Restore Your Relationships

May 18, 2008

Title: Restore Your Relationships

Text: Matthew 18:13-15

Proposition: We have misunderstood the purpose of confrontation and reconciliation.

Application: Accountability, confession and forgiveness are to be trademarks of Believers.

I. Priority of Confrontation

1. For the offended

2. For the offender (More important than sacrifice) Mt. 5:23

3. Demonstration of the change life that comes from a relationship with Christ

Ephesians 5:17ff (Especially v. 25-27)

Parable that follows 77 (Genesis 4:24) –

Lamechs boast of overvengeance/Christ says over forgiveness

II. Process of Confrontation

1. One on One

2. Keep it small – Witness not an ambush, but facilitators of forgivness, regents of reconciliation, witness of what went wrong

3. Body – Ultimately the body of Christ is to make judgment

- I Corinthians 6:4-6

4. Expulsion/Excommunication – Unity, need (I Corinthians 5:1ff)

III. Problems of Confrontation

1. How to

a. + - +

Biscut Bone Biscut

I love you

But when you I was hurt

I wish to have the relationship back

2. Rejection of the Premise

3. Misunderstanding of Grace

What about when the person does respond?

Or Responds later

(2 Corinthians 2:5-10)

SERMON
The Process of Restoration
When we deal with fellow believers who have sin in their lives, we must do it in such a way that it restores them to right fellowship with God.
Steve May

