How to Love Difficult People

Difficult people are not obstacles to your ministry — they are your ministry.

In this episode, we explore what it means to love difficult people without avoiding them or becoming a doormat. Drawing from Scripture, theology, and biblical counseling principles, we’ll show you how the gospel reshapes the way you see yourself, others, and even your hardest relationships.

If you want to pursue difficult people with both truth and grace, this episode is for you.

👉 Ready to serve in ministry? Get trained and deployed at CentralBibleInstitute.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There are difficult people all around us, including in the mirror.

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You extend grace to yourself for things you'd never tolerate in anyone else.

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Every person you want to write off is someone God made on purpose.

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Loving difficult people doesn't mean letting them walk all over you. It means something harder.

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If Jesus only loved easy people, none of us would be saved. Welcome to Off the Sidelines of Podcast from Central Bible Institute, a deployment center at Central Church, where we equip believers to move from watching ministry to doing ministry. All of our service is rooted in the gospel. We love because Jesus first loved us, and we serve because Jesus first served us.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I'm Brianna Sucert.

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And I'm Greg Sucert, and today we're talking about something that every single one of us deals with difficult people.

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And we all have them in our families, in our small groups, at work, and also in the mirror. And that's the one we need to be willing to admit.

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Why are you staring at me?

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No reason.

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Okay. I'm going to guess that has nothing to do with our topic of difficult people. Nothing. And when it comes to difficult people, the question isn't whether you'll encounter them. The question is what does it look like to actually love them in a way that reflects the gospel?

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And that's what we're digging into today. This is going to be practical, honest, and it might step on some toes.

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Including mine. Let's go. Okay, before we can talk about how to love difficult people, we have to be honest about why we don't. Because I think most people land in one of two ditches. The first ditch is avoidance. We cut difficult people out. We stop inviting them, we cult shoulder them, we tell ourselves it's healthy boundaries. But really, we're just protecting our comfort.

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And we see this all the time. Someone makes a political post you disagree with, suddenly they're out. Someone lets you down once, you're done. We're so quick to write people off.

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And then the second ditch is the opposite. We become a doormat. We don't hold any standards. We let people run over us in the name of being loving, and we never actually address the problem. The sin just festers.

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So on one side, you've got people who have checked out relationally. On the other side, people who are chronically exhausted because they have no wisdom about how to engage.

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Neither of those looks like Jesus. And I think a lot of us know that, but we don't know what the biblical position actually looks like, especially lived out.

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So that's where we need to start with what the Bible actually says about who these people are and why they're worth pursuing.

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Here's where I want to start, and it's going to sting a little bit. Before we talk about how to love the difficult people in your life, we have to admit something. You are a difficult person too.

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Ooh, that is not a comfortable place to begin.

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It's not, but it's the honest one. In our sin, we all have this default where we extend grace to ourselves for our own mistakes, but we refuse to extend it to others. We say, I mess up and I've got reasons for it. Have some grace. But if you mess up, well, you're a problem and you must be executed. That's a delusion.

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And everybody puts up with something from us. How we communicate, how we handle stress, our blind spots, our immaturity. Somebody in your life is putting up with you right now.

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And if the people around you treated you according to your difficultness and never extended grace, you'd be a lonely, despised person. And so would I. We're only living in community because people absorb our junk and keep showing up and loving us.

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That's actually really humbling when you sit with it.

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It is. And that humility is the starting point because once you see yourself clearly, it changes how you see everyone else.

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Which brings us to the second consideration: who these people actually are.

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Right, because the Bible doesn't just tell us to love difficult people, it tells us why they matter. Genesis 1. God creates human beings in his image. The imago day. That means every person you meet, every difficult, frustrating, exhausting person was made by God to reflect something of who he is.

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The author Greg Allison puts it plainly.

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And here's what the image of God means in a holistic sense. It's not just that people will live forever somewhere, it's that every person, their story, their personality, their capacity for a relationship, all of it reflects something of God's character. He made that person on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

And this even applies to people who reject Jesus. I like what Paul Washer says, that every person is a potential brother or sister in Christ. Even difficult people. They may be lost and angry, but they are never beyond the reach of grace.

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And that reframes everything. The person who is driving you absolutely crazy in your family or at work, that could be your future brother or sister in Christ. And God put that relationship in your life for a reason.

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So humility changes how we see ourselves. The image of God changes how we see others. And now there's a third piece. What actually makes love possible?

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That's the gospel. This is everything. Colossians 3, 12 through 13 says, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Now notice the sequence. We clothe ourselves with these wondrous things because of who God says we are, chosen, holy, dearly loved.

