How To Respond When Mistreated

How you respond speaks to your character, not theirs.

Just quickly as we finish up, let me outline for you four benefits of a positive response to the people who mistreat you:

Four Benefits of a Positive Response:

A. It’s good for your physical and spiritual health

We read earlier that God’s forgiveness for you is dependent on your willingness to forgive others. An unforgiving spirit is going to hold His forgiveness back, it’s going to limit your own spiritual growth, and it will hold you in bondage. On the other hand, if you forgive others you’ll be in a position to receive God’s forgiveness, it will spur on your spiritual growth and development, and you won’t be bound by that moment in the past when someone did you wrong… you’ll be able to move beyond it. That’s how it’s good for you spiritually.

But I mentioned that it’s also good for you physically. How?

PARTICIPATION

(ulcers, stress, tension, restlessness, insomnia, bitterness, peace of mind…)

B. It stops the cycle of evil

An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind, right?

Speaking of going blind, it was quite the blackout this week, eh? 50 million people lost their electricity this week in Ontario and the Northeastern US. Right now, it looks like they’ve traced the problem back to the failure of three transmission lines in Ohio. But it’ll probably be a while before we hear anything definite. But this blackout was huge. It covered an area of 2400 square miles, shutting down 100 power plants including 22 nuclear plants.

Here’s a map of the area affected (PowerPoint).

And here’s a picture of the area from outer-space before… and after. (PowerPoint)

You know what I found out? There was a 700 megawatt surge that hit New Brunswick that day which tripped the appropriate breakers and sealed off the provinces generators from the grid. Otherwise, New Brunswick would have been part of the blackout. And since PEI buys most of its power from New Brunswick, we would have been affected, too.

But those breakers broke the cycle of power failures and kept New Brunswick and us out of the dark. When you treat someone right, despite how they treat you, you break the cycle of evil. You stop it dead in its tracks.

C. It could lead them to God

We looked at these verses earlier…

Proverbs 25:21-22 (NLT)

If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals on their heads, and the LORD will reward you.

This whole thing of heaping “burning coals on their heads” means that they become convicted, they’re made aware of what they’re doing, they become aware of something different about you (the presence of God), they may become award of their need of God, and they may decide that they want to know God, too.

It’s not going to happen every time, but it’s certainly a possibility. Remember, in whatever situation you are in, you represent Jesus. Treat people the way He would treat them. Which leads us into letter D…

D. It follows the example of Jesus

As a race, we rebelled against God. We hurt Him and rejected Him. And because of our rebellion against our Creator, we deserved the sentence of death. But because God loved us so much, he became a man… Jesus… and took the punishment for us and allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross.