1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
Introduction
If God appeared to you today and said, “I have chosen you to be in charge of keeping the peace at Agape” – what would you do? How would you accomplish that task? If God said, “I have created a certain degree of unity at Agape, and I have selected you to be in charge of seeing to it that nothing ruins that unity and harmony.” How would you get that task done? I hope you have an idea how to answer that question because God has said that to you.
Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
That is something God requires of every person in this church. So this passage we are studying today is of crucial importance, because God is giving us instructions on how to do this.
Seek and Pursue Peace
We found last week that the incentive God offers for doing this is life and good days. Life and good days are something that everyone wants but few people find. But here we learn a sure-fire way to obtain good days. And there are two parts to it – a negative side and a positive side. The negative side we looked at last time – turning your soul away from the evil of an angry, vengeful heart and keeping your tongue from vengeful or deceitful speech. Scripture calls us to hate evil. If someone sins against me and I respond with some form of retaliation, I’m not hating evil – I’m loving evil and hating the person. If I hate the evil, I will hate it in my heart even more than I hate receiving it.
So on the negative side we reject vengeance. But just doing that will not be enough. Peter is also quick to include the positive side at the end of verse 11. Do not just turn from evil, but…
11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.
On the positive side we must do good and pursue peace.
Effort
There are a lot of different kinds of peace; the kind referred to here is peace in the sense of peaceful relationships. To seek peace and pursue it means to work and strive and labor and pray and do everything you can do to have harmonious, peaceful, reconciled relationships.
When someone strikes you on the cheek you turn the other cheek, but you do not just turn the other cheek. You also work to repair whatever is broken in the relationship. It is not enough to just forgive and forget; it is not enough to just overlook an offence; it is not enough to just avoid retaliation or bitterness in your attitude. It is not even enough to respond to the person with words of blessing. All those are crucial, but from there we must take the next step and roll up our sleeves and start working hard at restoring the broken harmony.
And Peter uses the words seek and pursue to describe that effort. Those two word-pictures convey both thought and energy. When you are seeking something – trying to find something, you are racking your brain trying to figure out where it is. You are checking this place, not there; then another place, not there; then another place, and another – and you just keep searching place after place until you find it. So searching, or seeking, is an effort to try to figure out where the thing is so you can get it.
Pursuit, or chasing, is a little different idea. There you know where the thing is, you just need to get enough speed to catch up to it. It is out there ahead of you, and to get it you have to turn on the jets and run fast enough to overtake it.
Both those terms paint a picture of the peaceful relationship as being elusive. It hides from you, and then when you find it, it bolts and you have to chase it down. Peaceful relationships will not fall into your lap. They will not evolve. They will not appear out of thin air. And when you do the hard work of developing them, they will not stay that way indefinitely any more than your garden will stay weed-free by itself – even if you repay evil with blessing.
Steps to Harmony
So it takes effort, but what kind of effort? When the original readers of 1 Peter sat back and said, “What does it look like to chase down peaceful relationships?” and they thought back over all the things Jesus and the Apostles taught on that subject, what do you think came to their minds? From the study I did, I think we could summarize it under six major categories. (This is not necessarily exhaustive. There may be others – these are just the ones that seemed most prominent in my study.) And I will give them to you in the order that they happen in a conflict.
1) Bearing with (thick skin, humility, love)
Colossians 3:13 Bear with one another
That phrase bear with means to put up with. We all have weaknesses and failures and shortcomings, and if we love one another we will be willing to accommodate one another’s weaknesses. Some things can be overlooked. If it is bothering you and affecting how you feel about the person – that is not bearing with (even if you keep your mouth shut about it). Bearing with means accommodating that person’s failings. Overlooking it means it is not bothering you, it is not affecting how you feel about the person – it does not even register in your heart at all.
