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Summary
In this episode, Troy Kennedy discusses the concept of loving difficult people, inspired by Jesus' example. He emphasizes that Jesus loved those who were not well accepted and engaged with people on the fringes of society. Troy challenges listeners to love people who are different and to extend love to those in their circle of influence, even if they are difficult to love. He also highlights God's love for difficult people and encourages listeners to reflect that love in their own lives. Troy concludes by reminding listeners that they may be someone's difficult person and encourages them to desire grace for themselves and others.
You can find the book "Hero Worship" on Amazon or christianbook.com to purchase.
Amazon Link
Christianbook.com
Takeaways
Jesus loved difficult people and engaged with those on the fringes of society.
We are called to love people who are different and extend love to those in our circle of influence.
God loves difficult people and desires to see them healed and whole.
We should reflect God's love by desiring grace for ourselves and extending grace to others.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Jesus Loved Difficult People
03:14 Loving People Who Are Different
05:24 Loving People in Your Circle of Influence
06:43 Loving People Up Close
08:53 God's Love for Difficult People
10:56 Reflecting God's Love
11:19 You Are That Person for Someone Else
12:47 Desiring Grace for Others
13:22 Upcoming Topic: Jesus Enters In
In this episode, Troy Kennedy discusses the concept of loving difficult people, inspired by Jesus' example. He emphasizes that Jesus loved those who were not well accepted and engaged with people on the fringes of society. Troy challenges listeners to love people who are different and to extend love to those in their circle of influence, even if they are difficult to love. He also highlights God's love for difficult people and encourages listeners to reflect that love in their own lives. Troy concludes by reminding listeners that they may be someone's difficult person and encourages them to desire grace for themselves and others.
You can find the book "Hero Worship" on Amazon or christianbook.com to purchase.
Amazon Link
Christianbook.com
Takeaways
Jesus loved difficult people and engaged with those on the fringes of society.
We are called to love people who are different and extend love to those in our circle of influence.
God loves difficult people and desires to see them healed and whole.
We should reflect God's love by desiring grace for ourselves and extending grace to others.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Jesus Loved Difficult People
03:14 Loving People Who Are Different
05:24 Loving People in Your Circle of Influence
06:43 Loving People Up Close
08:53 God's Love for Difficult People
10:56 Reflecting God's Love
11:19 You Are That Person for Someone Else
12:47 Desiring Grace for Others
13:22 Upcoming Topic: Jesus Enters In
Creators & Guests
What is Troy Marshall Kennedy Podcast?
Jesus always has more life for you than you have known. How do we follow him and discover what it is to flourish and thrive in today's complex, challenging world? How do we have the intimate relationship with God our hearts long for? Troy Marshall Kennedy responds to these all-important questions as a veteran pastor, teacher, and author. Join us as we explore rhythms of life and practice to help us love Jesus, become like Jesus, and share Jesus in our everyday lives. Season one episodes will accompany Troy's new book, "Hero Worship: A 12 Week Journey to Become More Like Jesus."
You can find the book "Hero Worship" on Amazon or christianbook.com to purchase.
Troy Kennedy (00:00.502)
Welcome everybody. My name is Troy Kennedy and this is Hero Worship. We are on a.
