Proverbs 24:17-18 "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from them.” Do you ever rejoice when your enemies fall? Yup, me too. However, this isn't living the life called us to live. Jesus told us the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord our God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Are we doing these two things? How can we do them more? That is what today's episode is all about. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Love Is The Answer
Proverbs 24:17-18 "Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, lest the Lord see it and be displeased and turn away his anger from them.”
I was surprised when I heard this yesterday on Father Mike’s Podcast because this topic had come up in a conversation with a friend just the other day. She was talking about how God revealed to her a sin that she didn’t know or at least didn’t realize was a sin. She was driving to work the other day and someone was behind her tailgating her for quite a long way. Finally the person sped past her and then that person got pulled over. She passed them pulled over and she laughed all the way to work. Later she had the sense that God was telling her that was a sin. Then I hear Father Mike read this proverb about not rejoicing when our enemies fall.
My friend is not alone. I think many of us would have done the same. I think many of us would have wished for the person to get pulled over and then felt very good if they did. I used to do this and then I head a talk on this topic. I am not sure if it was this exact proverb or not but the speaker said we shouldn’t be wishing other people ill will. As easy as it is to do when they are being awful to us. The speaker, and I can’t remember who it was or where it was, was saying when someone is doing something unkind to you, like tailgating you the whole way to work, or cutting you in line at the grocery store, instead of wishing them ill will, say a prayer of blessing for them. We never want to let others cause us to sin.
My friend was saying she had a coworker ask her to define sin. What is a sin? She said she had to stop in think. It’s one of those things where you know what it is but you can’t necessarily explain it. Or, maybe some of you can, I don’t know. I was always taught that sin is anything you do to break your relationship with God. However, that doesn’t really explain to someone that doesn’t know about sin, what it is. My friend took some time, and thought about. She asked the Holy Spirit to help her out and what she felt like the Holy Spirit was telling her was that sin is whenever you do anything that goes against the biggest commandments which Jesus says is love the Lord you God with all your heart and second is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. She felt like the Holy Spirit was saying sin is anything you do that goes against these commandments.
The sense she got was that it wasn’t about a long checklist of things you can and can’t do. When you are trying to figure out if something is a sin ask yourself this question, “does it go against me showing love to God, myself, or my neighbor?” If the answer is yes, it is a sin and you should repent. I love this because it makes things so much easier. It says in Matthew 22:40 "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” If you are obeying the two greatest commandments then you will be obeying all the commandments. You cannot be truly loving your neighbor while you are stealing from their house, or coveting their wife.
On one hand, I like this definition of sin because it’s simple and it narrows our focus. Instead of trying to think of all the commandments and all the things we should and shouldn’t do we can just ask ourselves, “Am I doing this in love?” However, I also think it holds us to a higher standard. It reminds us that we are called to love our enemies as well and that is not so easy to do. I feel as though looking at the commandments it can be easy for us to think we are not sinning. If we sit down and just look at the 10 commandments, as written, not the examination of conscience, then we will probably say we have not sinned today. However, what if you looked at all your interactions throughout the day and you asked yourself, “Did I do that with love today?” “Did I treat that person with love?” “Did I hate anyone today?” “Did I treat anyone in way that doesn’t show them love?”
I think if we did this we would find we were having a lot more conversations with God about our sins. If we adopted this definition of sin, we would be living a much better life. We would become the people God is calling us to be. Jesus said loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves are the greatest commandments. Are we treating them as such? Are we keeping this in our minds as we are going throughout our day? How many of us needed this reminder today? I know I did. When God says we need to love our neighbor, He doesn’t just mean the neighbors you like. He doesn’t just mean the good neighbors. He means all your neighbors, even the one that is annoying you, even the one that has 10 cars parked on their front long. God is calling you to love all of your neighbors. When God says neighbors He doesn’t just mean people you live next to, He means everyone you share life with, everyone you interact with, everyone you drive next to on the road.
Getting back to the verse above, it is not loving to take pleasure when our enemies fall. It is human, we all have felt that at one time or another, probably more often than we would like to admit. However, if we are happy each time our enemies fall, then we begin to develop a pattern and slowly over time our heart hardens to our enemies. By enemy, I don’t mean it needs to be your arch nemesis. You enemy could be anyone who is not for you but against you. Your enemy could be anyone you are upset with or doesn’t treat you kindly. There are some pretty awful people in the world but here’s the thing, you can’t control them, you can only control your behaviors. Do you want to let those awful people decide if you are going to get to spend eternity in Heaven with God or eternity in Hell? No, we don’t. Don’t give them any power. Live your life with as much love as you can. When you encounter someone who is not being kind say a prayer for that person and their soul. God wants all His children in heaven with Him, so we will be helping God out if every time we want to rejoice in someone else’s misery or every time we want to treat someone like they deserve to be treated, we can say a prayer for them instead.
A thought just came to mind, sometimes we feel we need to treat others badly so they know they hurt us. Sometimes we feel we need to beep the horn when they cut us off so they know not to do it next time. We feel like if we treat them with love when they are treating us badly they will just keep doing it. The thought the Holy Spirit just gave me while writing this is, “What if God treated us like we deserved to be treated?” Wow, what a thought. Think about all the things God does for us? Think about how many times we have messed up and God has forgiven us without pointing it out to us. Do you really think that person in the car that cut you off didn’t know they did something wrong? Do you really think they won’t do it again next time just because you beeped? What about that person that is being unkind at work? Has the fact that you are being unkind back helped the situation? Would the situation change if you changed your tactic and decided to love them despite their actions?
Don’t let other people dictate your behaviors. Don’t let them drag you down. You are better than that. What areas in your life do you find yourself giving into the temptation to rejoice at other peoples bad fortune, or where do you find yourself rooting for people to fail? What could you do differently? It is much better to have a plan when you go into a situation. Our habits don’t just change on their own. We can’t get rid of one thing and not replace it with something else or the bad habit will creep back in. My challenge for you today is to think of how this message applies to you and then figure out a way you can replace a sinful habit with one of love.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we don’t want to sin, please help us. We don’t want to do anything that would separate us from you and yet we don’t know how to love our enemies. It is so difficult Lord. These thoughts of celebrating when our enemies fall come so naturally we hardly even notice we are having them. Please bring them out of our subconscious and into our awareness. Lord, we want you to show us where we are making mistakes and not living up to what you are calling us too. We want to love all those around us and yet it is so hard. People are complicated and sometimes down right mean. We struggle to love those people Lord, but we can do all things through you so please help us. Lord, I ask you to show us individually in our own lives how you want us to love others. You are amazing Lord. You are the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. We are so grateful to you and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!