And so obviously if we are going to bear with one another it means we cannot be easily offended. Some of us need to just get some thicker skin. There are people who get offended over the dumbest little things. It is ridiculous some of the things people get worked up over. In some cases they will throw away good friendships and leave churches over things that did not deserve more than about three seconds of thought. Someone gives you a funny look – there are 100 possible explanations for a funny look, and most of them are perfectly innocent. If someone gives you a funny look, that deserves zero space in your thoughts – zero. Don’t try to figure out what it meant, don’t try to interpret it, don’t wonder about it – it is nothing. If someone has something against you make him say it in plain English. If you are easily offended, that is a major character flaw.
Humility
And the solution is humility. If you are the type of person who requires an apology for every little thing, or you are a person who never goes more than a month or so without getting offended about something, the solution is not for everyone to stop offending you, or for everyone to apologize to you about everything. The solution is for you to learn humility. Being easily offended is a symptom of pride and self-importance. People like that think they are so important, that no one should ever slight them or inconvenience them or insult them in any way. And what they need to do is become more like children. Children are a great example for us in this area. You send your 8-year-old up to the counter at MacDonald’s to get another hamburger, and the guy at the counter just completely ignores him, he doesn’t go stomping out to the car, “I’ve never been so insulted in all my life…” No, he is not offended at all. He is just thinking, “I wonder if I’m standing in the wrong place – I must be doing something wrong.” If someone walks into the room and greets all the adults but does not even look at him, he doesn’t even notice that. Children get angry or sad over some things, but very rarely do little children get offended. They do not expect any honor, so if you don’t show them any, they don’t even notice. But then we get older and we start expecting to be treated like kings and queens, so it is a big crisis whenever someone fails to show us honor in some way. If that is you, spend the next twelve months or so it making the highest priority in your life to learn humility.
2) Logectomy
So the first principle we need to learn in our pursuit of peace in the church is to simply overlook what you can overlook. But how do you know when that is? What is it that makes a sin rise to the level of needing to be dealt with? The answer to that question is wrapped up in one single word: love. When does a sin have to be confronted? When love will not allow you to overlook it.
James 5:19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death
When a brother is wandering into sin, he is headed down a road of self-destruction, and if you love him, you will not be able to just let him go down that road. You confront something when you are concerned not mainly about your feelings, but about the sinner’s welfare. You know this sin is going to harm his relationship with God.
And not only that, it is going to harm the church, and it is going to grieve the Holy Spirit. So out of compassion for that person, and love for the church and future victims of this person’s sin, and out of love for God – you realize this is something that must be dealt with.
Then what? Once you determine that the sin cannot be overlooked, you need to confront it. But before doing that, make sure you perform a logectomy. A logectomy is a procedure in which you surgically remove a log from your eye. That comes from Matthew 7:5 first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. The log does not represent sin – it represents unrepentant sin. The way to perform a logectomy is by repenting of the sin in your own life. As soon as you repent, there is no log.
So when you have a conflict with someone, if that person is sinning against you, odds are that you have also sinned at some point in the conflict. We all stumble in many ways, so even if the other person is 95% in the wrong, still, there is a good chance that at some point you were harsh with your words, or unkind in some way, or inconsiderate, or insensitive, or your dealings with the person lacked the warmth of brotherly affection, etc. So before confronting the other person’s sin at all, first deal with your own sin.
And dealing with it means you confess it to God, confess it to the person, acknowledge to the person how much your sin hurt them, and the damage it caused, and show genuine sorrow over that sin. Do not treat it lightly and do not talk about your sin like it is no big deal compared to the other person’s sin. In fact, do not mention the other person’s sin at all at this point. Do not offer excuses, don’t say, “I’m sorry I did that but…” and then go on to describe how your sin was understandable given the circumstances. Just say, “I was wrong to do that. What I should have done instead – the thing that would have pleased God – would have been if I had done this…” And then humbly ask forgiveness.
3) Mediation (1 Cor.6)
Now the log is out of your eye and you are ready to confront the sin. But what happens if the other person is not satisfied? You confessed to what you could confess to, but he is accusing you of other things that you cannot confess to because you do not think you are guilty of those things. So now it is a stalemate. You think he is in the wrong; he thinks you are in the wrong, and no matter how much you try to work it out, you cannot come to agreement.
