Walking It Out

SERMON: 2013-11-17--ac13114--walking-it-out-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:33:48.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The entire provided transcript is continuous sermon material, starting with a review of previous points and ending with concluding advice/exhortation. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- So we're picking up this morning where we left off last week, and we saw last week that when somebody sins against us, the first thing that we are to do according to the teaching of Jesus here in Matthew chapter 18 is to do what? Engage the person privately. Engage the person privately. Jesus puts it this way, Matthew chapter 18 verse 15, "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." Relationships matter in the kingdom of God, and broken relationships we saw last week are harmful not only to us individually, but also corporately because it tears at the fabric of community. And so scripture admonishes us in no uncertain terms that if we are in Christ, we are to make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. Keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. One of the ways in which to do that clearly is to address offenses as they arise. Now it's been my experience in the course of living a Christian life and having been engaged in ministry for quite a number of years now that while every so often the injury that we do to each other is deliberate, and wicked, and sorrowful, most are based on misunderstanding, miscommunication. I haven't really met a lot of really mean people, but I've met a lot of people who misunderstood or who were hurt because they failed to pick up on what was really happening. I recall an elderly organist in the first church that I pastored, delightful man, but one day he came at me out of the blue in great anger, that's the only way that I can describe it, accusing me at some point of having figuratively stabbed him with a knife and then twisted it on the way in. I thought that was a tad over the top, and so I asked him what he was referring to. He referred to an incident that had happened between the two of us a number of months earlier. He and I were planning a special service, and in the course of that planning I had asked him if he was able to play this particular song, and he told me he couldn't. As to not embarrass him, I said, "Don't worry about it, we'll figure a way around it." I thought the matter was settled, but clearly it wasn't because he took that as a personal affront, presumably because it really emphasized his inability to play this particular new song. He went underground in his heart for a long period of time and then burst out in the open in sort of this passive aggressive way that many of us live in when we've harbored something in our hearts for a long period of time. Here is the irony. The comment that I had made to him, I thought, was to protect him and to tell him it would be all right if he couldn't play it, but he took it as being stabbed with a knife and having the knife twisted. Kind of a graphic image when you think about it. So we talked about it and we cleared that up, but it took that kind of conversation. That's where it starts as Jesus and hopefully in many situations that will clear the deck, but it doesn't always clear the deck. So Jesus in this passage now goes on and he gives us step number two. He says, "Take an other person with you. Take an other person with you." 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. Look carefully at the screen and you'll notice that part of that verse is in quotation marks. Every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. That means it's a quotation from the Old Testament. And in this particular case it is a quotation from Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15 and it reads as follows, "One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." The context here, if you were to look it up, has to do with the judicial process. How do you know whether or not a given person is guilty of the crime that he is being accused of? The only way is to bring in multiple witnesses who can testify to the truth of the matter because as long as it is just you and him or you and her, it is his or her word over against you. And there is no way to determine the truth in that kind of situation. I well remember and some of you have heard me tell this story before. Had a couple in my office one time years ago, obviously having trouble in their relationship, but in my presence they broke out in this huge word fight about who had left the hallway light burning all night long. You laugh but it was serious business because both were absolutely convinced it was the other person who had left the light on. I was tempted to say if you were sleeping together instead of being in separate bedrooms, you might have been on the same page in terms of who turned that light on or off, but I restrained myself. But I did think this. The only way to find out what the truth was in this situation would be in fact to be a third party, a fly on the wall to see what had really happened in that particular situation. And so one reason then for bringing somebody else along with you, one or two witnesses, is so that the matter may be established by multiple witnesses. This is such an important part in biblical jurisprudence if you will, in biblically determining right from wrong that the apostle Paul repeats it in the New Testament in 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 19 where he says do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. And if you think back to the trial of Jesus, you will recall that when the Sanhedrin was trying to find reasons to condemn Jesus to death, they had a scam and a mock trial, but they had to at least go by the rules, and so they spent a lot of time trying to find two witnesses who could agree on something that Jesus had done wrong. Remember that story. And they looked and they looked, but the witnesses wouldn't agree until finally they came up with two witnesses who both told the same story. And Mark tells us what they said in Mark chapter 14 verse 58, "We heard him say," that is Jesus, "I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days we'll build another not made by man." Now here is a fascinating situation, because what did Jesus actually say? Do you remember? It's recorded in John chapter 2 verse 19, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days." And the passage goes on to say the temple he had spoken of was his body. And here you have a marvelous study in how false witnessing works. You take a grain of truth, you modify it so as to slant it in your direction. Jesus is talking about the temple of his body. The witnesses made it the man-made temple. And that man-made temple was built by Solomon and the big discussion when Jesus actually talked about that was it took Solomon 46 years to build this temple. How do you think you're going to do it in three days? So obviously you're a liar, not only, but you are