Dealing With Difficult People
Pastor Larry Sarver
New Life in Christ
1633 SW 34th St. Palm City, FL 34990
561-283-9426 pastorsarver@yahoo.com
www.palmcitynewlife.org
Illustration: About 15 years ago, Amy and I were on our second or third date. She was driving and I was the passenger on U.S. 1 when a man began to aggressively tailgate us, flashing his lights, and honking his horn, etc. I began to get very angry when the man decided to pass and I thought the incident would be over. But at that point the man swerved in front of us and slammed on the brakes as an act of revenge. I lost it! After persuading Amy to allow me to drive I began to pursue this man down U.S. 1 so I could confront him. Fortunately he made U-turn and I lost him. The look on Amy’s face told me that this date was probably our last but fortunately Amy has a forgiving spirit.
I bring up this incident because it is one example of how I used to respond to difficult people. It may be more extreme than is typical, but I think that my response 15 years ago is in some ways similar to how many people handle such situations and difficult people today. My tendency was to retaliate in some fashion. My desire and response were to vocalize my anger. Now sometimes I would not respond outwardly but inwardly I would be holding a grudge. I had the attitude that no one is going to mess with me and get away with it! I will be nobody’s doormat. Perhaps you can relate to my attitude and responses to difficult people because you sometimes have a similar response?
The good news is that the roadways are now safe, at least from me, because I’ve surrendered to Jesus work me and I am committed to following his example and his commandments. There are still times when I feel like retaliating. There are still times when I feel like vocalizing my anger to difficult people. Now Jesus is the Lord of my life that means Jesus is the ruler of every area of my life. This would include my responses to all people, including difficult people. Today we will look at Luke 6: 27-31 which gives us Jesus guidelines for handling difficult people. Here we find Jesus clear instructions for such situations. We all need to know them, understand them, and most importantly practice them through the Holy Spirit’s help.
This message will have application to everybody in here because difficult people are a problem for everybody. It doesn’t matter your age, your gender, or your personality type because we all will meet with difficult people. Certainly we cannot avoid them. When I say "difficult people" I am referring to people we often refer to as jerks or our enemies. When I use the term difficult people, jerks, or enemies I mean those whose mistreat us, speak evil of us, or who do us harm. They may be the stranger on the roadways, a co-worker or an employer. The difficult people in your life might be an ex-spouse or sometimes even a current spouse. They may be a neighbor, a former friend, or even a criminal or government official. They may be someone who just "pushes your buttons." Sometimes these difficult people are those who just plain annoy us and sometimes they are true enemies, those who have really and deeply hurt or offended us. No matter what the particular situation, Jesus has given us instructions for handling and dealing with difficult people. We must do more than agree with Jesus words or advocate them for others, we must also adhere to God’s standards for ourselves.
Read Luke 6: 27 -31
Two weeks ago in verses 20-26 we saw the Jesus brings are radical message about who is blessed by God. Jesus basically said that the blessed are those who are humble, hungry, hurting, and harassed. That was pretty radical and hard to accept but now he is going to give us an even more radical instruction. That is why he begins verse 27 by saying "But I tell you who hear me." Of course everyone present could hear him. This phrase is understood properly when it is translated as "But if you are willing to listen" as the New Living Translation does. The message paraphrase translates this passage as "To you are ready for the truth I say this." In other words this first part of verse 27 is a clear reference to the difficulty in accepting what Jesus is about to say concerning how we are to respond to difficult people. Jesus is telling us to get ready for radical message. Are you ready to hear Jesus? Are you willing to accept this radical message? Are you ready to be challenged and changed?
We can actually summarize the message of verses 27 through 46 and one sentence. The main message of the rest of this passage and the rest of this chapter is simply to "treat all people in your life with mercy." This theme of mercy is at the heart of this passage and the rest of this chapter. That is why in verse 36 Jesus says "be merciful just as your father is merciful." There are two questions that Jesus answers for us in this chapter.. First "How are we to show mercy?" which we will look at today. The second question Jesus answers is "Why are we to show mercy?" which we will discuss next week.
I. Treat All People In Your Life With Mercy.
How is this to be practiced? What does it mean in real everyday life? Well the first it means that we are to show mercy by "loving our enemies" as Jesus said in verse 27. Statements like this caused a lot of people to quit following Jesus. Certainly such a statement seemed ridiculous then and if we think about it seemed ridiculous now from a worldly point of view. Loving our enemies is not natural rather it is supernatural. You’ve heard the expression "tough love"? Well this is real tough love, not love that is tough on others but love that is tough to display and a practice in everyday life especially, when dealing with difficult people. But Jesus instructions here are very clear, we are to love our enemies no matter who they may be: ex-spouse who slanders you, an employer who falsely accuses you, or people who use you and mistreat you. We are to love those who harassed us and are difficult to get along with. We are also to love those who are true enemies those who not only harass us but even hurt us deeply.