For example, suppose someone in this church is an auto mechanic, and you take your car to him. And he ends up charging you double what his estimate was. You believe you have been wronged. He should have told you it was going to be that much before doing the work. He feels he did nothing wrong – he just ran into unforeseen repairs. There is no verse in the Bible about how closely you have to stick to an estimate, so this whole matter is a judgment call. What should you do?
Should you sue him? No. Why not? Why not sue him? Because of 1 Corinthians 6. We all understand that we are never to sue a fellow believer because 1 Corinthians 6 forbids it. In that chapter Paul says, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” (v.7). It would be better to be wronged and cheated than to dishonor Christ by bringing a dispute with a fellow Christian to a court of law.
But does that mean the solution to the whole problem is for you to be wronged and cheated? No. Being willing to be wronged and cheated is not the solution – it is only the attitude he commands us to have. The solution to the problem of the dispute is right there in the very first verse of the chapter.
1 Corinthians 6:1 If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?
His message does not end with the command not to take it to a secular court. His point is that instead of taking the dispute to a secular court, we should take it before the saints. That is why he goes on to say…
2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?
Your translation might translate verse 4 as a question rather than a command – it could go either way. But however it is translated, would you agree with me that this passage as a whole is very clear that we are to have a system in the church for judging disputes among believers? In the auto mechanic illustration, what should happen is for that person who feels he has been wronged to come to the church with his complaint. And those who are appointed as judges should look into it and make a judgment on the matter, and both sides should go along with it.
So, who are those judges at Agape? We have not appointed any. Verse 4 says if you have disputes about such matters, then appoint the judges. We have not had disputes like that that have been brought to the church, so we have not had an occasion to appoint the judges. But as I was studying this it occurred to me that maybe there have been these kinds of disputes, but they just were not brought to the church because most people do not even know that is supposed to happen. So maybe we should go ahead and appoint some judges so that people know that this is available when disputes come up. I do not know what the best way to do that would be. One thought I had was we could ask the whole congregation to nominate some folks that you really trust to be judges. I imagine we can all probably think of someone in the church who we would feel comfortable abiding by their decision if you ended up in some dispute that you could not resolve on your own. So those people would have that as their ministry – helping resolve disputes.
Whatever structure or system we come up with, the point I am trying to make here is simply this –the first four verses of 1 Corinthians 6 make it clear that when you feel you are being wronged, it is appropriate to bring it to the church for resolution.
When Jesus said to turn the other cheek, or when Peter says to repay evil with blessing, that does not mean you just sit there and take it. Go ahead and address the problem of the sin. However while you are dealing with it, and you take him before the judges in the church, the whole time that is going on all those virtues listed in verse 8 are guiding and governing and ruling your attitudes toward the person throughout the process. The mechanic charges you double his estimate, and the first thing you do is declare war on any feelings of anger or animosity or distain that might rise up in your heart toward that mechanic. Remind yourself, he is your brother, and harmony with him and love for him are far, far more important than cars or money. It would be far better to just lose the money than to damage your relationship with this brother. So no matter how this turns out or how he responds or how the judges rule, you are absolutely not going to let this interrupt or damage your love for this him. As long as both parties are clothed with compassion, brotherly affection, sympathy, and deep humility toward one another, then there does not have to be any interruption in our harmony.
4) Speckectomy (church discipline)
OK, so if it is a situation where you have complaints against each other that cannot be resolved, take it to the church. But what if that is not the situation? You take the log out of your eye, repent of sin on your part, the other person is satisfied with your repentance and has nothing against you, but you are still convinced that he is in sin? Then what? Then you perform a speckectomy. That is a procedure in which you remove the speck from your brother’s eye. And again, the speck represents unrepentant sin. You are now going to try to remove this sin from your brother’s heart by persuading him to repent. You know that sin will harm him, it will ruin his relationship with God, it will hurt others, it will damage the church, it will dishonor Christ – it needs to be dealt with. Love for your brother, love for the church, and love for God all demand that you do whatever it takes to bring him to repentance. And God’s Word gives us a great deal of instruction on how to do that.