journey together to become more like our Savior, to learn to love Him, become like Him, to share Him with the world around us, to live our lives in the manner that He would live them were He in our shoes. Now last week we talked about this concept that Jesus asked questions. He was the great question asker. His questions were motivated by love. He was genuinely interested in people. He was genuinely curious. And He was genuinely trying to draw out of them and reveal to them not just who He is
was but who they are in relationship to Him. This podcast is meant to be a companion to the book, Hero Worship, a 12-week journey to become more like Jesus, which you can find on Amazon and on ChristianBook.com. And as always, I would love to hear from you. You can email me Troy at TroyMKennedy.com. I would love to hear from you there. You can find me on all the social media platforms and
Troy Kennedy (01:06.232)
that you can sign up for to get just a bit of encouragement and a little bit of a maybe a challenge and an equipping as you're learning to become more like Jesus in your everyday life. It comes out every Friday and has some thoughts from me and maybe a quote or two from some other people to help encourage and challenge you on your journey with the Savior. So last week we visited this idea that Jesus asked great questions, poignant questions, questions motivated by love, motivated by truth. This week we're going to talk about the
practice that Jesus loved people. Now I know that sounds obvious right because Jesus loves the little children all the children of the world and we all know that but really I probably should have titled this chapter Jesus loved difficult people right Jesus loves those people that were
not as well accepted, people who were sort of on the outside. Jesus, you know, He gives us the great commandment and He says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and then to love your neighbor as yourself. And later on He kind of unpacks what is a neighbor. Who is your neighbor? You have the story of...
the good Samaritan that tells us that this person that would have been abhorrent to your average Jewish person turns out to be precisely the kind of person we are called to love and who perhaps is loving us in ways that we would not be willing to offer. Jesus amazed, amazingly he engaged with people on all the fringes of the unacceptable areas of Jewish society. They were highly stratified. It was highly hierarchical.
eating together was a sign of who was in and who was out, who is acceptable and who is not acceptable. And Jesus says you know if you love those people who love you what reward will you get? Are you not, are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? He's just saying look we're all like this. We like people who are like us and we like people who like us.
Troy Kennedy (03:14.314)
And that's as normal as a day is long, but as a Christ follower.
Where does the love of God penetrate us and express itself in the unexpected, in ways that people would not anticipate? Jesus loved difficult people. He loved the Roman centurion who would have been the oppressor of the day. He would have been the person who had his boot on the neck of the Jewish people, and yet Jesus goes out of his way to express his love for a Roman centurion. He expresses his love for a tax collector.
these guys would have been absolutely vilified in their society. They would have been rejected by their Jewish friends, by their Jewish family. And Jesus calls a tax collector to be one of his own apostles. And what about a woman with a checkered past, a woman who has gotten around?
And Jesus calls her out and he reveals her sin to her. And at the same time, he shows great compassion, great love and acceptance of this woman. Jesus loves us enough to accept us where we're at. And he loves us so much, he will not leave us where we are at. And that is his love shown to you and I. The thing we often discover is we're very interested in grace when it comes to ourselves. We're very interested in justice when it comes to other people.
And Jesus kind of turns that on and says, hey, the grace and the love that you have been shown, the mercy, the forgiveness that you have been shown needs to be reflected through you outward to all those other people.
Troy Kennedy (04:54.95)
Now, you can talk about the people in your circle of influence, who are those people? Maybe it's people with that political ideology that you find distasteful, that people who have moral practices, who people who have identity, politics, and it could be any number of things. It could be people who luck the other football team, could be people in another country that you have a history with. Who were those people?
them the way Jesus has loved you and I. But maybe even more practical and difficult.
is who is that person in your immediate circle? You know, it's kind of easy to say we love and we encourage, we wish someone well when they're at a distance. We may not like them, we may not agree with them, we may not condone their behavior and say I can bless you and I can love you because you're in another state. But what about the person you can't get away from? Maybe it's the person that you work with or work for.
Maybe it's your next door neighbor who drives you just a little bit crazy all the time. It could even be someone who lives in your household who you're not entirely sure how to love and accept because
They've gotten so sideways with the way you think they should be living. You know, it's hard to love somebody when they're doing things and you're in that position where you say, they should know better. That person should know better. That person is a Christ follower, that person is a pastor. That person is more mature, that person should be more responsible, they should know better. And then you sit there finding that behavior because they should know better, constantly grinding at you.
Troy Kennedy (06:43.668)
How do you love that person who is up close, whom you can't escape? Is it possible to not like someone and still love them? What does love mean in that sense? I kind of think of it like this. I'm a dad and I've got two boys and my boys are spectacular. And I...
