"If Your Brother Sins Against You…” | Matthew 18:15–20

Show Notes

Episode 731: 
In this episode, we dive into the important topic of how to handle offenses within the church and our personal relationships, drawing from the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 18. We emphasize the importance of addressing conflicts privately and directly, rather than resorting to public outbursts or social media rants. Jeff points out that many people are unaware of the Matthew 18 principle, which is crucial for maintaining dignity and respect in relationships.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Well, welcome back to the newest episode of The Bible Guys. I'm Jeff and this is Wesley Woods, which means, for all of our long time listeners, this is a platinum edition of The Bible Guys. That right, I mean, any anytime you're a guest on the on the Bible Guys, it's a platinum because the last time I wasn't here, you were a part of the You filled in for me, which, by the way, thank you. You did a great job. That's why I had to hurry back, because you did too good of a job. But I think it came up there that you were You made it the platinum latinum version. You and Kyle got diamond or something like that something. So Chris Sarba is working with a ministry we love called Transform One down in the Dominican Republic and they help rescue children from trafficking in uh So it's just a really great ministry. This where he's at this week. So you and I get to do this together and we're talking about how Jesus teaches us how to deal with somebody who's hurt us or offended us inside the church. And so I think it's going to be a really good challenge for every listener today. But before we do that, this whole week, we're kind of talking about relationships. Right The premise behind our podcast right now is what if Jesus had a podcast? And then we're just taking famous statements and famous passages that Jesus talked about, and that's what we're doing in our podcast. So today is if your brother sins against you, it's what it is. So since we're talking about relationships, Wesley Desiree said, as we continue our current series, this week's episodes focus on real talk on relationships. For today's segment, let's share some funny or embarrassing stories from your marriages or any other relationship that you want to share. So Wesley, give us, give us a great story about relationship. So I don't know if it falls in funny or embarrassing, but it's a good story. So I met my wife at Universal Mall. So this is going back to the mall, isn't it anymore? Yeah? Yeah? But I met her at the mall and as I was walking down the hallway. She was captivated by my presence. I bet. Yeah, this is a true story. I guarantee you this is at least eight percent true. I'm telling the truth here. She was captivated. And here's the thing. When I first met her, she had a boyfriend. Yeah, so this there's drama and intrigue in this story. You got pulled. Yeah, that's good. So yeah, I met her, and you know, I bought her lunch and I bought her some gifts, and I was trying to woo her my way. And I think, Jeff, there's something about being pleasantly persistent. Yes, but don't be a stalker stalker. No, pleasantly persistent. Okay, so do not be a stalker advocate. Yes, we are anti stalker to be clear. Yes. So then how long did you pleasantly persist? It wasn't that long. They ended up breaking up. I'm going to say like six months they ended up breaking up. We started dating, but I was younger. So when I met her, I was like eighteen. She was like four or five years older. Oh So we dated for a while and then she's like, you're too young, I can't do this. So that happened for some years where we'd get back together. She's like, no, I can't do it, And then I guess I finally just stuck. I just wore down. Okay, good for you, but then pleasantly persistent not stalker. Yes, there's the science of it, but then there's also the art of yes, it don't be a weird Oh yes, did you feel like you got close to being a weirdo a little bit? Or do you feel like you always you always managed that? Just I think I managed it well. Her parents were on my side, which helped. Oh that helps. So her parents were rooting for me. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, Well, maybe you should write a book about it. Yeah, write a book for all the people who struggle and they keep falling over the line into stalker mode. Don't be a weirdos the title. Yeah, So I was thinking about that too. And I think I've told this story on the podcast. I know I've told it from stage before. But my wife and I met in high school. We were seniors and we were both musicians, and I found out about this opportunity to win a scholarship at college that Bonnie's mom and Bonnie lived at, and so I had to I lived in Michigan. The school was down in Indiana, so I sent my music down and Bonnie wound up being my piano player to accompany me. And so I wound up winning full scholarship. And when it was all done, I wrote her a note. I was sick that