Pastor Rick Warren Sermon How to Handle Insults and Ridicule”: Rick warren often says there is no opportunity without opposition, in fact here’s a little equation, opportunity plus opposition equals God’s will, opposition is actually part of God’s will in your life.
In the same way Paul says it in first Corinthians chapter 16 verse 9, he says it like this, there is great opportunity here for an effective work, even though there is also much opposition.
Those two things, opportunity and opposition go together and if you’re going to build a better future, if you’re going to make something of your life, not everybody’s going to like it, not everybody is going to agree with it and in the same way, whatever your dream is, whatever your goal is, whatever your ministry objective is that you have, whatever vision you have for the future, for building a better life and building a better future, you can expect different kinds of opposition.
Nothing is easy in this life, now one of the greatest tests of character is going to be how you handle opposition in life and God is watching your response. do you panic under pressure do you become discouraged and quickly give up when anybody expresses anything that they don’t like your goal or they look at you the wrong way Have you quit on your God-given dream simply because somebody disapproved of it or somebody criticized it or heaven forbid somebody made fun of it? One of the largest groups in the world today is the international bucket committee and these are the people who feel it’s their responsibility and duty to toss cold water on every dream or idea or project that god puts in your heart.
One of the reasons Nehemiah’s story of rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem is in the bible is to teach us how to effectively handle inevitable opposition.
when it happens in your life, God wants you to be prepared to handle disapproval, to handle criticism, to handle opposition yes and even to handle harassment for your life and for your faith.
in the last days scoffers will make fun of you, while they do every evil thing they desire to do so you can count on it. Philippians chapter 1 verse 29 says this, for you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ but also the privilege of suffering for him
So we must be aware of Satan’s schemes, so that he cannot outwit us. One of Satan’s schemes to discourage us is opposition, this opposition comes in various forms, they might criticize our work, your ministry, your dreams and what you believe
We’re going to look at what do you do when you are insulted or you’re ridiculed you know we all naturally hate being disapproved of we hate being criticized, nobody likes it, we don’t like to be rejected, we don’t want to be insulted we don’t want to be made fun of, we don’t want to be made to look bad in fact it’s human nature to do almost anything in order to avoid being ridiculed.
Nehemiah left us a model that we can use today or any time you feel under attack as a Christian
- Tell God how it upsets you when somebody criticizes you, and this is done through prayers. Anytime you’re ridiculed don’t take it out on people, talk it out with God.
- Confidently s confidently states that my trust is in God Nehemiah did not really retaliate back tit for tat with insults of his own.
Pastor Rick wants us to understand that the opposition will definitely come, but as long as we are firm in God, we will overcome.