, right? Especially when the pain is fresh. But in the long run, these kinds of responses only deepen the damage in relationships. It increases stress and anxiety and often creates a disruptive cycle that we'll talk about. The truth is when we're hurt, it naturally creates conflict. So then how do we actually fight right? How do we show grace under fire when somebody actually pours pain into your life? Not just when we see things differently, but when somebody actually causes you pain. So if these kind of responses are not good, what should we do? The greatest example that we have to look at is Jesus. He is the perfect model for how to handle painful conflict. Not because he was detached from pain, but precisely because he felt it so deeply. Jesus was fully God, certainly, but he was also fully man. He experienced real betrayal, real rejection, real emotional trauma, real injustice. And many of us treat Jesus like he is some kind of divine AI robot walking around on this earth. When a problem comes in, he betrayal, abandonment, he just has this perfect, painless natural response, no thinking, no feelings. But that's not who Jesus was. He wasn't a spiritual algorithm. He wasn't just floating above the pain, immune to how much it hurt. He felt the sting of being lied to. He felt the deep wound of being abandoned by his closest friends in his darkest hour. He felt the humiliation of being mocked and spit on. And ultimately, he felt the agony of being crucified by the very people he came to save. His response to this pain was not cold, mechanical. They were wholly, intentional, and deeply human. He showed us that it is possible to be genuinely hurt, to feel the full weight of pain, and still respond with grace, truth, and compassion. And that's why we're going to turn to him today to look at how Jesus responded when people wronged him. In three major ways in major ways, when they were sinful or sinister, out to get him. So let's talk first about what happens when people are sinful in our lives. They do something wrong. Maybe it's not intentionally to hurt us, but they sin. They're living in sin and it brings pain into our life. When someone does something morally wrong that hurts us, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And we see this clearly throughout Jesus' ministry, right? Even though he was perfect, he was constantly surrounded by broken, sinful people whose actions cause pain to themselves and to others. Yes, Jesus never responded, yet, Jesus never responded with shame, condemnation, or destruction. Instead, he responded a radically different way: grace under fire, grace, truth, and forgiveness. And I think we need to start with the basic understanding of what it means to be sinful, right? And the definition that you'll see here is it's when someone does something morally wrong that hurts themselves, hurts others, and damages the culture around them. Lying, gossip, cheating, betraying others. We all face this kind of hurt. We've maybe been the target of it. Sometimes a person didn't mean to cause pain by their actions, but they did. Careless and are deliberate. But it still left real damage in their wake. Their sin didn't just affect them, it rippled outward and hurt other people around them. So how do we respond to this usually? Oftentimes I'll start blaming people or shaming people, right? We rehearse what they did wrong, tell others about it, and want them to feel the full weight of their failure. When we were growing up, my brother was a few years older than me, and we had a we had a dog, and you know, we were always trying to one-up each other. And anyway, we were at a mall one day, and our brother, my brother, took our small dog and jokingly held the dog over the, we were on the second floor, held it over the ledge. And I was like, Jay, you can't do that. He was like, ah, he's like, don't tell mom and dad. And I'm like, I was like, okay, I got something on you. Like, then I heard him later on, it was like a next week or two later, we were in the laundry room and he hit something and he said a curse word. And he's like, oh, don't tell mom and dad. I was like, all right, I got some fuel now. So I can't anytime then I wanted something, you know what I started saying to Jay? If you don't do this for me, I'm gonna tell mom what you did with the dog. I'm gonna tell mom and dad you cursed. And I basically turned my older brother into my slave until finally one day he goes, Fine, tell them. I don't care anymore. And I was like, well, that's no fun. You know, it's I've lost him. But we play this blame and shame game. We hold sin over them. Or we cut them off. Right? Oh, you did that, I can't be around you. And we build the walls that say I'm done. Or we nurse this bitterness and stay stuck in the victim mentality. But let's look at how Jesus responded when he came into contact with very sinful people caught in sin and deep moments. The first example we're going to look at is found in John 4. It's the woman at the well. It says, Then a woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus met this Samaritan woman at the well. He spoke to her, and quickly her sin was revealed. She was not a faithful woman. In the first century Jewish culture, a woman like her who had five husbands and was currently living with a sixth man was a social outcast. Her repeated broken