They're a miracle. I mean, every time I look at one of them, I'm just stunned that this soul exists in the universe. Do they do things that displease me?
Troy Kennedy (07:23.706)
On occasion, yeah, sure. Sometimes, yeah, they're just little sinners running around and they do things intentionally and deliberately and consciously to not just to disobey their mother and I, but to do things that they know they should not be doing. They know better. They've been taught better, right? And it's...
But what do I do? I reject them because of their sin. Do I reject them and write them off because of their disobedience? Well, of course I don't. Of course I don't. I love them. I care for them. I'm grieved by their action. But what do I want to see happen? I want to see them.
healed. I want to see them whole. I want to see them walk in wisdom. My desire is for that kid to flourish and thrive and to get past this thing that is holding him back. This pattern, this sin, this series of choices that I know will lead someplace destructive.
So of course I'm not rejecting them. Of course I'm not just writing them off and say, oh well, I got son number two, son number one is just gonna go ahead and go his way. No, no, I'm trying to draw them in. And what I wanna see them is healed and whole and blessed and flourishing. When Jesus says to love your enemies,
Troy Kennedy (08:53.398)
Does he see them through that lens? The way I look at my boys in all of their faults and all of their beauty, you have to know that God looks on that person that you find so distasteful, that person you find so abhorrent and so caustic in your relationship.
Does God look on them the way I look on my son? The answer is yes.
He loves them and has a will for them to be blessed and to see them healed and whole and flourish and thrive, even more so than I do for my own boys because my love is imperfect. My love is often self-regarding, you know, as sometimes I just, my love can be lazy, but the love of God, he isn't lacking.
attention to give to people. He isn't lacking love. It's not a zero-sum game that he's spreading his love out amongst billions of people. No, he can love that person as if they're the only one who exists. And as much as they drive me crazy, and as much as they grind on my character, which probably means revealing something about me, I'm probably more like them than I like to admit. God is desiring for them.
to be healed as much as I desire my own children, and then some.
Troy Kennedy (10:23.466)
So can I adopt that posture? Can I love that person and reflect the grace and mercy and forgiveness and gratitude that come with my relationship with God? Can I reflect that to that person who I would consider to be to some degree an enemy? That's part of us growing up. That's part of us learning.
to love as Jesus has loved.
So here's the disruptive thought for the day. That person that drives you a little crazy, that person that gets on your nerves, that person that you find really offensive or abhorrent, here's the deal. You are that person for someone else. I am that person for someone else. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
There is someone else to whom you are that sandpaper person. And as much as you have that thought towards, someone is like, you know, could they just move to Texas? Could they just, sorry, if you're in Texas, I apologize. Could they move to another state? You know, I want them to flourish and thrive over there. I want them to be healed and whole in a place where I don't have to run into them all the time, where I'm not constantly in close quarters
person you got to understand that you are that person for someone else. We've been going on this journey with some folks at my church on Sunday mornings and when I said that to the room you could not believe the collective gasp I said when I said you are that person for someone they were like no
Troy Kennedy (12:09.71)
Not me. Surely I wouldn't be that obnoxious and that caustic and abrasive in the life of someone else and the truth is, yeah, you probably are.
So once again, as we're always interested in grace for ourselves and justice with someone else, let us desire grace for ourselves and give grace for someone else and to learn to love them the way Jesus has loved you and I in our petty rebellions, in our sin, in our lostness at times, in our selfishness at times.
The love of Jesus, His patient and gracious.
and is always desiring to see us flourish and thrive and be blessed. So next week we're going to talk about how Jesus enters in. He enters into people's lives. He enters into their victories and he enters into their sorrows. And we're going to talk a bit about how it is that we follow him into those places. I would love to hear from you at Troy at TroyMKennedy.com. You can email me and I would ask you please consider leaving a
review on Amazon for Hero Worship. If it's been a blessing and an encouragement to you, let somebody else know. So have an amazing week and I look forward to our time together.