We do not have time to go into detail now, but if you want an overview on what Scripture says about how to bring a person to repentance, you could pull up part 4 from the Forgiveness series we did when we studied through the Sermon on the Mount. That was Nov. 28, 2010, and the title was, “Bringing a Sinner to Repentance.” There is also quite a bit about that in the book Wise Counsel. But for now, let me just quickly mention some of the tools Scripture gives us to bring a person to repentance.
Pray for God to soften his heart
According to 2 Timothy 2:25, repentance is something that God must graciously grant to a person. So start with prayer.
Be Patient with the person and show kindness
Romans 2:4 says that God uses patience to bring us to repentance, and Romans 12:21 teaches us to overcome evil with good. Keep blessing the person, keep showing kindness, and be patient with him.
Expose the person’s sin
Matthew 18:15 show him his fault
Take him to Scripture and show him from God’s word exactly what principle he is violating, so he can see the wrongness of his action. Convince him that he is guilty. And do it in whatever way is most likely to be something he can receive.
Provoke
And be creative. Think of some ways that will touch his will.
Hebrews 10:24 let us consider how we may provoke one another toward love and good deeds.
Figure out how to “push his buttons” – not buttons that activate sin but buttons that stimulate holiness. Find out how to make the godly response seem attractive and appealing to him. Remind him of God’s promises. Remind him that God will make it worth his while if he obeys. We all need to be reminded of that because sin can offer some pretty intense pleasures. And when a person allows himself to be deceived by sin, the benefits of that sin seem impossible to give up. It seems like there is no way he can be happy without that sin so he needs your help to snap out of that and to see once again the superior joy of nearness to Christ.
Rebuke
So show him his fault, and remind him of God’s promises. But if after all that he digs in his heels and refuses to repent, then you move to the Luke 17:3 approach.
Luke 17:3 If your brother sins, rebuke him.
Now you are getting firm. This is an authoritative command.
Admonish
And when you rebuke him, don’t just say, “You have to change!” Show him how. Maybe he is not repenting because he does not know how to change. So you instruct him. The word for that is admonish. That word means to instruct or warn in an effort to correct behavior. And you do that with biblical counseling.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.…
Warn
And if all that does not work, one more tool: warning. Sin causes a person to lose perspective and forget about the long-term consequences. So he needs you to come along and remind him. Read him some of the terrifying warnings God’s Word gives to those continuing in unrepentant sin, it can help to snap him out of his folly.
5) Church Discipline
So there is a bunch of tools you can use to bring about repentance: prayer, patience, provocation, exposure, rebuke, admonition, and warning. All that is under that heading “Speckecomy” – removing the sin from your brother’s heart. All of that is included in step 1 of church discipline. But what if you do all that and the person still does not repent? That is when you move ahead with the rest of the steps of church discipline that Jesus gave us in Matthew 18. Bring one or two witnesses, tell it to the church, and then if they still do not repent, excommunication.
6) Forgiveness/Patience
But what about when they do repent? Then what? Then it is still not over. One more thing needs to take place in order for the harmony to be restored. You need to forgive. There cannot be any ongoing anger in your heart toward that person, no bitterness, no irritation, no looking down on them, no coolness in your attitude – the warmth and friendship must be fully restored.
And this is where people want to go running to psychology for excuses not to forgive.
“I’m just not ready to forgive.”
You’re not ready? You’re not ready to obey God? Get ready.
“I can’t do it because I have wounded emotions. I have to wait for the wounds to heal.”
I am not even sure I know what that means. I imagine it means the person is going to wait until all the emotional pain is gone before they forgive. That is not an option for the Christian. Nor does it even make any sense. Holding on to a grudge does not heal anything. It just does more and more damage. Holding a grudge is like shooting yourself in the foot and expecting the other guy to feel it. Withholding forgiveness does not heal your emotions.
