Assume The Best In Others | Short Sermon Series

Assume the Best of Others: Resilient Love in an Age of Suspicion

As fallen men and women, sin naturally tempts us to say in the spirit of King Lear, “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.” Without being taught, we easily see most of our problems “out there,” with other people. “Their sin against me”, not “my sin against a holy God”, should trouble us deeply.

And when this is our focus, we are quick to speak and slow to listen, quick to write off and slow to bear with, quick to suspect and slow to forgive. Yet, set that spirit against the spirit of love, Christ, and the Christian: The spirit of the age assumes the worst of his neighbour's confusing comment.

The spirit of a Christian assumes the reasonable best of his neighbour, interpreting him how he wants to be interpreted. When suspicion chokes out laughter and distrust destroys friendships, the people of God ought to glow in our cynical world — bearing all things, hoping all things, believing all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). This community of love, grace, and forbearance grows slowly, but surely. Imperfectly, with detours and setbacks along the road, but actually and increasingly. This is the inheritance of God’s Spirit-indwelt people and what makes us a witness to a watching, clawing world: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Are you suspicious of others? We all have lived long enough “passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). Christ bids us out of the shadows of suspicion, to live in the sunshine as children of the day, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. This is air from above — air that will keep us healthy and unified in this polluted and suspicious age.

Article by Greg Morse @desiringgod

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