I was visiting a church in Denton, Texas, one Sunday evening, and the pastor concluded the service by saying, "We will now ask all of our visitors to leave so that we can have a members-only meeting to discuss what we will do about the two families in our church who are getting a divorce." I was not a member of that church and was not allowed to stay, but I have always wondered what action the church took toward these two families. Did they remove them from the membership roles? Did they publicly chastise them for their failure? Did they offer them comfort and hope for restoration? Now, it is well documented in the pages of Scripture that God hates divorce; I'm not implying otherwise. But it also well documented that God hates ALL sin, and yet he loves all sinners (which includes you and me), and he offers us his mercy, grace, and forgiveness. In the Christian life there is a careful balance between hating the sin and loving the sinner. When we deal with fellow believers who have sin in their lives, we must do it in such a way that it restores them to right fellowship with God—not in such a way that it alienates them from right fellowship with God. Today there are some churches that practice public church discipline. When members of their fellowship are living in sin, they rebuke them publicly, and if the person doesn't repent, they kick them out of the church. Here's the problem I have with this practice: Most churches that do this are very selective in the sins that they target—and it nearly always has to do with sex. I've heard of churches disfellowshipping a member for having an affair, or going through a divorce, or living with someone outside of marriage (and I'm certainly not endorsing this behavior)—but I've never heard of a church for publicly disciplining a member who eats too much, or who gossips, or who speaks hatefully to their spouse—yet the Bible clearly states that all of these things are sin. The point of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18 is not to give us a blueprint on publicly shaming people who misbehave, the point is to teach us how to restore those who have fallen. Let's look at this entire passage. (v. 15-17) If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." Today we'll look at how you should respond to the sin in someone else's life. And I'll tell you up front that the key word throughout this entire message is restoration. There's a right way to deal with other people's sin, and Jesus shows us how to do it. The first thing I want you to notice is... 1. There are prerequisites to dealing with other people's sins. There are three. First... a. The sin is against you. Jesus says specifically, (v. 15) If your brother sins against you... In other words, if you're not involved, then you probably need to keep your nose out of it. Though there are times when it is necessary to correct believers for sins against third parties, Jesus is not issuing an open-ended invitation to meddle into the lives of everyone you know. We're not called to be busy-bodies. There is a fine balance to maintain here; the best thing to remember is that if you're not directly involved with the situation, then you must proceed with careful caution. A second prerequisite can be found in Galatians 6. b. You must be spiritually mature enough to intervene. Paul wrote... If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. (Galatians 6:1) Did you catch that qualifying phrase, "You who are spiritual"? In other words, if your own life is a mess, you need to stop trying to fix other people's lives and start working on fixing your own. A pastor friend of mine (we'll call him Pastor A) once told me how he confronted "Pastor B" with a sin that "B" was committing. The only problem was that Pastor A's teenage son was living in open rebellion, and Pastor A was about 100 pounds overweight. What's more, Pastor A had a ferocious temper that kept him in hot water with his congregation much of the time. Clearly, he was not in a position to meddle; his own life was out of control. Before you confront someone—especially if you're not directly involved—you need to ask yourself, "Am I where I should be spiritually? Is my heart right? Is my life right? Am I qualified to do this?" If the answer is "yes" then you can proceed, but Paul includes another qualifier here: he says do it gently. The third prerequisite is... c. This applies to fellow-believers. Both Paul and Jesus used the term "brother" In other words, this applies to members of the Christian family. So here are the prerequisites for confronting someone with sin: Are those involved Christian brothers and sisters? Am I directly involved? And, if not, is the situation dire enough that it requires my third-party involvement? Am I spiritual enough to step in and offer leadership in the restoration process? These are the prerequisites. Secondly, lets look at... 2. There is a process for dealing with other people's sins. There are four steps to this process. Step One: Meet one-on-one. (v. 15) If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. Here are the rules for step one. Meet in private . Jesus said, "Just between the two of you." Meet face-to-face . That means eyeball-to-eyeball. This excludes letters, phone calls, faxes, emails, video teleconferencing, etc. etc. etc. You meet face-to-face, just between the two of you. Meet first . It stands to reason since this is step one of the process that you would do it first, but most people don't do it that way. When most people have a gripe with someone else, they don't go to that person first, they go to several other people first and gossip about it: "Let me tell what so-and-so did to me. Let me tell you what I don't like about this guy..." And they get other people involved in a situation that is none of their business. If you have a problem with someone else, then talk about it to that person and that person alone. That's step one of the process. Jesus said, (v. 15) "If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." When this happens it remains a private matter. You and the fellow Christian have resolved the situation and no one else ever needs to know about it. But, what happens when your brother will not listen to you? Jesus tell us, Step Two: Take two or three others with you. (v. 16) "But if he will not listen take one or two others along, so that 'everything may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'" If someone sins against you, then you approach that person and talk about it one-on-one. If that person refuses to repent of (or even acknowledge) the sin, then you approach him/her again with two or three other people. If you get to the point where you have to do step two, here are some principles to keep in mind about the two or three others you bring in to the situation. Choose people of integrity . Choose people whose own lives are upright and blameless. Choose people who are unbiased . Choose people who aren't inclined to take your side just because it's you involved. In other words, choose people who love you both equally. Choose people who are uninvolved . Choose people who, up to this point, know nothing about the situation. This means that if, before you did step one, you gossiped about it to someone, that person is now excluded from being an unbiased, impartial witness. Choose people who are mutually respected . Choose people whose opinion the other person admires and respects as much as you do. The goal in this step, as in step one, is to resolve the situation without taking it any further. The goal is to bring about restoration—to restore right fellowship between you and your brother, and to restore right fellowship between your brother and God. But when step two doesn't work, Jesus