Brotherly Confrontation
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The Hard Work of Restoration
The Hard Work of Restoration
Announcements:
Wrapping up conflict today
Next week we will be back in Ephesians for one Sunday
Starting August 15th we will begin a new series I’m calling, “one another”
A teaching on relationships within the family.
This is a hard sermon… this is something that is personal to me.. I’ve experienced as a pastor and a brother in Christ… and honestly, I still have wounds in this space that have been inflicted in the last decade of my life as a pastor.
I want to put this text in the back of your mind as we start this message.
Matthew 17:16 (ESV)
And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.”
As we’ve been speaking on conflict, we’ve been working towards an event. The day we actually have to talk with the person.
We’ve laid tons of ground work:
Getting out our on logs
Prepping for the discussion
Keeping our aim as restoration / building up / redemptive in spirit
But now, we will jump into Matthew 18.. the famous teaching on confrontation.
I think some context is important for us.
Context is key.
at minimum the verse before and after
better if we are within the entire scope of the book it is written
preferably with a familiarity of the entire counsel of God’s word
Ideally with the understanding of the culture and background of the Jewish people.
The events preceeding:
The Transfiguration
The Disciples Failure
The Temple Tax
What’s happening before we get to the teach of biblical confrontation in Matthew 18?
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
Peter / James / John… Peter and the sons of Thunder
This fulfilled Jesus’ words in the preceeding chapter
Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
So, we have these three exclusive members of Jesus’ team who see what is known as the “Transfiguration”
Jesus gives his Disciples a specific command not to tell anyone about what they witnessed until after the son of man is raised from the dead.
And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”
Jesus is so patient.... so many culture things happening here. But the Jewish people believed in a literal return of Elijah.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Probably seeing Jesus in his transfigured state and then Elijah confused them.
My sanctified imagination: How long did they keep that secret?
The Disciples Failure:
And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.”
The disciples had been given specific authority to heal by Jesus.. They were treating it as a magical ability and not as a matter of relationship and connectedness to Christ.
It’s not the amount of faith we have, but the quality of it. Jesus is clear:
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
We see Jesus’ human emotion here:
And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.”
Even Jesus’ frustration was expressed by quoting scripture
They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation.
And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
The Temple Tax
When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”
Peter is singled out
He’s already the first to confess Jesus’ true identity
Jesus said he would build his church upon this rock in Matthew 16.
Now Jesus is given him money from the mouths of fish?
When we step into Matthew 18.
What’s the opening question?
At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Jesus isn’t angry about their desire to be great, but he is always qualifying what it means to be great in his kingdom.
But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
In this case, Jesus now says:
And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Children were not given much respect or honor in this day, much less held up as examples to adults.
I think it is important to keep in mind that Jesus is calling his disciples to have a childlike faith. (below)
Notice in Matthew 18:4-5
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,
“one such child” = a Disciple of Christ
HUMILITY is the key to discipleship
It stands to reason then, that the warning in Matthew 6 should be understood in the context of the family of believers.
Matthew 18:6 “who believe in me” the only time in the synoptic gospels that this phrase occurs.
but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
In other words, if we fail to receive or welcome a disciple of Christ, but instead ignore, reject, or discourage is tantamount to rejecting the savior.
Rejection of a son is rejection of the family.
It’s a natural idea if Jesus is speaking to his disciples that we would move from rejection of a disciple into temptations.
Rejection of Christ leads to the worst punishment imaginable for humanity. Jesus is speaking in hyperbole to exaggerate the significance of rejecting him.
Why is all this important:
Understanding confrontation in the context of the family means we keep as our aim the benefit of the other person.
We’re not in this to punish others in a punitive, harmful way.
We shouldn’t be in confrontation just to get our point across and be heard. To justify ourselves as the expense of relationship.
The goal of family confrontation is always to bring about a deeper level of intimacy and restoration
Think about your deepest relationships with others.’
The people I’m closest too are the ones that survived hard times with me.
I don’t have any close friends that I’ve never had any disagreement with. (maybe that’s just me).
The deepest relationships we have will always have conflict. The question is, are we going to resolve this conflict in humility with a spirit of restoration?
If a brother/sister disappoints you or offends you and you say nothing… but you just move on… it’s a measure of the depth of the relationship?
Now, Jesus calls us a disciples, his children, to be very concerned with all his children.. All our brothers and sisters.
Let’s take a look at Matthew 18:15-20
The first step of confrontation:
1 - Go in private
if it is hard to accept a rebuke, even a private one, it is harder still to administer one in loving humility.”
and
“The possession of humility is proven not by passively waiting for one to beg forgiveness and then granting it. Rather, it is manifested by actively seeking out the erring brother and attempting to make him penitent.”
“Go and tell him his fault”
This isn’t being salty.. We’re not here to insult.
No finger pointing
I’m not showing you your fault to feel better about myself or to suggest that I’m better than you.
I’m here, because I’m concerned about my fellow disciple, my family, and the trajectory of your life… that what you are actively involved in may be leading you away from the master.
The devil is tricky guys…
John 8:44 says he is the “father of lies.”
We need to be careful not to buy into the lie.
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Being blessed: Dr. Tony Evans says, “blessing isn’t the standard of spirituality, but we need to be concerned with the source of our blessing.”
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.
I’ve said this a million times… We need each other! God has designed his body to work in the context of other believers.
Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.
You cannot spiritually isolate yourself from the body and experience the depth of Christian growth God intends for you.
Take a witness:
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
This isn’t so the other person can verify the sin/fault, but so they are witness to the confrontation.
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.
Bringing in the church.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Now, “CHURCH” isn’t this building.. to the disciples who heard this it likely meant, “their gathering.”
I don’t think Jesus had in mind that we would bring people up on Sunday morning and publicly embarrass and berate them in the name of “conflict resolution.”
Listen - we don’t hate Tax collectors and Gentiles.. We love them.. We pray for them.. we seek to have them be reconciled to God through Christ..
But here’s the truth.
As people of faith we can have deep friendships with those who do not believe..
However, the depth of relationship will always be limited because of our identity in Christ.
Perhaps the most difficult thing in life is to realize a relationship will be limited in its depth because of a spiritual condition.
It’s not that one person is superior to the other… when spiritual perspectives don’t align… you are going to be limited
God “told me” theology is difficult to fight. When someone is convinced of what God told them, it’s difficult to have any productive discussion.
I’ve had experiences of people telling me “God told me” theology all the while leaving a trail of destruction and broken relationships in the name of Jesus..
There are people in my life, who call themselves Christian, but the depth of our relationship is limited because of an unwillingness to walk in humility with one another.
The unwillingness to confess sins, ask for forgiveness… We end up being “peace fakers.” and the difficult thing is this..
Forgiveness can be one-sided, but reconciliation takes two
And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.”
I don’t want this to be true of our church. I pray that God brings us broken people and we are prepared to heal them.
IF we have time...
God’s agreement:
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
The Lord has always upheld his judicial representatives on Earth.
