Reflecting God's Grace Through Our Treatment of Others

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips


God will treat you in the same way that you treat other people. If you're hard on others, I guarantee God will be hard on you. And if you find it difficult to true to God, it is because you are very hard on other people. Husbands are hard on their wives and wives are hard on their husbands and parents are hard on their children. [00:02:27]

Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us." Let me paraphrase it: "Forgive me, Lord, exactly in the same way I have forgiven others." That is the Lord's Prayer, and it's an attitude that we should have every day. [00:03:16]

You can't take the evil that people have done to you out of your memory. That's impossible. But God doesn't tell us to control our memory. He tells us to control our attitude towards others, not our memory. I have no control over my memory, but I have a lot of control over my inner attitude towards people who have wronged me or hurt me. [00:05:22]

One reason why God takes us through difficult times is, you know, we heard about prophecy. How do I get the gift of another gift? How do I have a word of prophecy for other people? I'll tell you how the great Apostle Paul got it. I want to give you two examples from Paul's life. [00:08:06]

Paul got his ministry not by studying the Bible—they didn't have a Bible to carry around with them those days. Remember, the first printed Bible was only in the 1400s. So, if you told the early Christians, "Read the Bible every day," they'd say, "We don't have a Bible." [00:09:34]

If you keep it to yourself, it's like when people collected manna in Israel, and they said, "Oh, we better store up this. I mean, not get something tomorrow." It began to stink by the next morning. It says worms got into that manna, food that came from heaven got worms in it in less than 24 hours. [00:10:24]

We come encourage others with the same encouragement we get in the trials we go through. So if you pray and say, "Lord, don't let me face any trials," you'll never have a word to encourage others. I'll tell you something: people who go through trials may not tell you about all the trials they've gone through. [00:12:01]

I have found that almost all my ministry has come not out of Bible study. I studied the Bible almost fully in the first six years after I was born again. I knew the Bible pretty thoroughly by the time I was 26 years old. But after that, what the Lord taught me was through different trials and testings and opposition and ridicule. [00:12:17]

Don't be afraid of trials. If your boss treats you badly, wonderful. If you're a wholehearted disciple of Jesus Christ, you'll get a ministry out of that, whatever may happen. Do you have a very difficult wife? Wonderful. You'll have a great ministry, brother. Do you have a difficult husband? You'll have a great ministry. [00:12:50]

I want to ask all of you brothers and sisters, when was the last time you got an encouragement from a much younger brother? Have you ever got one? Oh, you think you're too big to be encouraged by younger brothers? Only older brothers, only the big prophets and the apostles can encourage you? That's why you don't grow as you should. [00:16:23]

Be open to encouragement from weak younger brothers who came to the church 30 years after you came to the church, who were born again long after you were born again. The Tituses that God sends into your life, be open to receive, sisters. Be open to receive encouragement from younger people, maybe from your own children. [00:17:56]

Prophecy includes building up, challenging, and comforting. It tells us in the first verse that if you want to have prophecy, the gift of one of these three things, you must, verse one, pursue love. In other words, you will never be able to prophesy if you don't love people. [00:23:44]

Ask a question about this sermon