gives a third step to take. Step Three: Take it to the church (v. 17) If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church... We have to be careful here about reading more into Jesus' words than is actually there. He mentions the church, but at this point, there was no church in existence. Jesus had not taught anything about the church except to say, in Matthew 16, that he would build his church on Peter's confession of him as Lord and Christ. There were no pastors, bishops, elders, deacons, or any kind of governmental structure established at this point. In fact, the word translated "church" means, literally, assembly. Jesus is talking about a local fellowship of believers. Bible scholar Craig Blomberg, who teaches New Testament at Denver Seminary and is considered a foremost authority of the teachings of the Gospels, said this about this section of Matthew 18: Jesus does not explain how we should air our grievances before the church; after all, he has not yet given any teaching on church structure. Applications should major on flexibility and sensitivity. The main point is that the grievance is made more public. [Commentary on Matthew, page 279, © 1992 Broadman Press] He said "flexibility and sensitivity." The goal is not to humiliate a brother, the goal is to restore a brother. So before a church takes the step of making a grievance public, they need to approach the matter with flexibility and sensitivity. I think the main objective of step three is to make it clear to those in the assembly that this person has disqualified himself—at least for the time being—from eligibility for leadership within the church. The other objective is, again, to bring about restoration of a member of the Christian family. Our goal is not to ostracize people, our goal is to restore them. Step three is a drastic step for a church to take, and should be approached carefully and prayerfully. It should be approached gently yet firmly. And if step three doesn't work, there's an even more drastic step to take. Step Four: Treat them as a pagan or tax-collector (v. 17) "...and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax-collector. Here's a question. How did Jesus teach us to treat these people—pagans and tax-collectors (in other words, sinners)? You know the answer. We're to love them. We're to never stop loving them. We're to never stop offering them God's free gift of mercy, forgiveness, and grace. We're to make clear to them that the door to restoration is always open. However, do we take spiritual leadership from pagans and tax-collectors? No. Do we let them run our committees? No. Do we let them control the financial decisions of the church? No. Do we let them teach our Bible studies and Sunday school classes? No. Some cults practice what is called "shunning"—when a person falls out of favor with the group, he is excommunicated from the group and is excluded from any kind of contact within the group. But we're not a cult, and that's not how we treat sinners. We treat them the way Jesus did—we never stop loving them. We never close the door on the possibility of their restoration. The purpose of step four is the same as the purpose of steps one, two, and three: to bring the person back into a right relationship with God. We've looked at the prerequisites of confronting someone with sin; we've looked at the process, thirdly, let's look at... 3. There is a purpose for dealing with other people's sin. Step one, you meet with the person in private. Step two, you meet with the person with qualified witnesses. Step three, you bring it before the church. Step four, the church, if necessary, takes action. The purpose of all these steps is the same: to bring about restoration. Some people approach step one with step four in mind. They're thinking, "I want to publicly shame this guy for what he did." That's not the goal. That's not the purpose of church discipline. We exist to help people connect with God. Yes, there are moral and ethical standards we must live by. This is not an "anything goes" environment; we are to be accountable to one another. But when we approach someone about the sin in their life, we approach them the way we would want to be approached ourselves: with an attitude of restoration. In considering how restoration works, let's look at a few examples. • The Catholic church has been in the news a lot lately. Cardinal Law was forced to resign his position when it became known that he had knowingly appointed a number of sex-offending priests to new parishes. This example is so extreme that I hesitated to include it, but I want to make it clear that restoration is not about sweeping sin under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist. Clearly, this type of irresponsible behavior cannot—in any stretch of the imagination—be considered restoration. Restoration is about repentance and accountability. Someone who commits this deplorable sin can be forgiven by God, but it goes without saying that they should never be allowed to be around children again in any circumstance. They can be restored spiritually, but for legal reasons as well as moral, a church should never again put a person like this in a position of authority or leadership. • Another example. I know of a church in California whose treasurer was caught misappropriating funds. He was confronted with his sin and he repented. He was required to make restitution, which he did. And his name was taken off the checking account. He was restored to right fellowship with God, he was forgiven by those he had sinned against, but part of his taking responsibility for his actions and establishing accountability for himself meant that he was never again put in a position where he could touch the money. • Another example. In comparison to the other 2 examples, this sin seems quite small—but all sin is destructive and must be confronted. I know of a worship pastor who had a team member who was openly critical of the pastor's leadership. He was gossiping and complaining, and his words were creating division not only among the worship team but also throughout the church. The easy thing to do would have been to kick the guy off the team and forget about him. Instead, the young man was confronted with his sin. He repented. He went to those he had gossiped to and asked forgiveness. He became openly supportive of the church leadership. He was able to remain on the worship team—but he serves now with a new attitude. I go back to Dr. Blomberg's words about restoration: flexibility and sensitivity. You do what's best for everyone involved. In the case of Cardinal Law and the Catholic church, it doesn't mean unleashing a victimizer on a set of unsuspecting victims. In the case of the dishonest treasurer, it doesn't mean further jeopardizing the church's financial situation. In the case of the gossiping bass player, it doesn't mean allowing someone to continue to spread division throughout the church. In each case of restoration, responsible action must be taken and accountability must be established. CONCLUSION Confronting someone with sin is not about being a tattle-tale, it's not about proving that you are better than they are, and neither is it about sweeping sin under the rug. It's about restoring that person to a right relationship with God and others. It's about helping that person in their own journey toward holiness. It's about responsible action and accountability. It's about doing what's right for all involved. The only way we can do this effectively is if we ourselves are holy...if we ourselves are right with God and are walking with him in an upright way. Only then can we approach each situation gently with a heart full of love, and a mind set on restoration.