relationships had left her isolated and ashamed. And she actually came to the well at noon, the hottest part of the day, to avoid the other women and the other people coming to the well. And she was shocked to see someone there, especially Jesus. And her story actually reveals a deeper spiritual thirst that many of us have that cause us to sin like this. An emptiness that we feel like no human relationship can satisfy, that is, we've been searching for love, security, worth. Things like loneliness and depression push us to be unfaithful sometimes. Many of us have been the painful on the painful receiving ends of these kind of sinful choices. Maybe it was a spouse who was unfaithful, a close friend who betrayed your trust through gossip or lies. Maybe someone you loved made repeated moral failures and left deep scars in your life. It hurts. It makes you angry. It makes you want to retreat, build a wall. And some of us are trying our best to forgive and move on, but the pain is still there, lingering, rising up at unexpected moments. We're gonna see him also encounter a guy named Zacchaeus. The story's out of Luke 19, and it says there was a man named Zacchaeus, he was the chief tax collector and was rich. He was seeking to see Jesus, but on account of the crowd, he could not, and he was small in stature, and you know what Zacchaeus did. He climbed up into a tree. So Jesus comes across a man literally hanging out in a tree, trying to just get a spot, a view of Jesus. And Jesus notices his man and his sin quickly comes to life. He is the chief tax collector. Tax collectors like Zacchaeus were despised, not just because they were the tax man, but they literally worked for the enemy and cheated their own people. He was a cheat and a thief, is what Zacchaeus was. This personal sin that of cheating and stealing, we can do for many reasons. We can feel like we need something that we don't have. We're envious and we draw it from other people. And many of us have been the painful receiving end of these kind of sinful choices of others. A business partner cheated you. A family member was manipulative and self-serving for years. Maybe someone in authority used their power to take advantage of you and others, and this kind of pain leaves deep wounds, and it can make you bitter and distrustful of people in general. Jesus sees Zacchaeus in a tree. Thief and a cheat. Then we see one more. John chapter 8, the woman that was caught in adultery. So there had been a woman caught in the act of adultery, and now the law commands us to stone such women. What do you say? Jesus is thrown in the middle of a dispute that's meant to trap him. And he finds a woman surrounded by a group of men, ready to kill her. This woman had been caught in the very act of adultery. And under Jewish law, that was that was serious public offense, punishable by stoning. But the true greater sin here in this moment wasn't hers, it was the self-righteous and hypocrisy of the accusers who had set this whole thing up. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees dragged her before Jesus, not out of genuine concern for righteousness, but to try to cause Jesus pain and harm in his life. They wanted to force him to have a no-win situation, either go against the law of Moses or say stone her and lose the appeal that he was creating with the crowd. This story exposes how self-righteousness can become weaponized. People take the moral high ground not to help others or to honor God, but to make themselves feel superior to gain power. This kind of sin is especially dangerous because it wears religious clothing and it damages people being shamed, hardens their hearts, and distorts the true character of God. He finds not just a woman caught in adultery, but he finds men there living self-righteous lives dominating over others. These three things, he steps into these. What does he do? When I think about it, if I was there, there are some of them I'd be like, you know, I just want to get out of this situation. This stoning crowd thing, it seems like a little crazy. Maybe I'll just back out of that. This thief up in the tree, you know, I'll just walk the other way. I'll act like I don't even see him. And this lady that's coming to talk to me at the well, you know, I'll just keep my distance and go sit on the other side. But we're gonna see that Jesus did something very different. With the woman at the well, he literally sat down and talked to her. He sat down. In this culture, no self-respecting rabbi would speak publicly to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman. He put cultural issues aside and sat down and treated her like a person, not a problem. He stepped into her life, broke every social custom, engaged with her in deep conversation, and uncovered the true pain that was high in her broken relationships. And he brought healing. He brought healing into her life. Salvation came to her. And it says later on in John 4 that because of her testimony, many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of her words. When she said, He told me all that I ever did, she was set free. She didn't leave that day in shame like she had every other day. What about Zacchaeus? This man that was in the tree, Jesus didn't just invite him. He said, Come and let me eat with you. And he sat down at his table. He went to this