Not only that, but every day that you withhold forgiveness, there is really that much less to forgive. Withholding forgiveness is a form of revenge. And once you have taken revenge, what’s to forgive? You are even. Waiting a week to forgive someone who has repented is like forgiving a debt only after you have collected. It is like if you were playing catch with your kids and the ball went through your neighbor’s window; so you go to the door and say, “Man, I’m really sorry.” And he says, “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll forgive you. But first let me do this…” And he takes a bat and smashes your car window, and then says, “Now I forgive you.” Every hour that goes by that you withhold forgiveness, the less your forgiveness means when you finally do give it.
We need to just let go of all our excuses and forgive.
“But what if I’m willing to forgive, and I’ve tried to forgive, but I just can’t seem to do it?”
If that is the case then you need to do more study from God’s Word on how to forgive. We did a whole series on that – the same series I mentioned before: “Forgiveness.” Study through that. Study the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35. Do what you need to do to forgive, because what good does it do if you got him to repent of his sin, but now you are going on in unrepentant sin? And make no mistake – failure to fully forgive, from your heart, is sin. And it is a very serious matter.
Matthew 6:15 if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 18:34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured... 35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
If the person repents, you must forgive – immediately, completely, and from your heart.
Patience
But what if he never does repent? The church discipline process runs its course, and so now you can have no fellowship with the person at all. But what about your attitude toward the person?
Luke 17:3 "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
But what if he does not repent? Forgiveness involves the full restoration of the relationship, and that is not possible when one party will not repent. Even God requires repentance before He will forgive someone. If the person will not repent then the virtue that is called for at that point is not so much forgiveness, but rather patience.
And I need to explain that because we tend to use that word “patience” in a little different way than the way it is used in the Bible. We use that word to refer to waiting for circumstances to change without getting antsy. But in the Bible patience means waiting for the person to change without getting angry. It is not patience with circumstances; it is patience with people – maintaining a good attitude toward someone while you are waiting for him to repent.
Patience does not mean you drag your heals on all the methods God has given us for dealing with sin. It means while you are using those methods, you do not become angry. If the person has not repented then you cannot have full-blown restoration of the closeness of the relationship (which is what forgiveness is), but you can have patience, which means you refuse to become angry, you refuse to become bitter, you do not keep a record of wrongs, you do not harbor resentment, you do not focus your attention on the person’s sin any more than is necessary to help him, and you continue to show kindness and love.
Resources
OK, so – the next time you have a conflict, are you going to be able to remember all that? There is so much in God’s Word on this subject – how do you make sure you have it all in your head in those times when you need it?
Worksheets
In the appendix to the sermon notes today I have included two worksheets. One is a step-by-step process of what Scripture says to do when confronting a person with sin, and the other is a step-by-step process of how to reconcile a broken relationship. It may help to keep those in a place where you can easily find them for those times when you need to be reminded of the biblical principles for conflict.
Curriculum
I just feel like this issue of reconciled relationships is such huge theme in the Scriptures – it is so important to God, we need to make sure it is a priority. We do not want to get out of balance on emphasizing one particular doctrine too much to the exclusion of everything else, but this one is emphasized so heavily in Scripture that I really would not mind a bit if someone visited Agape for a while and went away saying, “Boy, one thing’s for sure – they sure are big on reconciled relationships.” In fact, we need to be teaching this to our kids. I have been thinking for some time that we should probably develop a basic curriculum for children that teaches them how to reconcile broken relationships. And teach them that periodically all the way through the Sunday school program as well as make it available for parents to teach at home. And in youth group (I know it’s rare, but there are some verified cases in which teenage girls have experienced relational conflicts with other teenage girls). We need to teach things to our children while they are young because it’s so much easier then.It is important to learn it when you are young because it is so much easier then. Little children can go from pulling each other’s hair and hitting and kicking and screaming at someone, right back to being best friends two minutes later so that is the time to teach the basic Scriptural principles of reconciliation.