Let us to take a moment to discuss what this does and does not mean. The Greek word translated here as love is "Agape." The Greek language has several words for love. One word was used for family love or affectionate love, another word was used for physical love, etc. The word used here was agape and did not imply affection, emotion, tenderness or passion. The word agape means to regard with goodwill. In other words Jesus is saying that we are to have an attitude of the goodwill toward even those who are our enemies. In practice this means that one does not have to like difficult people in order to love them. You probably will not have any positive emotion toward your enemies, any affection, or any particular like for them. Yet you can choose in the power of the Holy Spirit to still show agape love to them, that is to show good favor toward them. Jesus message for all of his followers in this passage and the rest of this chapter is very clear:
I. Treat All People In Your Life With Mercy.
We do that first by "loving our enemies." Which means we have no ill will towards them. Rather we have a desire to see what is best for them.
Illustration: It was five days before Christmas when a stranger approached ten-year-old Christopher Carrier, claiming to be a friend of his father. "I want to buy him a gift, and I need your help," said the stranger. Eager to do something good for his dad, Chris climbed aboard a motor home parked up the street.
The driver took Chris to a remote field, claiming to be lost, and asked Chris to look at a map. Suddenly Chris felt a sharp pain in his back. The stranger had stabbed him with an ice pick. The man drove the wounded boy down a dirt road, shot him in the left temple, and left him for dead in the alligator-infested Florida Everglades.
Chris lay lifeless for six days until a driver found him. Chris miraculously survived his injuries, though he was blind in his left eye. Because he was unable to identify his attacker, police could not make an arrest. For a long time young Chris remained frightened, despite police protection. Three years later Chris trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior. This was a turning point in Chris’ life. At age 15 Chris shared his story for the first time. He eventually decided to pursue full-time ministry, helping others find the peace he had discovered in Christ.
In 1996 a detective told Chris over the phone that a man had confessed to the crime that had cost him his left eye. The man’s name was David McAllister. Chris made plans to visit the feeble and now blind man, living in a nursing home. Chris learned from the detective some of the background of what had happened years ago. McAllister had been hired by Chris’s father to work as a nurse for an ailing uncle. Chris’s dad had caught McAllister drinking on the job and had fired him. The senseless attack on Chris had been motivated by revenge.
As Chris now talked to the old man, at first McAllister denied knowing anything about the kidnapping. As Chris revealed more about himself, the old man softened and eventually apologized. Chris told him, ’What you meant for evil, God has turned into a wonderful blessing.’" Chris told his attacker how God had allowed his wounds to become open doors to share the good news of Christ.
Chris went home and told his wife and kids about meeting the man who had tried to kill him. The entire family began almost daily visits to McAllister’s nursing home. During one Sunday afternoon visit, Chris popped the most important question he had yet asked McAllister: "Do you want to know the Lord?" McAllister said yes. Both men basked in forgiveness as McAllister gave his heart to Christ. A few days later McAllister died—peacefully—in his sleep.
Carrier says it is not a story of regret, but of redemption. "I saw the Lord give that man back his life, and so much more," Chris said. "I can’t wait to see him again someday—in heaven."
Citation: Adapted from article by Adam Myrick in the Southwestern News (Fall 2000); submitted by Clark Cothern, Tecumseh, Michigan
This is an example of loving your enemies. This is mercy and agape love in action. I want you to take a moment right now to, in the light of God’s Word and in the light of his Holy Spirit, examine your heart and your attitudes and ask yourself: "Am I loving my enemy?", "Am I showing mercy to difficult people in my life?", "Do I have ill will against them?" Are you holding a grudge against anyone? That’s not loving your enemies. That is not mercy. Why become bitter when you can become better? "Love your enemies." We are to treat our enemies just like we are to treat our fellow Christians.
I. Treat All People In Your Life With Mercy.
The first way we do that is to love our enemies. The second way we are to show mercy, which Jesus speaks of in verse 27 is to "do good to those who hate you." Jesus is not only saying that we are not the hold grudges or bitterness, he is also saying that we must be merciful by doing good for the very people who hate us and do us evil. It is easy to do good for our friends, family, or even strangers but here Jesus says to do good to the very people who hate us, mistreat us, and hurt us. Sometimes we feel good about ourselves because we have not sought revenge or held a grudge and therefore we feel that we’ve done our Christian duty. But Jesus instructions for dealing with all people went much further than that. He said that we need to have a positive response, one of actively doing good. Watchman Nee gives us a good example of living out this command.