thief and cheat's house. It's crazy. He didn't hide, he didn't run away. Instead, he put himself in one of the most intimate moments that he could with this thief and his cheat. In this culture, sharing a mail meant acceptance. Jesus was publicly honoring this man. Everyone else had rejected. And what made Jesus' response so unique was that he broke every custom and religious boundary again. And while the crowd demanded exclusion and they were angry that he went, Jesus offered hope and forgiveness and grace. And what happens? It says in Luke 19, 9 that salvation has come to this house, since he is also a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. Zacchaeus left a changed man. He gave away, he restored what he had stolen. Grace came, change came. Not shame, not condemnation. What about the woman caught in adultery and the right self-righteous crowd around him? Jesus in that moment didn't just sit on a well or sit at a table. He actually knelt down on the ground with her. He did something astonishing. He stooped down and met her where she was, not to rebuke her, but instead to rebuke the men accusing her. He rode in the dust, possibly listing their sins. We don't know for sure, but it caused her accusers to walk away and drop their stones one by one. And then he looked at the woman and said, Where are your accusers? She said, They've gone. He said, They don't condemn you. And then he said, Neither do I condemn you. Now go and leave your life of sin. Forgiveness came into her life. What made his response so radically different than was that he refused to play the power game. He dealt with people's self-righteousness and exposed their hypocrisy and caused them to leave the vulnerable. And every one of these stories, the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus, we've seen the same pattern. Jesus chose to forgive and then move forward. He chose to forgive and then move forward. He didn't excuse the sin like it was no big deal. He said, Go and sin no more. He called out the sin. He caused Zacchaeus, the change in his life caused him to be repentant of his sin and make amends. But he chose to forgive then and move forward, which is freeing. Both for the person and the relationship. So how do we do this? How do we step into this? Just give you a couple things to think about. First thing you got to do is you've got to release your responsibility to be the judge. You are not the judge. Scripture tells us, James 4, 12, there is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy, but you, who are you to judge your neighbor? We are not the judge. We don't get to determine the consequences, the punishment. We can point out sin, we can say that's sin, especially as brothers and sisters of Christ, but we don't get to be the judge. Don't take it upon yourselves to pronounce final judgment on someone and tell them they're a lost cause. Second, we should remember our own sinful nature, right? We know Romans 3.23, we've all sinned, fall short of God's glory. We were once trapped in sin. Maybe we were caught in a sin, we were a thief and a cheat, or we were unfaithful at some point in our lives, and God's changed us. Don't forget that. And finally, you have to rely on the power of God's forgiveness. Ephesians tells us be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other as Christ God has forgiven you. Forgiveness is our tool when people sin. Forgive and move forward. Now I want to touch on a harder subject. It's what I call not just when people are sinful, but when they're sinister. When they actually are pouring evil into your life. When someone intentionally works to bring harm to another person or a group of people, things like abuse, betrayal, backstabbing, abandonment, racism, and violence. Just seeing someone living a sinful pattern in their life in one thing, but this kind of sinister action cuts especially deep because it's not accidental, it's deliberate. There's something uniquely devastating about intentional harm. It doesn't just break your heart, it shatters your trust. It makes you question whether anyone is truly safe. The pain lingers in the way accidental hurt really doesn't. It creates Insecurity, sometimes a hardened shell around your heart. And how do we respond to this? Our natural response usually is to burn with anger, right? To get angry, let anger overcome us. We rehearse this offense constantly. We replay the conversation. We replay the moment of betrayal. And this deserves anger. And look what they did. But unchecked anger doesn't stay contained, it leaks into other relationships and other parts of our lives. Then we also plot revenge, right? What am I going to do to get them back? How am I going to hurt them the way they hurt me? But revenge doesn't heal us, it just feeds bitterness and keeps the wound open and bleeding. Which then leads us to the third thing, which I just call the cycle of pain. Because it's like it says on the shampoo bottle wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. I always look at it. When am I supposed to stop? You know, you just, but that's what this cycle does. Pain comes into my life. I get angry bitter. I plot my revenge. I put pain into their life. Do you know what happens? They get angry, bitter, they plot their revenge, they put pain into my life. What happens? It's the cycle. Cycle, cycle. And