whole week. I had pneumonia, but I you know that's which is Pneumonia's rough for a trumpet player. But you know, when you're good, you're good, you got skilled, well, you got skills, You got skills, you know what I mean. Pneumonia can't start. So but I was sick the whole time, so just miserable, And so I wrote her a note, handwritten note, and I said, thank you, Bonnie, and whatever, maybe I'll see in the ful because I didn't decided I was going to go at school. I just wanted to see if I can win that scholarship. Ye, so I left her that note. Well, Bonnie apparently was smitten, and so she kept that card on her nightstand, and every night all summer long she prayed that God would send me to school. Oh wow, And so I wound up going back. We started dating on the first day of college, and I never dated another girl. Again. Oh wow, and so now here I am. We've been married almost thirty three years, and I am still literally God's answer to my wife's prayer. We got to get Bonnie's version. Yeah, no, that's that's a fact. You can ask her. She'll tell you I am God's answer to her prayers. And so, you know, when she gets frustrated with me, I'm like, is that how you treat God's answer to your prayer? You pray for this exactly? Be careful what you pray for, ladies. Yeah, you got it. That's pretty good. So talking about sometimes people getting grumpy though, Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. In the Matthew chapter eighteen, which is an incredibly important passage, it seems like pastors know this all the time. Elders will know this. When there's a problem, people say, well, what's the Matthew eighteen solution? But it's amazing to me how few church people know Matthew eighteen right, And so this is incredibly important, I think for every person listening, because there will be a time when somebody offends you, and so how should a Christian approach being offended? Excuse me, this cough just won't go away. You got this little cough. Yeah, and it's a tickle in the bottom of my throat. I talked to my doctor about it, and my doctor is like, I think you just your body has this habit now of coughing. You got a little bit of inflammation. So whatever, So I'm not sick. I just won't won't quit the little cough anyways. Matthew Chapter eighteen, verse fifteen says, if another 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. I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven. 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 gathered together as my followers, I am there among them. So all, yeah, I like that first line. If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. I think that's key right there. Yeah. It does not say go to social media and type in all caps at them, and that is not what that says. It says go privately because I think the oftentimes when we're mad at someone, we have a tendency to react out of our emotion then acting out of logic or acting out of what the Bible says. So I think that's super important that we go privately to the to the person and point out the offense. Sometimes we can find out that maybe the person didn't even know they offended you by what they did. So before you you know, fly off the handle, you go on you know, your favorite social media platform and all caps, go to the person privately and have a dialogue with them. Yeah, I think that that that part of it. First, what it's all about human dignity, Yeah, everybody has, there's we all we should have a certain amount of human dignity and a certain amount of personal pride, not the negative kind of plight, but the kind of privately says, Hey, I'm an adult man, I'm making my decisions. I'm trying to do the best I can. And then a lot of times what we do is we take away people's dignity by just blasting them publicly, embarrassing them or whatever. So there's a dignity issue, and what happens there is if we can resolve it privately and somebody realizes, wow, I did really cross line. I'm sorry. Then what you just did is you drew them closer to you because they realize you could have done a lot of damage to them and you chose not to. And we've all been hurt by people who blew up something that they didn't understand and it goes public in high school, in the halls, or you know, on social media or at a family event or something, and what you said, you didn't mean it that way or what they perceived isn't what really happened, and they blow it up rather than coming and making sure they have all the facts straight. Yeah. But here's the funny thing, Jeff, when we do something to someone else, this is what we want. Yeah, yeah, we want this right. Yeah, come back to me privately. We'll talk about it, resolve it. But when they do it to us, we're ready to go scorched earth nuclear, you know, which is funny. You know, it's interesting. I think the reason why we go scorched durts so quickly is because we didn't confront them early. Yeah, we just let offences build up, build up, build up. So now in our minds, we've got twenty offenses we're mad about, but we're blowing