Ask Pastor Matt: How Do I Love the Unlovable?

Dear Pastor Matt,

Your sermon last week (click here to watch) is haunting me. How do you love someone that you simply just don't love? Due to an abusive childhood, I am struggling with this issue. Please help! 

-Anonymous


Thanks for writing such a deep and provocative question. I am sure that you are not the only person that is asking this question. 

Usually for every time someone asks me a question like this, there are ten others who wanted to ask the same thing but held back for one reason or another.

Since Jesus told us to love "one another" (John 13:34-35), love "our neighbors" (Matthew 22:39), and even love "our enemies," (Matthew 5:44) it does seem inescapable that He is commanding us to love even the most difficult people in our lives. This would include those that have hurt us in the past. 

But here is where we need a good, solid, Biblical definition of love. Certainly we can't find such a definition in our culture which seems to confuse love with either sex (certainly not the same thing!), warm fuzzies (nope!), or unquestioning acceptance and tolerance (not that either!). We are going to have to press on in our sermon series on 1 Corinthians 13 to articulate a more Biblically moored definition of love. 

For that reason, I say: Hold on! We're getting there! 

But until we get to some of those later verses (like 1 Corinthians 13:6 for instance) let me try to jump ahead and make a few things clear about loving the unlovable. 

1). To love them does NOT mean that we necessarily even like them. I am separating feelings from actions here. There are certainly people that we feel a fondness for, like to be around, and genuinely enjoy their company. Others, not so much! Some people we can't even stand to be around. But I still think it's true that it is possible that I can love someone that I genuinely don't enjoy being around. (See #'s 4 & 5 below). But also, 

2) To love them does NOT mean that I need to trust them. I would never, ever, put myself or my loved ones in the same room with someone who would or could possibly hurt another person again if they have done so in the past.  Even if they've apologized. Even if they've done jail time and "paid their dues to society." To love them does not mean that I must give them another chance to hurt me, or anyone else for that matter. 

3) To love them does NOT mean I approve of their behavior. Certainly this is true of the way that God loves us. He loves us, and yet that does not mean that He gives us carte blanche approval of our behavior and actions. If I owned a "logic-hammer," I would beat this point into the heads of everyone in our culture. Where in the world did we get the idea that if I "love" someone I must approve without qualification of their lifestyle, actions, behaviors, predispositions, and inclinations? Worse yet is the idea that if I don't tolerate their behavior unquestioningly, I therefore "hate" them!

4) To love them DOES mean that I pray for them. I may never want to be around certain people again (such as former abusers, molesters etc.) but I can certainly pray for them. I may even pray the impreccatory (cursing) Psalms against them if they are yet unrepentant! There are many Psalms in the Bible which are to be used to call down God's justice and judgment upon the wicked. Ultimately, loving is doing what is right or doing that which accords with the truth. I may have to pray that those that have hurt me in the past have an encounter with what the Puritans used to call God's "severe mercy," meaning His rod of rebuke that corrects and hastens repentance.

5) To love them DOES mean that I pray for their salvation and sanctification in Christ, and work, as much as it is humanly possible, towards those ends. Here, I believe, we arrive at the highest and purest form of love. We love them by praying that God would transform their lives, cause them to repent, experience grace, and grow in the faith. This is a prayer that I can pray even for my worst enemy: The drunk that killed the innocent pedestrian. The terrorist who would detonate a suicide bomb. The gossiper who slanders my name. The abuser who hurt me as a child. I think we can (and should) genuinely love people by praying for their conversion, new  life in Christ, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

Do that, and you have truly loved the unlovable.

Yours, Pastor Matthew

What Should I Do When Someone Hurts Me? How to Proceed When Offended by Others.

It happens to all of us. At some point in our lives: someone will hurt us deeply. Sometimes it is physical. Sometimes it is emotional. Sometimes it happens with words. Sometimes it happens with actions.

For many of us, the scars of these partially-healed wounds can last a lifetime. If we do not find some sort of personal closure, these events can be emotionally debilitating and spiritually injurious. Some wallow in hatred, guilt, or resentment burning quietly on the inside for years.

Nevertheless, Scripture does give us some very candid and direct counsel for proceeding in these situations. Christians, as redeemed people, are expected to be the "bigger person," take initiative, and help to set our relationships back on a godly course.

The following rubric is intended to help you proceed when your soul aches from the pain caused by others.

NOTE: This is a general guideline and cannot possibly take every variant situation into consideration. 

1. Was the offense physical, violent, sexual, or criminal? If yes, move to #2. If no, move to #3.

2. If the act committed against you was criminal, you have a right and obligation to report it to the proper authorities (i.e. the police) especially if it was of a violent or sexual nature. In these cases, confronting the person personally is usually not a good idea. Here, you run the risk of being abused again, as well as possibly leaving a door open to the abuse of another. You should consider talking to your pastor or a trusted counselor about this, or even a good friend. Ultimately, you will want to find peace in your heart through forgiveness, even though you do not need to put yourself into harm's way again. Trust God to bring about justice in His own time ("Vengeance is mine saith the Lord") and seek the healing hands of Christ.

3. If the offense was not criminal, you should begin seeking reconciliation with the person involved, even if you yourself have not committed any offense against them. You may be totally innocent in the matter, or partially at fault. Likely, the offending party may not even be aware of his offense, and you will burn inside destroying only yourself by harboring your resentment. For this reason, you should ask another question: Is the offending party a Christian? If no, move to #4. If yes, move to #5.