this cycle does something terrible. It turns us into what we once hated. We end up exactly doing what was done to us, only now we're helping multiply the pain. What started as one person's deliberate sin becomes a chain reaction that pours it out into others. And in a moment, in these moments, each one of these responses feels completely justified and satisfying. But they don't heal us. They don't move us forward. They keep us in the cycle of pain. So, what about Jesus? I think he's a perfect example to look at here. How to respond to anger without anger, revenge, or bitterness. He lived this flawless life. He was perfectly the perfect model of the character of God. He never sinned against anyone. He only brought healing, truth, and love, yet he was deliberately betrayed by a close friend, arrested by religious leaders, and put to death by an occupying empire that viewed him as a threat. And there are two key moments I want us to focus on here when people intentionally did something to Jesus. And the first is Judas. Matthew 26, it says, Judas came to him in the garden, and Jesus asked him, Are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss? Think about it. Judas had walked with him for three years, had been seen his miracles, heard his teachings, shared mills, trusted, he was trusted with the group's money bag. He was one of the twelve, the innermost circle. And in the first century Jewish culture, betrayal by a close friend was considered one of the most shameful acts possible. Loyalty and honor were everything. And to betray someone with a kiss, the traditional greeting of friendship and affection was the ultimate act of hypocrisy and treachery. And the 30 pieces that he was paid was the going price for a slave that day. You know, people betray others because of self-interest, greed, fear, lots of different ways. And many of us have felt the sting of deliberate betrayal in our lives. A close friend trusted you with, or you trusted a close friend with your deepest secret, and suddenly they stab you in the back. A spouse looked you in the eyes and said, I'll be there until death to us depart. And then they walk away without a second thought. A colleague you mentor defended and believed in quietly sabotages you for their own gain. This kind of betrayal doesn't just break your heart. It leaves you cynical, guarded, painful, distrustful, broken. Broken. But it didn't stop there for Jesus. There was another moment where he was actually arrested and crucified. In Luke 23, it says, then when they came to the place of the skull, they there crucified him along with criminals, one on his right, one on his left. The betrayal in the garden was just the beginning. What followed was a coordinated, deliberate campaign of evil. The religious leaders arrested Jesus under the cover of night and subjected him to an illegal trial with false witnesses. This wasn't random violence. It was intentional and calculated. Jesus was a threat to their power and they were out to get him. And they literally put him to death. Not a quick death. Slow, painful, torturous. Many of us experienced maybe not this level of pain, but we've experienced deliberate organized harm in our life. Maybe you were abused by someone who was supposed to protect you, a parent, a spouse, pastor, a mentor. Maybe a group of people ganged up on you to ruin your reputation, your career, your standing in the community. Maybe you've been the target of systematic injustice, racism, or hatred simply because of who you are and what you believe. The calculated nature of harm, this kind of harm, makes it especially devastating because it's not just pain, it's a kind of death. It kills trust, it kills innocence, it kills the hope that we have that people are basically good, and it can kill even parts of our spirit to love freely and to dream boldly. But look at how Jesus faced these sinister moments in his life. He refused to respond like we mentioned earlier. What about in Judas's moment? Into that moment of calculated betrayal stepped Jesus and he whispered something unique into Judas' ear. He said, Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man? Then he added, Do what you have come for, friend. It's a powerful word. Jesus, even in that moment, was reminding Judas of what they were. They had been friends. They had been friends. And this was an invitation to turn from his plan to even just step back and be remorseful. What makes Jesus' response so astonishing is that he refused to enter the cycle of harm. I can only imagine what I would have whispered in somebody's ears. They were betraying me to my death. I don't know that I would have called them friend. I probably would have said a lot of other things. This is one powerful picture of the gospel in action. This open hand of reconciliation that is more powerful than a closed fist of revenge. That's what grace under fire looks like. But what about the crucifixion? The darkest moment, the most painful moment. In the horror of the cross, Jesus stepped into that willingly and he said these words. In this ultimate moment of deliberate evil, when the system looked like it had won, Jesus' response here is so astonishing in that he offered forgiveness to people who had not even asked for it. Who showed no remorse, who were literally still in the act of killing him. No apology, no