Intro: Christian Confrontation is prescribed by God for the purity of the church.
(JOKE) The little boy was afraid of the dentist, so his dad decided to set the example and have his teeth examined, too. The dentist looked inside the father’s mouth & said, "There’s a tooth there that has to be pulled."
The father asked, "How much will it cost?" The dentist answered, "We charge $50 a tooth." Then the father asked, "How long will it take to actually pull the tooth?" The dentist answered, "About a minute."
The father protested, "I get paid by the hour, and when I think of paying $50 for a minute’s work, that is a terribly high hourly wage."
"Well," the dentist said, "I can pull the tooth more slowly if you like."
A Dentist favorite Hymn "Crown Him With Many Crowns"
Fighting Truth Decay
- The process of confrontation
o Responding to a brother’s sin
o The difference between faults and sins
Fault: Human frailty that results in
Sin
o The approach
First examine yourself:
• “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? "Or how can you say to your brother, ’Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” Luke 6:41-42
• The first way in which Christian Confrontation heals the church is through the individual reflection it inspires.
• (ILL) One of the first things a surgeon does before he begins surgery, in fact it is the most important preparation, he washes his hands.
• Incentive to constantly clean up our own act and a preventative to people running around confronting everybody over everything.
The benefits of cultural stoplights
• (ILL) We pay Dentists and Doctors to tell us when something is wrong with our body. (We need to get comfortable with the idea that part of our responsibility is telling people when they are wrong.)
• (ILL) My doctor poked me in the tummy. He wanted to emphasis my need to loose weight. I didn’t like it, it was embarrassing. In fact I got upset with him. But after considering his chastisement I have begun to follow his instruction and have lost 20 pounds. I feel better. He was right.
Private confrontation
• Go (Vs. 15)
o We have a tendency to not to want to get involved; but we need to see this as a command (Hear the word of the Lord)
o Responsibility to follow this command
o There should be only two people involved at this point.
• Show (Vs. 15)
o Explain what you have seen;
• In private
• This is often all that is needed. Stops here 9 times out of 10
• (ILL) TXDOT “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”
• (ILL) Personal experiences with being confronted
o Mentor who encouraged me to surrender to God’s call to the ministry
o Mentor who encouraged me to attend seminary. She acted as my spiritual mom
Group confrontation (Vs. 16)
• Modern vernacular: Intervention
• (ILL) Student who was an alcoholic whom I confronted with several of his friends.
Congregational confrontation (Vs. 17)
• “Refuses to listen to the church”
o Imagine a whole church praying for you and pleading with you to stop your sin.
o The attitude (Gal. 6:1)
Gentleness
• Expect them to respond
• Don’t come in with a sledgehammer or trying to be the Holy Spirit.
Clear and firm
o The dynamic of the Gospel presentation requires us to call people sinners. We should be just as willing to point out the sin in our brother.
Watch out
• Careful not to fall into what they are doing.
• Particularly for pride: remember you are a sinner saved by grace.
- The purpose of confrontation
o Healing
Halting of sin
“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The intense prayer of the righteous is very powerful. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit. My brothers, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, he should know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his life from death and cover a multitude of sins.” James 5:16-20
Helping a fallen person
• Ecc. 4:10 READ
o What happens to the one who falls with no one to help him up.
• Many Christians trapped in sin are crying out for someone to come help them. They feel the burden of conviction from the Holy Spirit and perhaps are trying to change but cannot do it alone. In their sin they feel isolated from the church.
• We fear the final stage of “put them out of the church” because of the separation, but there are those who attend Sunday after Sunday but feel so separated from their friends because of their sin. They are literally dieing for someone to reach out to them.
• (QUOTE) Dietrich Bonhoeffer
o Forgiveness
The error of churches has been to follow this command looking only to verses 15-20
(JOKE)
Two little brothers, Harry and James, had finished supper and were playing until bedtime. Somehow, Harry hit James with a stick, and tears and bitter words followed. Charges and accusations were still being exchanged as their mother prepared them for bed.
She said, “Now boys, what would happen if either of you died tonight and you never had the opportunity again for forgive one another?” James spoke up, “Well, OK, I’ll forgive him tonight, but if we’re both alive in the morning, he’d better look out.”Confrontation must always be done by people who hearts are yearning to forgive.
The quantity of forgiveness (Vs. 21-22)
• Peter’s technical question
• Jesus infinite response: not 490, but keep on forgiving as often as necessary.
The motivation for forgiveness (vs. 23-35)
• God is the king
• We are the servant with the big debt
o The enormity of the debt: $10 – 400 mil
o 15 years worth of wages for a laborer
o Word used is the largest numerical term in Greek, so also means an incalculable number
o A picture of sin
o Being sold is a picture of hell
• Our brother is the servant with the little debt
o The small debt:
o 100 days of laborers wages (less than a ⅓ of a year vs. 150,000 years of wages)
o Comparing the debt we owed to God with the debt others owe us.
The product of confrontation
- “you have won your brother”
- The necessity of confrontation for
o The salvation of the sinner
o The sanctification of the saint
