Always Consider the Source

My hope today is to impart a grace that has truly helped me deal with people. Pastioral life is a life of Godl;y patience, because we have to deal with many people who are so difficlt that their work, frien ds children and spuse simply could not handle, and they come to God for help.

Sun Tze in his book, the art of war said: “Know thy enemy.” He meant that in order to defeat someone you must know what makes them tick.

Well today i would change those words: “Know thy neighbor” becsuse in order to be graciuous you will need to know why they are the way that thery are.

People are incredibly precious, and we need to undertand that each and eveyone of them is living a complex life, filled with challanges and difficulties. there is more than meets the eye.

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV

7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Another important v erse i want to bring to your attention, in light of last week is this:

1 Corinthians 4:5 ESV

5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

In other words, dont make a quicj judgment on someone without first seeing why they may be the way they are.

Always consider the Source

Lets go to a river - it looks normal. Nothing good or bad in appernce. It looks fine.

You bend to drink the water and as you bring it to your mouth it is vile, its sour and smells.

“thats nasty! hy do the waters smell so bad?” you folloow te river up to its source and you find a swampy march, dead animals are rotting in it, frog spawn and moshqito lava are everyhere.

Now you know why the water tasts so bad. The water tastes bad because the source of the water is rotten.

And so you rightly decide that you are not going to ever drink from this river.

Or anoter...

maybe you have a favorite river, you know this river has clean wobderful water. you always go and have a cool refreshing drink.

But one day you go to drink and the water is bitter and foul. What happened? this river always has good water? you follow it up to its sourse and find that someone has dumped a load of chemicals at the sourse and they are seeping into the water.

Now you know why your once good water is not bitter, so you rightly decide not to drink from the waters UNTILL the pollution has been cleaned out and the waters are fresh, in fact you might decide to even help with the clean up, because you love the waters so much.

What does this have to do with people and grace?

Well when you properly undersand this lesson it does 2 things: its makes you almost immune to any and all critacism AND it allows you to show amazing grace to all kinds of people.

Lets start with critacism. (and where are not talking about the good, loving constructive kind).

Look at what Jesus said:

Matthew 7:5 ESV

5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Now i dont want you to read this verse as you have always read it. I want you to read it from the point of view of the victem of the hypocrite.

What is Jesus saying? He is saying “dont take ccriticism from someone who is even worse off spiritually than you are”.

befire you let people speak into your life wife with hurtful words, first consider the source!

Mark is a terrible husband, he neglects his wife and kids, drink regulary with the boys, has in the past laid hands on his wife and never attends church.

Mark decinds to lecture and critacise you on what it takes to be a good husband and father. Do you drink his waters in? NO YOU DONT!

Lets look at Lexi, lexi is a fornicating, pro-abortion liberal, who thinks she is a good person and lectures you for disciplining your child. This murdering fornicator says that you are evil for lovingly discipling your children - Do you give her words any credence? NO!

So on the one hand, when you consider the source you become immune to all criticism, except the loving kind.

But what Grace?

Considering the source or reason for bitter waters helps a huge amount with being gracious to others.

And often it is as simple as taking the time to see why a person is behaving the way they are.

For example: You come to church and see that communion is being served. Someone asks you to help move the table. No problem.

You turn to your brother and say, give me a hand, he then helps, picks up the table, but goes right when you wanted him to gone left.

“No, dont go that way, just follow me, its not a hard job” - light heartedly.

This brother then turns and says, Well then why did you ask? Just do it your self next time - a harsh answer to be sure.

Now you have a choice, one is to be offeneded “how dare he...”

But the other is:

James 1:19 ESV

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

You consider the source of this brothers harsh words.

It turn out, this brother had a hectic week, they were being audited and all week his boss has been on his case, constantly telling him that he was doing this wrong, that wrong, that it was a simply thing and he is stupid for getting that wrong...

Now at church, the one place they thought to find peace, your words resurrect all the frustration he had, and he say to you, what he wishes he could say to his boss, “do it your self!!!!”

Now is the brother wrong for snapping at you? yes, he is.

But thats where the grace to bear one anothers burdens comes from.

people snap, people lash out, people are mean sometimes. But if you know that the waters can be sweet and are now bitter, dont condemn the whole river, find out why and then help clean the pollution to make them sweet again.

We have people under incredible stresses.

Parents are children are so in the world that each day they fear for the lives of their kids.

People so sick and in such pain, that moving a seat is excruciating.

Some people bearly got any sleep at all this whole week, working late, mothers with babies.. tired people snap.

There are people here who might be homeless by this time next month, you dont think that just maybe that would affect them and their patience?

We have husbands and wives who have been cheated on and had their hearts broken, dont you think that their sensitivity in the issue of their marriage is a little justified?

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