Illustration: Watchman Nee tells about a Chinese Christian who owned a rice paddy next to one owned by a communist man. The Christian irrigated his paddy by pumping water out of a canal, using one of those leg-operated pumps that make the user appear to be seated on a bicycle. Every day, after the Christian had pumped enough water to fill his field, the communist would come out, remove some boards that kept the water in the Christian’s field and let all the water flow down into his own field. That way, he didn’t have to pump.
This continued day after day. Finally, the Christian prayed, "Lord, if this keeps up, I’m going to lose all my rice, maybe even my field. I’ve got a family to care for. What can I do?"
In answer to his request, the Lord put a thought in his mind. So, the next morning he arose much earlier, in the predawn hours of darkness, and started pumping water into the field of his communist neighbor. Then he replaced the boards and pumped water into his own rice paddy. In a few weeks both fields of rice were doing well—and the communist was converted.
Citation: Making Things Right When Things Go Wrong (Howard, 1996)
In practice this would mean: mowing the lawn of your hateful neighbor, volunteering to fill in and for the mean-spirited co-employee who wants a day off, or stopping to help the abusive ex-spouse who is broken down on the highway. It would mean providing for the parent who may have abused you or neglected you as a child. This is what it means to do good for those who hate you. This is what it means to show mercy to all people. This is radical but Jesus told us that his message was a radical message that would be hard to accept. We are to show mercy to all people. First of all by loving them and secondly by doing good for them even if they are our worst enemy.
I. Treat All People In Your Life With Mercy.
This means loving your enemies and it means to doing good to those who hate you. It also means to "bless those who curse you." The word "curse" as used here means to wish or speak evil of a person: to slander, malign, put down, or speak evil about. The word "blessed" is a contraction of two Greek words. "Eu" is the first part of this Greek word and it basically means "good." In the Greek word "logos" is a second part of the contraction which basically means "word". In other words this contraction means "good word" and in context Jesus is clearly saying that we are to speak well or good about the very people that speak evil of us! Rather than defending ourselves, retaliating or just ignoring their words we are to respond mercifully by speaking good words about them.
Illustration: In his sermon "Loving Your Enemies," Martin Luther King, Jr., said:
When Abraham Lincoln was running for president of the United States, there was a man who ran all around the country talking about Lincoln. He said a lot of unkind things. And sometimes he would get to the point that he would even talk about his looks, saying, "You don’t want a tall, lanky, ignorant man like this as the president of the United States." …
Finally, one day Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States.… Then came the time for him to choose a secretary of war. He looked across the nation, and decided to choose a man by the name of Mr. Stanton. And when Abraham Lincoln stood around his advisors and mentioned this fact, they said to him: "Mr. Lincoln, are you a fool? Do you know what Mr. Stanton has been saying about you? Do you know what he as done, tried to do to you? Do you know that he has tried to defeat you on every hand? Do you know that, Mr. Lincoln? Did you read all of those derogatory statements that he made about you?"
Abraham Lincoln stood before the advisors around him and said: "Oh yeah. I know about it; I read about it; I’ve heard him myself. But after looking over the country, I find that he is the best man for the job."
Mr. Stanton did become secretary of war; and…later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And if you go to Washington, you will discover that one of the greatest words or statements ever made about Abraham Lincoln was by this man Stanton. As Abraham Lincoln came to the end of his life, Stanton stood up and said: "Now he belongs to the ages." And he made a beautiful statement concerning the character and the stature of this man.
If Abraham Lincoln had hated Stanton, if Abraham Lincoln had answered everything Stanton said, Abraham Lincoln would not have transformed and redeemed Stanton. Stanton would have gone to his grave hating Lincoln, and Lincoln would have gone to his grave hating Stanton. But through the power of love Abraham Lincoln was able to redeem Stanton.
Citation: Martin Luther King, Jr., A Knock at Midnight, edited by Clayborne Carson and Peter Holloran (Warner Books, 1998) p.154
I. Treat All People In Your Life With Mercy.
So far we’ve seen that our mental response or attitude is to be one of agape love or good will. We’ve seen that are physical response is to do good to those who hate us, and we’ve seen that our verbal response is to speak well of those who speak evil of us. Next week we will pick up with the fourth response to dealing with difficult people along with some motivations for treating all people with mercy.