up about this one, and it's the first time they're hearing about it. And then when you fire at them over the twenty, they're confused. They have no idea what you're talking about. So then now they're on defense now and they're coming back at you. So it's this whole weird. Well, I've made this mistake before, where you know, and I've been working a lot on diplomacy lately. I've been trying to solve this big problem overseas and a lot of things, and I've trying to do it from a biblical perspective. But even as I'm working on this big project on smaller things, even in my own world, even recently, I haven't always managed it well, particularly with the fact that when I make a confrontation, I bring in other things that I never never brought up before, right, And so that's a skill set that I think you have to just consciously constantly be working on. So I found myself, I'm doing better if I write it out and release it and release it that way. Well, I'll write it out and then say, if you don't mind, I'm going to use these notes because I don't want to say something that's not fair. Right. But in the times I didn't write it out are the times that maybe I've said more than I needed to say, or I hurt rather than helped the relationship. So that's been part of it. You know. In Leviticus, chapter nineteen, the Bible calls for direct confrontation. A lot of us we've been raised, you know, maybe socially don't make a big deal about stuff or whatever. But in Leviticus it says confront people directly so you'll not be held guilty others in which is interesting. So God wanted his people to have a directness about them, to say, hey, I don't want this to go so long that it festers and makes us bitter towards each other. Let's just confront it right now. Let's deal with it, and so you don't have to be a jerk about it. But being direct about. It is you know, I think that's the key, and I just want to make sure people understand that as they're listening. Yes, be direct, Yes, confront the thing directly. But you know, you don't have to be a jerk. You don't have to, you know, hurt their feelings. You don't have to do any of those other things. But yes, be direct. You don't have to intentionally hurt their feelings. Yeah, perhaps the confrontation itself hurts their feelings, but you're trying to bring correction. Yes, you know, whether we're talking with our teenagers or whether we're talking with a friend or a sibling or a coworker, sometimes the confrontation itself has a certain amount of pain because nobody wants to be told that their behavior is offensive. Yeah, right, so that brings a little bit of pain. But what you're not doing is you're not trying to punish them or hurt them. You're trying to repair both the relationship and correct the behavior. That's why Jesus tells us to speak the truth in love, Paul says in Romans thirteen, Corinthian is thirteen, I'm sorry that we can have the tongues of angels and we have the power to move mountains. Faith nobody can just even imagine. And he said, but if you don't have love, you're nothing, meaning you get a zero on your score card. You can speak like angels and your faith can move mountains, but without love, you get a zero on your score card. So love is the first thing, and you have to do that. So that would be, I think, the first idea. And then as you look at it, there's a heart behind this, and this is where the human dignity comes from. It comes into play. You know. In Galatians chapter six, it says to correct somebody humbly and gently. So you know, I found myself on occasion wanting to come in really heavy and mad and then realizing I can't be leading this meeting or this discussion right now, and I have to pull back. And I found other times when I just went, know, I'm gonna unleash, and that always is the worst way. Yeah, it never fixes things. But if you can come in humbly and gently to help that person back, is what Galatian says. Yeah, that's what you're trying to do and so that's why you would go just one on one first. And then it says, if the other person listens and confesses it, you won the person back. Yeah, how good. You fix the problem. That's the whole goal. Yeah, so you fixed it right there. But then I like how it says, but if you are unsuccessful, So now what do you do? So you went to the person, you try to have a dialogue with them, it blew up. You try to be humble, you try to have a good heart about it. Now what do you do? Yeah, it's kind of where it goes from there. Well, sometimes, you know, because of our need for human dignity and perhaps because of other wounds that people have given us, sometimes people can become very protective, Yeah, and either be blind to what they did or so protective of themselves they can't admit what they did. Right. So now it's just your word versus their word, and there's no hope of turning that behavior around if they're rejecting even the premise behind what you're bringing up. So then in order to preserve dignity, but at the same time push truth forward, then Jesus