How God Delivers Life and Good Days
OK, now we are ready for verse 12. What have we learned so far? God wants harmony in His house. So we must always maintain the attitudes of harmony – sympathy, brotherly affection, compassion, and humility. And when someone hurts you, turn your whole self against retaliation, repay him with blessing, then roll up your sleeves and start seeking to restore the peaceful relationship. And when it runs from you, chase it down. Follow the principles in God’s Word about reconciled relationships. And when you are tempted to give up, or to get angry or get even or hold a grudge, just remind yourself – there is no life or good days in that direction. There is no joy in that direction.
But if you do follow these principles, God will give you good days. But how? If you go ahead and do all this, and God says, “OK, I am going to grant him/her life and good days,” what will be the delivery method through which you will receive that blessing? Look at verse 12.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
Three words to pay attention to there: eyes…ears…face. The way God will bring life and good days to you has to do with His eyes, ears, and face. All three of them will be turned toward you. If you respond with retaliation and vengeance, God’s eyes, ears, and face will be turned against you. So what does that mean? God is a spirit – what does it mean for a spirit to turn His eyes, ears, and face against you?
Well, one thing we can say is it is very personal, right? It does not say God will send a lightning bolt if you do evil. It says He will turn His face away from you. And the reward for doing what is right is not that He will shower you with $100 bills – it is that His eyes will be on you and His ears will listen to you and His face will turn toward you. God is not a vending machine, where you go to church and read your Bible and He gives you what you want. He is not some impersonal power floating out there like the force in Star Wars.
Ears
When it says God’s ears will be attentive to your prayers that means there will be a difference in God’s attitude toward you when you pray. You know how when you were a kid and you were going to ask for something big, you wanted to make sure you caught your mom or dad in a generous mood? When God’s ears are attentive to your prayers that means He is in a generous mood. He is more likely to say yes. He listens to you and pays attention to you in favorable ways and smiles upon you and is more responsive to your requests. Don’t ever think God listens to everyone’s prayers in the same way.
Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.
Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened
Ezekiel 8:18 … Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.
Personal holiness is always a major factor in how responsive God is to your prayers.
James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
1 John 3:22 we receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
Proverbs 15:29 The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Eyes
What about God’s eyes? What does it mean to have His eyes upon you? God can already see everyone at all times, but having His eyes upon you is something else. It refers to God watching over you in the sense of taking care of you. When God turns His eyes away, it feels like you are going through life with no one to watch out for you. It feels like you are just at the mercy of all the various forces around you.
But when His eyes are upon you, not only are you cared-for, but you actually feel cared-for. Imagine a little child who gets into a situation he has never faced before, and he is not sure if this is danger, or if it is a bad thing, or if it is OK. So he glances over at his dad, and he sees, “Yeah, dad is paying attention. He is looking right at me, and he is not alarmed or anything, so this must be OK” and immediately his anxiety is gone. David felt that in Psalm 139.
Psalm 139:1 O Lord, you have searched me…
That is another way of saying, “Your eyes are upon me.”
…you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
David just reveled in the knowledge that God was interested in him. It is impossible to feel lonely when God’s eyes are upon you and you are aware of it. Fear melts away. Anxiety evaporates. Peace takes over your heart.
Face
And finally, the face of God will be turned toward you. That is the same word translated “presence” when Scripture speaks of the presence of God. God exists everywhere, but His face is not turned toward everyone. It is against some and toward others, and the greatest, most delightful, most thrilling, most satisfying experience in all the universe is to have Him turn His face toward you in a favorable way.
Psalm 4:6 Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
Having God’s face turned toward you is the only thing that will satisfy the longings of your soul.
Psalm 17:15 And I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied
The face of God being toward you or away from you determines joy or lack of joy. When His face is toward you, joy is available. When it is turned away, there is not anything in the universe that can make you happy.
Psalm 30:7 O Lord, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.
Do you want God’s face to be turned toward you? Do you want His ears to be attentive to you? Do you want His eyes to be upon you? Let go of your bitterness. Repent of your selfish anger. Show kindness and warmth and brotherly love to that person who hurt you. Run hard after peace in the church, and you will know the kind of life and good days that come through experiencing the presence of God and nothing will be able to touch your joy.