4. Since the offending party is not a Christian, you have an opportunity to share the grace of God that you have personally experienced through Christ. These offenses should be seen as opportunities given by God to show an unbelieving world what true forgiveness looks like. Go to the person personally (if possible) and share your feelings in this matter, and how you are seeking God's peace. Offer the offender true, unconditional forgiveness. If you own part of the fault, apologize unconditionally as well. As the opportunity presents itself, you would do well to share the Gospel with him or her. Although the parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23-35) is in the context of sins committed against other believers, the application is broad enough for all kinds of hurts and grievances: consider how much God has already forgiven you, and seek to model your grace after His!

5. If the offending party is also Christian, we have clear obligations to follow the reconciliation pattern given in Matthew 18:15-20. Notice this passage is in particular reference to when a "brother sins against you" (18:15, emphasis added). These steps given by Jesus assume that the offender is a Christian, and has a sensitive spirit to receive the guidance of the church in his or her life. Here, Jesus has given us a four-part movement for seeking reconciliation, [a] gracious, personal confrontation (verse 15), [b] gracious confrontation with witnesses (verse 16), [c] church leadership intervention with possible disciplinary sanctions (verse 17) and finally [d] terminating the relationship (verse 17). This last step, is to be considered a drastic measure only, and should almost never be the case among professing Christians.

Although the first step is the hardest, it is almost always the most important. How many relationships can be restored if we would only take Jesus' words of counsel here more seriously? How many inner grievances could be mended and healed if we heeded the counsel of the Master?

Unfortunately many of us either jump far too quickly to get others involved (the sin of gossip) or else are content to burn quietly inside harming only ourselves (the sin of unforgiveness).

Take a step of grace today and begin mending your relationship without further delay! 

-Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. 

An Open Letter to Stay-at-Home Christians

Note: The following fictional open letter is addressed to the growing demographic of self-professing Christians who prefer to worship at home than publicly in a fellowship of other Christian believers at church.

Dear Eugene,

I want to thank you for the kind email that you wrote me recently after we met by God's providence at the Holy Grounds cafe last Thursday. I believe you are right that it was "a divine appointment" that we ran into one another, as it afforded us an opportunity to renew a conversation that we begun months ago.

Although you have chosen to no longer worship with us at First Avenue Reformed Church, I was greatly encouraged to hear that your confidence in the grace of our Lord still remains strong. You described yourself as experiencing a new joy and freedom that you had not known in a long time. For this, I am grateful.

I have to admit that part of me was deeply jealous when you described the relief that you have felt since you walked away from the frictions of the Deacon board! Our work in serving the hurting persons of our congregation is no doubt messy. Sometimes hurting people can be the cruelest of all! Since you left, those tensions have not been fully resolved, and I admit that some of the other men you mentioned are as difficult to get along with as ever. We are such an imperfect lot! In this sense, the church will always be "full of hypocrites" as you alleged.

But are not these very tensions also part of our sanctification? It is true that you were wronged by our brother Carl. I have had to apologize for our many failures as a board and as a church much more often than I would like. It is my experience, however, that those same conflicts are really the necessary and silent hand of our Master Carpenter applying His rasp and sandpaper to our lives in order to refine us.

This prompts me to ask an important question: if you continue to worship alone in your home to avoid these kinds of conflict, would you not also be missing out on the joys of their resolution? In other words, how do you intend to practice forgiveness if you seek to avoid all those whom you may actually have to one day forgive? Is not our own Christian walk made more perfect by those whose walk is not?

Eugene, I too covet those times of personal prayer and devotional worship that you described taking place in the "prayer closet." Jesus commanded as much. You are right to cite Matthew 6:6 in cultivating a "personal relationship" with Jesus. But I don't think we must choose between "personal" and "corporate" as though they were mutually exclusive.

True, those times alone with Christ in the secret place are invaluable. But I have to confess to you that I am doubtful that our Lord meant those should be our only times of worship! Are we not commanded to worship alongside others in Scripture (Hebrews 10:25)? How then shall you fulfill the dozens of "one another" texts in Paul's epistles if not in the context of a local church like those to whom Paul originally wrote? Is not the first word of the Lord's Prayer the plural possessive, "Our"?

You mentioned that the Greek word "church" does not mean a building, nor does worship require any certain number of people in order to be authentic. You even quoted Matthew 18:19 when the Lord exhorted us that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them." But come now Eugene, surely you don't think that your reluctance to submit to church membership or the body of elders is justified by this text, do you? In context, my brother, this passage is in regard to church discipline; a "severe grace" of God that I am afraid is quite difficult to impose upon oneself!

While we are speaking of the means of grace, how do you intend to practice the Lord's Supper while alone, if at all? Or baptism? Unless you have jettisoned these practices too as "formal," "religious," and "institutional!" Are these not the very signs and seals of God's grace that Christ has given--even commanded--us to perform in his name? Are they not impossible when alone?

Yes, I am sure that the online sermons of Piper and Driscoll that you have grown so fond of are a means of grace as well, so to speak. You were correct when you said they are a blessing to millions. But that's just the problem right there. No matter how wonderful these gifted men of God are (and we thank God for their ministries) they will never know you, nor can you ever be known to them. As gifted as they are, they won't be able to correct you when you go astray or exercise discipline in your life if your doctrine should go amiss.

Perhaps that's what's so alluring.

Your brother in Christ,

George


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida. Please consider following me on Twitter @matt_everhard