May 15, 2025
When we were talking about the image of God a few weeks ago, Jared pointed out that one of the things about being in the image of God is that we are relational creatures. But, can we be super honest for a second? One of the most challenging things we do as human beings is navigate relationships.
Relationships are hard. Some are easy, no doubt. Hopefully, we all have that one friend where the connection just comes easily. You don’t see each other for years, and then you can pick right back up. Do you have someone like that? If not, look around Corinth. Come to lunches and other fun things we do, and look for people to connect with. There is someone here who could be a good friend.
But that’s not really what we want to talk about, we want to talk about the hard things. Those situations that are difficult. We all have those, too. The sibling who seems to take advantage of every situation, the abusive parent, that one person in the group of friends who sometimes seems to poison people against each other. We can probably all name at least one person in our lives (chances are good that it’s a family member) who causes us more pain than anything else we get out of the relationship.
People ask us all the time how to handle difficult people and relationships. So we thought it might be helpful to discuss that just a little bit. One thing we have heard from people is the question, “Aren’t Christians supposed to forgive 70 times 7?” Jesus did, after all, say we should forgive others, and we are supposed to love our enemies. How can we forgive someone who constantly causes us pain with every interaction?
Well, there are a few topics that need to be thrown into the conversation to fully understand that. Topics like truth, justice, reconciliation, and boundaries. Let’s take them up one at a time.
First, let’s talk about truth. Truth in relationships is important. There are abusive people all over the place. Some of them are even leaders in the church. We’ve all seen plenty of news reports. This isn’t only the big sexual abuse issue, there is physical and emotional abuse that happens all the time. Bullies like to throw their weight around and control other people. And of course, the only person who knows they are abusive is the victim themselves. This is because the abuser hides the truth and appears polite and kind in other environments. This is a lie. And the truth needs to be told. Dan Allendar once said, “Sometimes forgiveness starts by calling 911.” He said that because forgiveness demands truth. John wrote that we need to bring all things into the light. Forgiveness can happen, but the truth needs to be told first.
Reconciliation is when the relationship is fully restored. Paul writes that we are reconciled to God in Christ. The relationship that we ought to have with our maker is the way Adam and Eve related to God in The Garden. We want to have unity, we want everything to be ok in the relationship. This is ideal. Because of what Jesus has done, we not only have forgiveness, but we also have reconciliation. These are different things. We get them both in our relationship with God from the cross, but they are not the same. Forgiveness means you don’t have to change anything, you don’t need to apologize, I won’t hold this over your head, or demand anything from you. Reconciliation means I now trust you fully, and we can relate to one another in a healthy and open relationship.
As a side note, you might ask, how can God trust us fully? We know who we are. We know we will turn our backs on him again and turn away toward the different gods that demand our devotion. But that’s because what Christ did went further than mere forgiveness. He not only paid the debt we deserved, but he also earned us trust. When God looks at those of us in Christ, he sees the life Jesus lived. He doesn’t see our petty jealousies, our insecure fears, our weak love, and our shallow devotion. No, he sees the strength, devotion, trust, and perfection of Christ! Thus, we have reconciliation.
What do you see when you look at the person who always hurts you? The person who hides the truth and denies they have ever done anything wrong? You see them for who they are. You need to prevent them from causing you pain. So you need boundaries.
Boundaries are the limits you place around your relationship with that person. In some cases, it may mean you never want to see them again. In some extreme cases, this may be a fair boundary. Sometimes the boundary is you can’t be alone with my children. Often this is wise. Or it could be that you simply don’t loan them money anymore. We don’t have time to explore all the possibilities, but forming boundaries takes wisdom, care, and communication. It’s fine to say to someone, because you hurt me in this way repeatedly, this is how I am going to protect myself. You can forgive a person, choosing to let go of past hurts and still place boundaries around the relationship as a way of preventing further pain. Forgiveness can happen while you still have boundaries.
You might ask how boundaries are related to reconciliation. Aren’t we supposed to be reconciled? That is certainly ideal. But that depends on the other person. We have watched many relationships enter into boundaries where the harmful person acknowledged the pain they had caused, respected the boundaries and apologized. Over time, trust was rebuilt and the relationship was ultimately reconciled. We have seen other situations where the harmful person pushed, attempted to break boundaries, and made demands constantly on the person they had harmed. In these cases, reconciliation may be impossible. But you can still forgive. Harboring anger will only hurt you anyway. It has been said that refusing to forgive is like trying to poison the other person by drinking poison yourself.
This is where the harmful people will often demand that the other person “be like Jesus” and forgive, returning to the relationship without truth. If only you were Jesus, you could get on a cross and die and then come back to life. But it doesn’t work that way. Only He can do that. Until each party to the relationship can acknowledge the harm they caused, the boundaries may need to stay in place.
This isn’t un-Christian or un-Christ-like. It is one of the ways in this broken creation that God helps us to live out the freedom that Christ purchased for us and live in a way that calls others to live in the light.
If you would like to learn more about forgiveness and boundaries, please check out the following resources: “Bold Love” By Dr. Dan B. Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III, and “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, or don’t hesitate to reach out!
Jared and Jason