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Robert Jones makes this point beautifully in his book, Pursuing Peace. These aren't just character qualities we work up, the relational graces that flow from our identity in Christ. We give grace because we've received it.

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The measure of how we forgive others is the measure of how Christ has forgiven us. The person making your life hard, Jesus invites them to himself in the gospel. And he loves difficult, messy, complicated people, including you, so much so, believer, that he died for your sins.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

That's the foundation. And here's something important. Love is supposed to be a willful part of the Christian life, but it's also supposed to be a component that overflows. It's not just gritted teeth and determination. So how do you ignite your will to love a difficult person? You look at the love that was extended to you. When you genuinely see what Christ did for you when you were the difficult one, when you were lost, when you were the problem, it changes everything. The gospel doesn't just obligate us to love, it fuels us to love.

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So if the gospel is the fuel, let's talk about what the engine actually looks like. Three things, and they build on each other.

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Give us the first one.

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First, see difficult people as a ministry, not an obstacle. Remember, we all have a ministry. We've been born again to be ambassadors of Christ. So when we see people as a ministry, not an obstacle, there's a posture shift. Instead of asking, how do I get away from this person? You start asking, what does this person need that God might be positioning me to give? Lost people need the gospel. Immature Christians need the word. Blind people need the light. Difficult people are not interruptions to your ministry and to your life. They are your ministry and the reason you have life in Christ, to give them the gospel, to point them to Jesus as Jesus has bestowed his grace upon you.

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Yeah, because if comfort is the goal of our relationships, we'll bail every time things get hard. But if Christ is the goal, suddenly the hard relationship is exactly where you're supposed to be.

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Think about Jesus. If he said, I'm not dealing with difficult people, he would never have taken on humanity. He would have never gone to the cross. His disciples were difficult. We're difficult. And he still pursues us. Even now, he keeps pulling his sheep back. He doesn't give up on them just because they wander.

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So we don't get to give up on people either, which leads to the second thing.

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Right. Second, loving difficult people doesn't mean letting them walk all over you. Wisdom matters. Love without wisdom isn't love. It's foolish enabling.

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Ooh, this is so important because love gets weaponized. People will say, if you are really loving, you just let it go. But that's not love. That's conflict avoidance wearing a spiritual mask.

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Here's a real example. Think about grandparents who break every parenting rule you've set for your kids. Bedtimes, screen time, food, all of it. And they do it because they want to be the fun ones.

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That's hard to navigate, especially when you genuinely love the grandparents and you want them to have a relationship with their grandkids.

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But loving them doesn't mean letting it slide. It means saying kindly but clearly, God has given us parental authority over our kids. We need you to support that. If you can, we want you fully involved. If you can't, your access may need to look different. Now that's not shutting them out. That's a boundary.

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And there's a real difference between a biblical guardrail and a wall. A guardrail says, I care about this relationship enough to protect it with truth. A wall says, I'm done with you.

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Same principle in the church. And let's be clear, loving someone doesn't mean ignoring difficult conversations. If someone in your small group is consistently combative and shutting people down, you pull them aside privately. You say, I want you here, but our goal is to build each other up. But you're in a place right now where it seems like that's hard. And if that's hard for you to give up, then maybe the right move is for you to step aside for a season and you and I can meet one-on-one so we can work through this together. I want to help you. I want to build you up so that you can build other people up. Now that's not rejection, that's not casting them out for the sake of being vindictive. That's investment, pulling them aside to build them up so that they can fulfill their purpose in Christ to build other people up.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, you're leaning in, not shutting them out. You're addressing the problem, not the person.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

And that sets up the third thing, and maybe the hardest one. Don't give up on people. Even when it hurts or it looks like no progress is being made. Robert Jones puts it this way: when someone sins against you, you face a fork in the road. You either cover it up or you confront it, but you cannot let it sit in your heart and simmer into bitterness.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Because unaddressed bitterness will eventually destroy your capacity to love anyone, not just the person who hurt you.

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Now there are situations where the damage is severe, abuse, betrayal, deep harm. And even then, the posture is not I'm done. The posture is I will love you, I will pursue you, but that love is biblically guarded and biblically wise. I'm using discernment and godly caution, not to shut you out, but to create protected pathways for leaning in.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Okay, but what about truly toxic people, like people who have done genuinely heinous things? Is it ever appropriate to just cut someone out of your life completely?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

You might cut them out of certain roles. Someone who has done serious harm is not going to be watching your kids alone. They're not the person you go to for advice, and those are real appropriate protective lines. But cutting them out of a role is different from cutting them out of your life entirely.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Even in extreme cases, say someone in your family who's committed abuse and is in prison right now, you can still lean in through protected means. A letter, maybe a visit with the right people present. You're not pretending it didn't happen. You're not exposing anyone to more harm either, but you're not writing them off.

