Blind And Toothless Series

Now that story tells us 2 things: 1st – lawsuits don’t always turn out real well. Just because you think you have right on your side doesn’t mean you’re going to win. 2nd – what Schlichtmann did in the 2nd case DID work… and you know why? Because it was Biblical.

Jesus said: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 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. 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.” Matthew 18:15-17

This is called mediation/arbitration. Jesus spelled out how you should do things WITHIN the church. This is how Jesus expects us to handle things with believers we are in conflict with.

1. You talk FIRST to the person who offended you and try to work things out. Notice the goal of that action: gaining your brother. Lawsuits have an entirely different objective. Courts are generally an act of adversarial combat where your objective is destroy your opponent and win what is “rightfully” yours.

2. But if going to your brother privately doesn’t work, Jesus says we should take a couple witnesses with us. That way you can establish that you tried to deal with the problem in a loving and humble way.

3. If that doesn’t work, Jesus says you are to take the matter to the church, and if the offending brother refuses to abide by the decision of the church, THEN you can take him to court IF YOU REALLY MUST because now he’s not a brother. He’s become (to you) as a Gentile/tax collector. They’ve REFUSED to listen to the church and they are no longer safe from legal action.

But even then… I’d think twice about it. Lawsuits are dangerous tools. They’re kind of like a shotgun. Shotguns are dangerous weapons that can hurt people around you if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you really must go to court (we’ll talk about that in a little bit) you’ve got to be very careful in how you do it.

The point is (as Christians) we should NOT be taking Christians to court.

ILLUS: Now I’m going to take a couple moments to tell you a story about your Elders. I’m going to brag on them. About 3 years ago we started building this worship center you’re sitting in. We’d hired a contractor from a neighboring town who was a godly man who attended a church in that community. He was good at his job and soon the foundation had been laid, the walls had been erected and the work crew was placing the trusses in place that would support the roof. One by one, the trusses were attached to the walls and connected to each other… but just as they were putting the last truss in place a strong gust of wind came out of nowhere and knocked that truss down, and that truss collapsed against the next truss and against the next truss – like a row of dominoes until all the lumber lay on the ground and the walls had been warped and damaged (fortunately, no one on the work crew had been seriously hurt).