Benediction: Hebrews 10:35 do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. 36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
1:25 Questions
1. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means you are bothered by any insult, slight, or offense; and 10 means nothing bothers you, where would you rate yourself? And where do you think others would rate you? What could you do to move that number up?
2. Which small things seem to be the hardest for you to bear with (overlook)? What could you do to reduce the importance of those things in your heart?
3. Of the six principles of dealing with sin (bear with, logectomy, mediation, confronting sin, church discipline, and forgiveness/patience), which two are the most difficult for you? How could you improve in those areas?
Appendix
Reconciliation Worksheet
Are you willing to do all you can to reconcile this relationship?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure
If you did not answer “yes,” read through the sections on Importance, Urgency, and Higher Priority than Worship (pp. 2-5).
STEP 1: Repent
Ask the Lord to open your eyes to any sin there may be in your heart that may be contributing to this conflict. List the sins that come to mind:
1. ___________________
2. ___________________
3. ___________________
4. ___________________
5. ___________________
6. ___________________
7. ___________________
8. ___________________
Now confess these to the other person (if appropriate) and ask if he or she suspects any other sins. List all the sins the person mentions, and put a check mark beside all the ones you agree are valid:
1. __________________
2. __________________
3. __________________
4. __________________
5. __________________
6. __________________
7. __________________
8. __________________
Next, search your heart for which desires rose to a level of too much importance in your heart, resulting in the above sins. List each desire:
1. __________________
2. __________________
3. __________________
4. __________________
5. __________________
6. __________________
7. __________________
8. __________________
Now repent before God of any idolatrous desires, and ask the other person’s forgiveness for any remaining sin you have not yet asked forgiveness for.
STEP 2: Reconcile
Before the other person does anything, make sure you fulfill your responsibilities.
ROMANS 12:18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with every¬one.
The part that is possible and that depends on you is described in the surrounding verses:
ROMANS 12:17-21 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
If the other person is not willing to reconcile, you cannot have a fully restored relationship, and there cannot be full forgiveness at the highest level. But even if the other person is unwilling, you still have several responsibilities:
1. Do not retaliate (vv. 17,19)
2. As much as possible do what is right in the eyes of everyone involved (v. 17)
3. Bring about as much peacefulness as possible (v. 18)
4. Instead of harboring a grudge or punishing the person, show him love and kindness (v. 20).
5. Seek to overcome his evil with good (v. 21).
1 PETER 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
COLOSSIANS 3:12-14 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
As you consider these passages, in which ways do you feel you need to improve in your responsibility to love this person?
1. _________¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬___________¬¬¬¬¬¬_____________
2. _________________________________
3. _________________________________
4. _________________________________
5. ____________¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_____________________
6. _________________________________
7. _________________________________
8. _________________________________
Confrontation Worksheet
Be careful! Remember – the glory of God is at stake.
ROMANS 15:5-6 May … God … give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is your reason for rebuking this person?
a. to get him to stop hurting me
b. to teach him a lesson
c. to restore him to the path of godliness
If you answered a or b, take some time to eliminate wrong motives. The goal should be c.
Is this something that can be overlooked? If the issue is so minor that the person is not really in need of spiritual restoration, we should do what we can to just overlook the offense. A rule of thumb is to over¬look all offences except:
a. Offenses that reveal sin in the other person’s heart for which he needs to repent
b. Offenses that are so painful or so frequent that you find yourself continually failing in your responsibility to overlook the offense.
GUIDELINES FOR BRINGING UP
A “STICKY” ISSUE
1. Remove the log of unrepentance from your own eye.
2. Examine your motives.
• Is this a response of anger?
• Is my motive really to do something I believe will be profitable to the person?
• Am I trying to get him to accommodate my desires or change for my benefit?
• Or is my one and only objective to achieve greater Christ¬like¬ness in both him and me?