says, bring two or three witnesses. Right, So bring two or three people either that know the circumstance or that can also witness the conversation. Yes, right, so there, it's kind of a it's flip sides of the same coin. You know, you want them now, Hey, this may turn somewhat adversarial. So you need witnesses for the conversation itself, yes, But then if you can bring witnesses that also were part of, or had seen or were aware of this circumstance before, that also can kind of put some you know, cause the person to lay down and lay down their weapons and go okay, yeah, I see what you mean now. And I would also add witnesses with wisdom and a neutral perspective. You're not bringing witnesses to take your side. That's not why you're. Bringing the witnesses. Bringing the witnesses to witness, but also you're bringing them to bring a resolution to what's going on, not to Yeah see, yeah, they are right, that's what they'll No, that's not why you're bringing the witnesses. So you know, Jesus is John tells us Jesus is the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And then he became one of us. That's what the John chapter one tells us. So it's amazing to me when Jesus teaches us principles and we look at those and go, oh hey, this is great. This really, this is a good idea. Go privately, preserve the dignity. See if you can restore the relationship. If the behavior doesn't change and they don't accept it, bring some witnesses back. That's great. Well he's quoting it. Well he's suggesting biblical principle here Leviticus or no, Deuteronomy, I'm sorry. Deuteronomy chapter nineteen, verse fifteen talks about establishing the facts by two or three witnesses. Right, So don't just as a governments, as a leader, as an organizational representative, don't accept the accusation of one person. Which is there's great wisdom in that everyone has blind spots. You know, you may see there. There could be something that happens in the room that we're in right now. From the seat and angle that you are in, the seat and angle that I am, we could see the exact same thing, completely different and it was the same event, right, yeah. Yeah, same event, different different experiences, yeah, the same event, yeah yeah, So this idea of two or three witnesses, he's not saying, don't don't receive an accusation, right, I think you can. You can have the accusation. What he's saying is with that accusation, that may open up an inquiry or an investigation. But it's hard to hang a person on one claim. Yes, and that's really what he's trying to say. So two or three witnesses then really gives a lot of confirmation. It gives a lot of strength and weight to the accusation and makes it difficult more difficult perhaps for the accused to wiggle out of it unless they have a legitimate response. Right. Well, in legal scenarios, like in a trial or an investigation, they always ask and someone corroborate the story. Yeah, yeah, you know, that's what they're always trying. This. Is there another person that can confirm what you're saying? Yeah? Yeah. In First Timothy five, Paul is teaching Timothy how the church should function, and he says, hey, don't receive an accusation against an elder, you know, for removal in leadership, except if it's established in the mouths of two or three witnesses. Yeah. So in that situation when it comes to, you know, confronting leadership. Paul is telling Timothy, hey, whenever an accusation comes, because people can accuse. Yeah, we live in a cancel society today, you know. And I was just listening to a friend of mine. He was talking about Abdu Murray is a friend of ours here in the area. He's a great thinker and apologists and those things. And Abdu was talking about how cancel culture is very much an Eastern mindset rather than a Western mindset. The Western mindset and enlightened mindset, having gone through the Enlightenment, usually has individual responsibility and autonomy, with the ability then to engage in debate without accusation and without fear, that each of us are free to say what we believe in, what we think right, the whole free free speech kind of concept. And then in the Western culture, the Western culture is right and wrong. That's the way that we view things, and so it's right or wrong based on your perception and based on the laws of God and the laws of man, and so then open debate is a part of it. But in the Eastern mindset, it's less about right and wrong and more about honor and dishonor, and the honored dishonored thing often becomes weaponized. It's not really about finding ways to honor. It's usually about weaponizing dishonor to embarrassing. And that's what cancel culture is. Cancel culture is. Now, we've kind of walked away from a lot of this Enlightenment idea. And I don't know that ab do you use the idea of enlightenment, but this is where I took it. We've walked away from the Enlightenment in the Western linear logical thinking, and we've embraced this cancel honor, honor dishonor culture, and we've weaponized honor or weaponized