Fresh Start // How Offense Makes Us Fools // Mark Davies // April 28, 2024

Faith

Fresh Start – How Offense Makes Us Fools

What is offense?

Offense = An annoyance or resentment brought about by a perceived insult to or disregard for oneself or one's standards or principles.

Hebrew: peša = Transgression or sin

“You know you are a true servant when it doesn’t upset you to be treated like one.”

- Unknown

How Offense Makes Us Fools

1. Offense makes me angry.

Ecclesiastes 7:9 (ESV)

“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges (makes its home there) in the bosom of fools.”

2. Offense distracts me from the relationship.

Proverbs 17:9 (ESV)

“Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends”

3. Offense hardens my heart.

Proverbs 18:19 (ESV)

“A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.”

4. Offense distorts my view of reality.

Proverbs 18:17 (ESV)

“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”

Proverbs 19:11 (ESV)

“Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”

Four Strategies to Overlook an Offense

1. Give up your Rights.

Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

2. Choose to Love.

Proverbs 10:12 (ESV)

“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”

(Hatred = loving myself more than others)

Colossians 3:12-15 (ESV)

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”

3. Choose to Forgive.

Matthew 6:14-15 (ESV)

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Ephesians 4:29-32 (ESV)

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

4. Ask a Question.

Proverbs 18:17 (ESV)

“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”

Matthew 7:3-4 (ESV)

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is the log in your own eye?”