“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.” Matthew 18:15-17 NLT
WARNING! NSFC – not safe for church
By now we are painfully aware that we are ALL sinners! The religious, the puritan, the pagan – we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory! Jesus’ words are not a matter of a saint correcting a sinner. This is a believer, a Christ follower, reconciling to another of the same. This is a sinner to sinner situation. Jesus, being perfect, holds the authority to tell us how this should be done.
The steps are simple enough.
- A believer sins against you. Ah, but defining “sin” in a church culture is tricky, right? Is it a sin, sin – or a religious preference of opinion? Sins are fairly defined unless we make up non-Biblical offenses, then it becomes super awkward. Someone cheats you, defrauds you or spreads a lie about you…that’s a sin. Someone wears stylishly shredded blue jeans with holes in them to church on Sunday… that is NOT a sin. Having a “sin” conversation about one is very different to having one about the other. Let’s continue.
- Go privately. The whole idea is reconciliation between two believers. It’s not a public matter at this point. I find it interesting that Jesus comments AFTER this process and mentions some insight about how God feels about proper behavior and a sense of unity within the community of faith. Jesus uses two examples that we have forever taken completely out of context!
- One, the idea of “binding” and “loosing.” Whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. What in the world is Jesus talking about? And why have preachers forever used this verse to represent agreement on casting out demons or claiming cash as a blessing from God? Maybe we should look into this verse a little more for ourselves. One of my favorite commentaries believes, “It has to do with admission to and rejection from the membership of the Church.” Whoa! Another suggests that it is more than an “ecclesiastical authority,” it’s a disciple’s authority to deal with sin – thus power to forgive! It is certainly not a freedom to bind or loose whatever we want!
- Two, Jesus also lets us in on this beautiful truth, that has also been twisted and tweaked beyond its intent. The power of Jesus presence! Jesus remind us that this process of correction and reconciliation is so important that He promises that the outcome can be extraordinarily supernatural. “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them” (18:19-20). This agreement to settle a grievance is godly, it is holy. And to prove it, Jesus says, when we do things God’s way and not our own – BOOM – Jesus himself is present! This isn’t about a church gathering folks, it’s about the difficult, nitty-gritty grind of reconciling sin!!! It is so powerful and so healthy and good that Jesus personally adjudicates the interaction Himself! So it must be about someone really sinning against us. And, it must be done privately, at first. If there is no confession, no remorse, no admission to SIN, then and only then, can we bring in others to witness and confirm the situation. There’s even a fourth step, if it’s a sin, confronted privately, then with two or three others and there is still no change in owning the sin, no change in behavior, then the church is to be informed that we love a person enough to not allow them to fellowship with us. We give no opportunity to let someone fake their Christianity among us by ignoring, mineralizing or normalizing sin! Jesus basically says, let them go live their life as they please, be it a pagan or corrupt tax collector. They have been put out of the gathering, the fellowship.
We dislike this whole concept of confrontation, confession and correction that we just throw out Jesus words here in these verses. Oh, the words are still there and they are true, but it is so difficult for us to follow, that we just pretend they don’t exist. And, if for a moment you think, “well, as a pastor, you should be the one to obey it.” Or, “as a pastor, you should make us follow the words of Jesus!” Right. That’s worked so well over the past couple thousand years.
These are the rules of faith and behavior as BELIEVERS, as followers of Jesus. We all have the responsibility to listen and obey. This is another reason we have so many problems and issues within the church. This is why we lack unity – because we lack obedience to the Lord’s commands. We have 40,000+ denominations, all fractured and fragmented because we don’t follow the rules of restoration! Instead of obeying the words of Jesus, we have dysfunctional workarounds, subverting God’s will. We triangulate (securing others for our case and cause) and gossip, spreading poison and infecting others. We stay in our churches holding onto bitterness, grudges and un-reconciled relationships. OR, we pickup our spiritual toys and move to another church to start the process all over again. It’s embarrassing! All because I won’t tell you privately, you sinned against me – you hurt me, and I love you and God enough, to tell you. We can do better, right? I know… It starts with me.
Prayer
Dad,
What can I say? I’m horrible at this. This is so difficult to practice. I have excused my lack of faith and obedience in this area for far too long. Forgive me. Help me, not just hear your Word, but obey it! Amen.