repentance, no recognition of wrong, yet Jesus willingly extended mercy anyway. What a picture of how to break the pain cycle in our lives and in our world. And ultimately, in both of these situations, here's what Jesus chose. He chose the path of healing instead of continuing the cycle of harm. He chose the path of healing instead of continuing the cycle of harm. Where we so often multiplied pain, Jesus absorbed it. Where we seek revenge, Jesus forgave. Where we close our fists in anger, Jesus opened his hands on the cross in reconciliation. This is truly grace under fire. Jesus didn't just teach forgiveness. And this all sounds good, right? I mean, I'm grateful Jesus did this for me. But I quickly say, I'm not Jesus. You're not Jesus, right? How do we do this? And it actually brings up two questions that I want us to close with that I think we have to deal with to be able to step into the ability to live this way, to bring healing instead of harm. And the first question it makes us ask is why forgive somebody when they're not sorry? Because biblical forgiveness is not primarily, I want you to hear this, about the offender's response. It is about refusing to let their evil define or control you. Forgiveness is not about their response, it is healing for you. Jesus understood that holding on to bitterness would have chained him to their hatred. By forgiving, he broke the cycle. He absorbed the evil rather than passing on and chose to live free. Forgiveness is not about freeing the other person. It is about freeing your heart from the pain they have caused you. And that's powerful. Jesus shows us that forgiveness is not something we give because the other person's earned it. It is something we give because we have been given it, and in the act of obedience we find freedom. It's happened in our own lives. Romans 5, 8. While you were sinners, Christ died for you. Not because you were remorseful first, not because you were repentant. At your worst is when he died. But then it brings me to a second, I think a harder question. Alright, if I can forgive and I can do that even when they're not sorry, what do we do then with relationships that have been deeply harmful, abusive, and destructive in our lives? Do I just keep letting them harm me? Have to forgive again? Forgive again? Do we just keep giving people unlimited access to hurt us? Is it truly Christ-like to stay in situations we are repeatedly wounded? And let me be clear and compassionate here. Forgiveness does not mean that you have to remain in harm's way. Jesus forgave from the cross, but he did not entrust himself to the people that he would not make him safe. Even though he gave himself willingly, he did not submit to these people. Even the perfect Son of God set boundaries. In John 2, he says that he would not entrust himself to people that were out against him. Forgiveness, while it is a one-way act of obedience and release and freedom, reconciliation is a two-way street. And a process that requires repentance, trust building, and change. And not every relationship can or should be fully restored. There are times when the most loving and wise thing you can do in your life is create distance, set boundaries, or even separate entirely, especially in cases of abuse, manipulation, or unrepentant, destructive behavior. I want you to hear this is not unloving. It is not unforgiving. You can still forgive. It is actually protecting the image of God in you. The Bible supports this Proverbs 4.23, above all else, guard your heart, for everything else flows from it. You don't have to allow just pain over and over into your heart. Matthew tells us, Jesus says to be shrewd as we live our lives. And Matthew 18 is, of course, a picture of how we deal with unrepentant and dealing with pain even within the church. Hear this clearly. It means you forgive in your heart so that bitterness does not control you while still exercising wisdom and the protection that God affords. You can forgive somebody completely and still say, I love you, but I cannot keep allow you to keep harming me. Forgiveness sets you free, and boundaries protect the sacred ground that God has given you. Both are acts of grace. And I'll just close this section with this. If you are in an abusive and destructive relationship right now, please know this. God does not require you to stay in harm's way to prove your forgiveness. God does not require you to stay in that harmful situation. Seek wise counsel, reach out for help, protect yourself and those under your care. Forgiveness can be offered from a safe distance. Healing often begins with healthy boundaries. So that brings me to our question of the day. We'll just hold on to for a minute. When we are in this kind of conflict, am I going to use this conflict when people are sinful and sinister as a weapon to perpetuate hurt, harm, and hate? Or in those moments, will it become a tool to bring healing, hope, and harmony? It's based on how we approach it, what our choices are. It's not always an easy question to answer, honestly. Pain is real, wounds run decades deep. Choosing the path of grace under fire often feels costly and unnatural. But there is a beautiful simplicity in it. And what happens when we make the right choice. Freedom flows quickly. A new outlook and peace come in. You bow your head and close your eyes when we