attacking the very epitome of our religious life. And that then becomes part and parcel of two witnesses agreeing falsely on the condemnation that Jesus deserves. So one reason for taking two people along is to confirm the testimony, but I think there is another reason why taking two people along is so important because sometimes other people can help bridge the gap between two opposing parties. Very often when we find ourselves in conflict, tempers flare, harsh words are spoken, positions harden, both parties dig in their heel and before you know it they're in it for the long haul. And neither will move towards the other and so what you need sometimes is help from the outside. A third party can help bridge the gap. Now the chances are you've never heard of this particular man, Dr. William Urie. He is author or co-author of a phenomenal bestseller entitled Getting to Yes, Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. He is one of the foremost peace negotiators in the world and he has helped individuals in family conflicts, he has helped businesses in boardroom conflicts and he has been very actively involved in peace negotiations in all the world's hot spots including South Africa, Northern Ireland, the Middle East. And I listened to an interview that he gave a little while ago and the interviewer asked him the question, in your many levels of experience in bridging the gap in conflicts between people and people's groups, the interviewer asked, what is the single most critical factor that you have encountered that keeps people from coming together? Would you like to take a stab at that? Because Urie said it's none of the things that we tend to think would be the issue. He says it is not your stubborn opponent, it is not a problem that is so intractable that it defines solution. Now he says, pointing to his own chest, the problem is in here. He says the problem is that we react rather than respond. That is to say we get our dander up, our emotions involved, we hit the reply button too fast, we post our response on Facebook too quickly, we pick up the telephone and we dump our load without due reflection. He says that is the single most important issue that keeps people from getting together because it adds fuel to the fire. And then you get that whole cycle of destruction. Instead he says what people need to do is go to the balcony, that's his language. And by going to the balcony he means taking a step back, taking a long range view and asking yourself the question will my emotional involvement in this situation help or hinder the solution to this particular thing? And then he goes on in further talks to describe at least three things that negotiators need to keep in mind when they're trying to bring two parties together. He says first of all you've got to remember that you're dealing with people and you've got to separate their issues, the issue from the people. You've got to get underneath the surface talk and address what the concerns are that lie underneath. Secondly he says you must remember that objective fairness matter. We've talked about this before. We are keenly interested in justice. And if we find that justice is not being done you can hardly ever bring two parties together. And then he said remember to look for a creative solution. Think outside the box. And then he tells in one of his talks the old Arab fable of a father of three sons who in his will left his 17 camels to his three sons. And he said I want you to divide these 17 camels among the three of you in this fashion. My oldest son is going to get half the camels. My second son is going to get a third of the camels. And my third son is going to get a ninth of those camels. Now you don't have to be a mathematical wizard to know that there's a problem here. Because 17 does not divide by two, does not divide by three, and does not divide by nine. So these brothers are immediately in a quandary after their father dies. How are we going to divide these 17 camels among the three of us? And a big battle breaks out among them until they discover that isn't going to solve the problem. So what do they do? They bring in a third party, the proverbial wise old woman. And they explain the situation to her. And she says well let me think about it. And off she goes and she thinks for a long, long time. Comes back after a bit and she says I don't know if I can help you but at least if you want I will give you my camel. So now they have 18 camels. 18 divided by two is nine. Divided by three is six. Divided by nine. Come on. Do your mathematics. Now watch this. Nine plus six plus two is how many? 17. So they give the 18th camel back to the lady and everybody's happy. Now some of you, you're going to sit here for the rest of the service. You're going to try to figure out how that worked. Good luck. Creative solutions can sometimes take us places where we never thought we could go. Uri, by the way, has got a creative solution for the problem in the Middle East. Do you want to hear it? He says how come everybody is fascinated by the Middle East? Because we are. And it's an interminable conflict. And he says it's because all three major religions, all three major monotheistic religions find their origins in Abraham in the Middle East. And so he says what do we have in common that could solve the problem? And so what he's come up with is to do walking tours following Abraham's footsteps. He's had thousands of people do this over the course of a number of years. They trace his footsteps from Ur of the Chaldees to Heron to all the way to the land of Canaan. And along the way, people are getting to know each other. They are sharing Middle Eastern hospitality and divisions are beginning to break down. Now he doesn't claim that that will ultimately solve the issues in the Middle East, but it's certainly thinking outside of the box and trying to come up with a creative solution. So scripture says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God." Still, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. And so what does Jesus do? He now gives us a third step for conflict resolution and that is take it to the church. Verse 17, "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." The word for church there is the Greek word ecclesia, which literally means the called out ones. It goes back to the days of the Athenian democracy in Greece where people were called out from their homes to come together for community wide meetings or assemblies. And in the New Testament, the early church took over that word to describe the people of God. Because in every way, of course, we are the called out people of God. When we become Christians, we get joined by faith to God and to each other, but we are called out of the world to be the people of God and to be joined to Jesus is to be baptized into one body. We were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink. And so when you come to faith in Christ, you become a part not only of the worldwide body of Christ, but you are called to join a local community of