dishonor, quite honestly. And so this is what Jesus is warning us about. Don't become cancel culture people. Instead use evidence, use proofs, and do it privately and then and then still keep it fairly private with two or three witnesses. You're not bringing this into a full blown trial. It's just two or three witnesses. And then if it doesn't work, Jesus says, now you have to bring it to some real authorities that can resolve it. And in this case, he's talking about within the church, and so then you bring it to church leadership. But you know what he's trying to do is you're trying to head off some kind of massive conflict by dealing with it at a lower level first. Yeah, so Jeff, let's go through this really quick. We're running out of time. So let's say there's a person listening right now and they're at odds with a family member. Lots of us have family members who we just have to love. That's a nice way, but they're e grs Extra grace required. Yes, So someone listening has that person in their life. They're going back and forth, the person never listens to them. How would you practically apply that something has happened in the family dynamic? You're ticked? Do you just go blast away at the person? What do you do? Based on this model? You try to have the private conversation and on occasion, you know it's it's a fire, and you know it's the people can be a matching gunpowder going after each other. So sometimes it's better that you write it in a kind way, take your time, think about it for days, don't send it off right away. You know, have somebody else maybe read it. That would be one of those witnesses anyways, before you engage that way, So so do it the gentlest way you can, but still confront the sin itself. If if they won't hear it, then he says, bring two or three witnesses. If they won't hear it, then you've got to go get some real professional help of some kind, somebody who's wise that can make a final decision. And then if they still refuse it, Jesus says, then you need to forbid them from having association with you. But that's the last that's not the first step. That's right, that's the very last step. And so a lot of times people ask me, Jeff, I thought Jesus told us to forgive he did. Forgiveness is me choosing to give up my right to continue to prosecute you. Okay, I'm going to let it go. That doesn't mean that what you did was right or acceptable or it was okay. And so restoration of the relationship is both of us have to be there, and I can only come halfway on estoration. You have to repent and come the other way or we can't. Maybe I can't continue a relationship with you. I can forgive you, but I don't have to, you know, I can. I can choose to say, hey, I'm not going to prosecute anymore, but you still have to clean your side of the street and come to for restoration. And if that doesn't happen, then sometimes it's just not healthy enough for us to continue forward. So my heart is I've released you to God, but perhaps this relationship can't keep going forward, this friendship, this you know, toxic experience. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. I think we're out of time. Well, there you go. So then Jesus says, listen, once that judge, that spiritual judge makes a decision, you know, pastors, elders, whatever Paul would say, isn't there somebody wise among you that can there's somebody Yeah, once that decision is made, God says, once that person's made decision, whatever they bound on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever they forbid is forbidden, whatever they accept is accepted in heaven. So that in God's mind, once it gets to that level and you've taken it to the elders, or you've taken it to authority, at that point, that is the decision period, and God's accepted that decision. And then he says, hey, by the way, along those same lines talking about the two or three when you get together, when two or three are gathered to my name, whatever you ask, God's going to do for you as God's will. And Jesus says, because I'm right there in the midst between with you guys. And that's a really powerful thing. So a lot of times we think, oh, you know, I got to go to the courts, or I've got to go to some kind of you know, somebody who has a certificate on the wall that proves that they're experts at this. They God saying, listen, when my people come together and decide to work from biblical principles and under biblical authority, whatever is decided among them is enough. And then even when you guys pray together, I'm right there in the midst So there's a deeply spiritual thing that's happening when we choose to operate as brothers and sisters connected through God's word under spiritual authority and trying to restore a relationship rather than burn the relationship down. Yeah, that's good. It's a a lot of spiritual power there. Good stuff. Well, man, I'm so glad that you joined us today. We're looking forward to coming back with you and joining you again tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,