Go And Be Reconciled Series

Go and Be Reconciled

Luke 15:11-31, Matthew 5:21-26; 18:15-17

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Do you ever wonder why the church needs to learn and practice peacemaking? The unchurched goes through conflicts, also. Whether churched or unchurched, we are all human and sinful.

Over the past nine months, one of my good friends repeatedly disappointed me. Two months ago, I confronted him. He felt I overreacted.

So I decided in my mind to end our relationship. I didn't tell him. I was planning to simply end all communication. This would be easy, since he lives in another state.

A valuable relationship can end with a misunderstanding, an unkind word, or a wrong reaction. Two close friends can become distant foes. But this doesn't have to be the end of our story.

I think about the Apostle Paul and Mark. Mark went with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. But Mark deserted them before the mission was finished.

On a subsequent missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance. But Paul saw Mark as a liability and refused to take him. Yet towards the end of Paul's life, Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4:11, “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.”

I believe the story of Paul and Mark is recorded that we might not lose hope when we face relational conflict. We don't have the details of when or how Paul and Mark reconciled, but we know they did. And reconciliation can be how our story ends, also.

When one of my daughters was learning to make friends and periodically got into fights with her friends, she would rather make new friends than make up with her old friends. And Susan would quote to her a preschool classic, "Make new friends and keep the old, one is silver, the other gold."

But is reconciliation worth it? Mending relationships can be complicated and messy, emotionally draining and without guarantee of success. So why would we put ourselves through the mess?

Here's why. Because God put Himself through the mess, and He calls us to do the same. We have multiple texts teaching us this morning: Luke 15:11-31, Matthew 5:21-26 and 18:15-17.

Luke 15:11-31 is the story of a father and two sons. The father symbolizes God. The younger son symbolizes those who disregard God and God's ways for living. The older son symbolizes the religious self-righteous rule-followers.

Jesus told this story in the presence of all, societal outcasts and religious elites. The younger son in the story offended the father by his outrageous disrespect and wayward living. The older son was offended by the father, because of the father's mercy and forgiveness for the younger son. And the father goes to both, the offender and the offended, in an effort to restore the father-child relationship.

The father Jesus described in the story is the God we worship. He goes to the offender and the offended. He puts himself through the mess of reconciliation.

Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:8, " But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Because God goes, we are to go to the offender and the offended. Jesus said to his disciples in John 20:21, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you."

And Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:13, "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

The second half of the message has to do with us going to the offender and the offended and being reconciled. First, God calls us to go to the offender to be reconciled. This is extremely difficult.

For many years I hated and could not forgive a close relative, because he mistreated my Mom and Dad. Something unexpected happened. When this relative visited one year before my Dad died, this relative confessed his wrong-doing to my Dad and expressed his regret. His repentance gave me the power to forgive him.

But what about the offenders who are unaware or unrepentant of their offense? Here's what Jesus says in Matthew 18:15-17 (READ).

Jesus was teaching the family of God, the Church, how to reconcile the offender, and the principles apply to non-Christians as well. Here are the principles: First, the goal is to restore, not to retaliate. Second, the method is personal, not public. Third, the outcome is not guaranteed, but go anyway.

First, the goal is to restore, not to retaliate. The goal isn't to just confront, it's to restore the relationship and the person's worth. Paul tells us in Galatians 6:1, "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently."