Keion Henderson - Dealing with Difficult People

We’re going to continue our series today on how others make your life difficult, and I have three passages of scripture I want to share with you. The first one is found in Luke 7. I’m going to read them; you may not find them as quickly as I read them, but you’ll get them when you get home. Luke 7: 30, Luke 20: 4, and John 1:19. Luke 7: 30 says, „But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized by him.“ You got that so far? All right, let’s go over to Luke chapter 20, verse 4. „The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?“ They reasoned with themselves, saying, „If we say from heaven, he will ask us, 'Why then did you not believe him? ' But if we say of men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.“ They answered that they could not tell where it was from, and Jesus said to them, „Well, if you don’t recognize my authority, then I won’t explain to you what you saw.“ That 's basically the translation of that. Now, I want you to go to John chapter 1, and I’m going to read verse 19 and a few following verses, and we’ll be done. Are you with me so far? John 1: 19 says, „And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who art thou? ' And he confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, 'I am not the Christ.'“ They asked him, „What then? Are you Elijah?“ He said, „No, I am not.“ They said, „Are you a prophet?“ He answered, „No.“ Then they said to him, „Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?“ He said, „I am just a voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make way for the Lord, ' as said the prophet.“ I want to talk about dealing with difficult people. I want to help you today because I know many of you work for difficult people or are in relationships with difficult people, and hopefully, some of you will be honest and say, „You know what? This word is not for somebody else; this word is for me because sometimes I can be a difficult person.“ I hope you don’t say, „people,“ that wouldn’t be right, but I am a difficult person. I want to talk with you about dealing with difficult people. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. It wasn’t as important to come up with a catchy topic as it is for you to get what I want to say to you this morning. Amen. First, let’s start off by helping you realize that John was put in a difficult position. Jesus tells him to go baptize people, and he tells John to go tell a hard story to convince people who are even harder to convince. Let me help you understand what I mean by that. These people that John is currently talking to are a group called the Sanhedrin Council. How many of you have ever heard of them? The Sanhedrin Council is the group of people that actually crucified Jesus. Now, what you’ve got to understand about the Sanhedrin Council is that their origin is not in the New Testament. The origin of the Sanhedrin Council can be found all the way back in the days of Moses, for the Bible says specifically that when Moses was given the charge to take the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, God gave Moses the authority to go find 70 men to help him deal with the weight of the church. The Bible says that Moses went and got 70 men and formed a council, more like the first deacons, if you will, to help lift the weight of the church. It is so important that you understand this because after God tells Moses that he can go get 70 men, He then turns around and tells Moses, " I am going to put my Spirit- the same Spirit, Moses, that I put on you; it is the same Spirit that I’m going to put on these 70 men.» Now, you ought to be amazed by that because how in the world, from the days of Moses, do we find these 70 men, who had the Spirit of God on them, now in our text responsible for the crucifixion of the One who picked them? You all need to wake up and listen to me. How do you go from being picked by me to crucifying me? Because what you must understand is that there are very few people in your life who are a problem that you didn’t pick. This is going to be hard. Are you ready for this word? Because I know that you have difficult people in your life, but nobody told you to work there; you accepted the job offer. I know you and your husband or wife are not getting along, but nobody forced you to marry them; you picked them. And I know your children are hard-headed, but there are very few people in your life causing you problems that you did not pick. Before you crucify the person who’s against you, I want you to reevaluate your decision-making process. What are the qualifications for allowing people in your life, and have you not yet learned the art of allowing people in your life without letting them…