3. Make sure you are not assuming motives.
If you suspect something bad in the heart, ask, and then accept the answer.
Wrong: “I noticed you had a bad attitude the other day when you did X.”
Better: “I noticed you did X the other day. Is it possible that you did that because of a wrong attitude?”
Wrong: “You did X because ...”
Better: “What was your motive for doing X? Were you intending … ?”
4. Be wise and loving in your timing.
The worst time to confront someone is generally the time when emo¬tions are running high.
5. Abide by the rules of communication.
If you fear the conversation may be explosive, ask the person ahead of time if he will agree to abide by three rules of Christian commu¬ni¬cation in Ephesians 4, listed below.
6. Mediation
Find 2 or 3 godly people in the church whom you both trust, and ask them to mediate (1 Cor.6:1-4).
If you have followed the steps above and still believe the other person is in unrepentant sin, you must follow the steps of church discipline.
Church Discipline Worksheet
Step 1: Show him his fault
Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.
Take him to Scripture and show him from God’s word exactly what principle he is violating, so he can see the wrongness of his action. Convince him that he is guilty. And do it in whatever way is most likely to be something he can receive. Scripture provides us with several tools to accomplish this.
A. Provoke
Hebrews 10:24 let us consider how we may provoke one another toward love and good deeds.
Be creative. Think of some ways that will touch his will. Find out how to make the godly response seem attractive and appealing to him. Remind him of God’s promises. Remind him that God will make it worth his while if he obeys.
B. Rebuke
Luke 17:3 If your brother sins, rebuke him.
This is a firm, authoritative command.
C. Admonish
Admonition includes instruction. Don’t just tell him to change. Show him how. Instruct him. The word “admonish” means to instruct or warn in an effort to correct behavior. And this instruction must come from Scripture (Col.3:16).
D. Warn
Sin causes a person to lose perspective and forget about the long-term consequences. Read him some of the terrifying warnings God’s Word gives to those continuing in unrepentant sin, it can help to snap him out of his folly.
Step 2: Two or Three Witnesses
Matthew 18:16 But 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.'
If the witnesses agree that the person is in unrepentant sin, do all you can as a group to persuade the person to repent. Let him know what the next steps will be.
Step 3: Tell it to the Church
Matthew 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church…
The entire congregation now works to bring the person to repentance. Do not neglect this step. It is the most loving thing you can do for the person, for the church, and for Christ.
Step 4: Shun Him
Matthew 18:17 … if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
Step 5: Forgiveness/Patience
Forgiveness
When he does finally repent, one more step needs to take place in order for the harmony to be restored. You must forgive. There cannot be any ongoing anger in your heart toward that person, no bitterness, no irritation, no looking down on them, no coolness in your attitude – the warmth and friendship must be fully restored. There is no place in the church for punishment. Consequences are God’s job, not ours.
Matthew 6:15 if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
2 Corinthians 2:7 You ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Patience
But what if he never does repent? The church discipline process runs its course, and so now you can have no fellowship with the person at all. But what about your attitude toward the person? Forgiveness involves the full restoration of the relationship, and that is not possible when one party will not repent. Even God requires repentance before He will forgive someone. If the person will not repent then the virtue that is called for at that point is not so much forgiveness, but rather patience (waiting for the person to change without getting angry or bitter). Patience does not mean you drag your heals on all the methods God has given us for dealing with sin. It means while you are using those methods, you maintain a good attitude toward the person. Refuse to become angry or bitter, do not keep a record of wrongs, do not harbor resentment, do not focus your attention on the person’s sin any more than is necessary to help him, and you continue to show kindness and love.
Summary
On the negative side we must reject revenge, but on the positive side we must search for and run hard after peaceful relationships. Do that by bearing with, logectomy, mediation, speckectomy, church discipline, and forgiveness/patience. If we do so, God will grant life and good days by turning His ears to you (attentiveness to your prayers), turning His eyes upon you (giving you a sense of being watched over), and turning His face toward you (experiencing His presence – the source of joy).