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Because here's the real question: what is actually gonna transform a toxic person? It's not distance, it's not silence, it's not cutting them out, it's the gospel. The only thing that changes a destructive person from the inside out is the love of Christ breaking through and making them new. And if you've cut off every pathway to them, you've also cut off the possibility of how someone becomes born again through hearing the gospel, through pursuit. So don't forget, the Christian's purpose in life is to pursue others with the gospel. Even the most destructive people on earth can be born again by the most powerful force in the universe, the love of Christ, and the love of Christ flows through us when we pursue difficult people.

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We can guard our hearts while we pursue other people's hearts. That's the balance. It requires wisdom to find it, but we shouldn't rule out even the most toxic people. We pursue them on wisely guarded avenues, and we keep our eyes on what God can do because no one is beyond his reach.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Now, guys, I want to talk to you directly for a second. Men are often wired to either fight or withdraw. When someone is difficult, we either go head to head or we check out entirely. And we've already said it, both of these are ditches. Neither one is real biblical leadership. Biblical leadership, biblical manhood means you take the initiative to pursue people even when it's uncomfortable. You don't sit back and wait for hard relationships to sort themselves out. You make the move. That's what Jesus did. He came to us, he crossed every barrier, he initiated. That's your model. And if there's someone in your life right now, in your family, in your small group, in your workplace who is difficult and you've been avoiding them, that's on you to address, not with force, not with pride, but with the kind of strength that says, I care about you enough to have this hard conversation, and I care about you enough to actually listen. Your family needs to see what this looks like. Your church needs men who don't hide from hard people. Go after them.

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Now, ladies, let me speak to you for a minute. Women are often the relational backbone of the church. You notice when people are hurting. You're usually the first to reach out, the first to show up. That is a genuine gift, and the body of Christ needs it. But that gift can get twisted. We can become enablers instead of encouragers. We smooth things over when they need to be addressed. We protect people from consequences that God may be actually using to grow them. And we do it because we don't want to hurt anyone. But sometimes we end up hurting them more by staying quiet. Now, loving difficult people as a woman means knowing when to hold space and when to speak truth, when to sit with someone in their pain, and when to gently but clearly say, what you're doing is hurting you and the people around you, and I love you too much to stay silent. The women around you are watching how you handle the person who's hard to love. Model what it looks like to forgive without pretending, to hold a boundary without holding a grudge, to pursue someone without losing yourself in the process. And if there's someone you've written off, maybe it's time to pray about going back. Not because it will be easy, but because that's what grace is.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

All right, so here's the one step for everyone this week.

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Just one.

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Think of a person in your life that you find most difficult, the one you've been avoiding, tolerating, or quietly resenting. And this week do one intentional thing toward them.

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It doesn't have to be a big dramatic conversation. It can be a text, a prayer, showing up somewhere you know that they'll be.

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But whatever it is, do it from a place of gospel humility. You've been forgiven an enormous debt. You have the power by the Holy Spirit to extend grace.

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And before you do it, remind yourself who that person is, an image bearer of God, someone Jesus died for. They're either a brother or sister in Christ, or they're a potential brother or sister in Christ.

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We're not called to love people because they make it easy. We're called to love them because Christ loved us in our dysfunction. So go do that this week. We hope this episode has been helpful in inspiring and equipping you to serve faithful in whatever area God is calling you.

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None of our service is possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes all the difference. And the Spirit is given freely to all who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus Christ alone, resting not in our performance, but in his finished work, in his life, his death, his resurrection. If you're not sure that you've been born again, reach out to us at centralchurch.com.

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And check out Central Bible Institute.org to see ways in which you can get trained and deployed for faithful ministry service.

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And speaking of getting equipped, our premarital mentoring training begins August 23rd, 2026. This is an eight-week class that will train and deploy you to do two-on-two premarital mentoring with couples who are either seriously dating or engaged. This is an amazing opportunity for you and your spouse to learn how to invest in other couples, making disciples who are equipped to glorify God in their marriages. If what we've talked about today has stirred something in you, this is your next step. Head to Central Bible Institute.org to register.

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Thanks for listening to Off the Sidelines, a CBI podcast.

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And remember, you were not saved to sit.

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You are saved to serve.