believers. Because remember, it's all about relationship, relationship with God, relationship with each other. You can't love God whom you cannot see if you cannot love your brother whom you can't see. And so when I break covenant relationship with another fellow believer, it becomes the church's business. And the church has to step in and try to arbitrate. And if it hasn't worked one to one, if it hasn't worked with two or three people with me, then the church has to step in and the church has to decide, listen, can we persuade you to repent, to change your ways and to be restored to fellowship? And if you cannot or will not, then all we can do is put you out of the church. If he refuses to listen, even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Theologically, that's known as excommunication. And excommunication, when done properly, not only puts you outside of the community of faith, it actually puts you outside the kingdom of God. That's why Jesus, in this passage, goes on now to say in verse 18 of Matthew chapter 18, "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." God gives authority to the church to throw wide open the door and to invite you into relationship with God and into relationship with Christian community. And he also gives the church the authority to say, "By your unrepentant actions, you have placed yourself outside of the community, and therefore you no longer belong." Matthew chapter 16 has Jesus saying this to Peter, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." There's not a lot of talk about excommunication. I don't know if in all my 40 plus years of ministry I have ever seen anybody officially and formally excommunicated. That's not so much a comment about the maturity and the quality of the church as it is a comment on our failure to take seriously covenant community and the instructions of Jesus. We live in an age of sentimentality. We live in an age where there isn't much understanding about what it is to be the church. Because to be the church doesn't mean that we're perfect. It doesn't mean that we are without sin, but it does mean that we have embraced the cross of Jesus. And if I find myself living in a way that is not in keeping with God's will, then my first responsibility is to say no to my sin and to say yes to Jesus. Isn't that true? That's the fruit of the spirit. If I'm unwilling to do that in my life, it is your responsibility to speak into my life because a little yeast leavens the whole dough. And if I will not listen to you, then it's the church's responsibility to say to you by your lifestyle you are demonstrating that you are outside of the kingdom of God, and therefore you can no longer participate in the privileges and the joys of life in community. And without spending a lot of time on it just to show you what that looks like in the real world, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, if you ever get the chance to look at it, outlines Paul's experience with church discipline in the context of the Corinthian church. There is a man in that particular church, he says, who is committing a sin that the pagans do not even commit, and that is he is living with his stepmother. And he's not just boarding in case you think that's the case. They're sleeping together. And Paul says instead of being shocked and troubled by this blatant sin in their midst, they're proud as a church and they're arrogant because they get all these spiritual gifts you will remember, and they're turning a blind eye. And he says to them, don't you know, don't you know that a little yeast infects the whole dough? How many of us don't realize that in your family or among your friends or among your co-workers, once a particular type of behavior is allowed, it spreads like wildfire. Everybody gets permission to do the same thing. Paul says your whole community is going to get torn down by the sins of this man and he says what I want you to do, here's what he says, I want you to do in that particular passage when you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. There you have church discipline in action. We're putting him out of this body not only, but we're putting him outside of the church into the devil's hands, not to destroy him, but so that his spirit may be saved on the day of Jesus. And here you have one of three reasons historically why the church is called to exercise discipline. One is always for the restoration of the sinner. A person who persists in sin is going to be excluded from the kingdom of God. The Bible says repeatedly don't let anybody deceive you. People who do those things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Doesn't matter how many people we find who justify our behavior or our actions, at the end of the day it's God who makes the decision and God says Jesus died so that you would stop doing this. At least we are called upon to live in repentance and do everything that we can to abandon and forsake sinful ways. That said, if it is not for the sake of the person, it's for the sake of the church. Because as I said earlier, a little yeast goes a long way. And the church loses its witness to the world to the degree to which it becomes worldly. That's what the church often doesn't recognize. We are called to be an alternate community to the rest of the world, a people who love God, a people who love each other, a people who learn to walk in the ways of Jesus, people who learn to take up the cross and to follow him and to walk in love and in repentance and in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's our calling because that is the key to bearing witness to the world, that there's a difference in a better way of life. And of course third reason is for the glory of God. Because as Paul says writing to the Romans, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles. He says this about the Jewish people, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. So that's a high and holy calling that God places on our lives. And the challenge for each one of us is not just to point fingers at other people and say, "See? Deal with your stuff. You're an embarrassment to me or you're an embarrassment to the church." Our job isn't to sit and point fingers and exercise judgment over Tom, Dick and Harry or Jane and whoever. But our job is always to begin by looking at our own lives because scripture says, "If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently, but watch yourself or you also may be tempted." That's what we're gonna leave it this morning. Lord willing, we're going to come back to the next verse in Matthew chapter 18 and talk about why this is so critical in terms of the power of agreement. And in the meantime, if God speaks to our own hearts, places where we need to walk through biblical steps in as much as it depends on you, says scripture, live at peace with all [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:33:43.020; remove through 00:33:48.000] men. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:33:48.000; resume after this marked segment]