Relationships in the Kingdom
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in Matthew chapter 5. We have been walking through the Sermon on the Mount. We're in our fourth week.
We'll be in Matthew chapter 5. It's on page 473. If you have one of the white Bibles, it's in the row. So in this section, we actually kind of walked through this part last week. We looked at Jesus' big point through this overall section where he's basically saying, you've heard the rules, you've heard the law, but I'm saying it's actually more than that. It's greater than that.
It's deeper than that. It's not just about your behavior, but it's also about your heart. And so we said that we were kind of looking at that idea and that we were going to spend a couple of weeks looking specifically at the topics he covers as he goes through that. And so he says, again, it's not just the rules, but it's about what's going on inside of you that matters. And so specifically as we kind of look at this, we have, I think, an advantage over the disciples who were hearing it for the first time. Because here's how this works.
We know about the cross. If this is your first time ever hanging out with a church, you still most likely know that Jesus died on a cross. If you ask people about Jesus, they'll say he died for our sins. Whether or not they believe that or not, whether or not they really know what that means, they've heard it. Most likely. We get to look back at everything we read, everything Jesus teaches, all of Scripture.
We get to look back at it through the cross. We get to understand the full implications of it because we know the whole story. See, the Bible is, from beginning to end, it's telling a one cohesive story. From where it begins in Genesis to where it ends in Revelation, it's one cohesive story that God is telling that he's unfolding throughout time. So, the disciples would have heard what Jesus taught, and then continued to go with him and walk with him, and they wouldn't have known the full extent of his meaning until after he rose from the dead. And then they would have to go, Oh, that's why he said, Like, I feel like they had these conversations, like, You remember that time where he said this, and we were all like, I have no clue what he's talking about?
I now know what he was talking about. Like, they got to do that. Like, if you, let me give you an example of this. There are some movies that you can never watch the same way twice. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, Like, you can't watch them, and then watch them again, and something, like, The Sixth Sense does such a good job that if you watch it, when it's over, you're like, I'm gonna need to watch that again. Because you almost, like, want to argue with, they didn't trick you that well.
And you watch it again, you're like, this all makes sense. Like, does that make sense? Like, you see what I'm, like, I've said sense so many times right now, because of the name of the movie. The Sixth Sense, We can't watch it the same way twice, and that's the way it is for us with the gospel. We can't look back at what Jesus is doing. We can't look back at the Old Testament without seeing it through the lens of the gospel.
So when Proverbs tells us how much God cares about the poor, we get to go, Yeah, but not just cares about them, but comes one of them. When the Bible tells us how close he is to the brokenhearted, we get to say, Yes, he's not just close to them, he becomes, he joins us. When the Bible says how much he hates sin, but also how much he loves us, that fully gets unraveled, that picture gets made crystal clear in the cross, where he hates sin so much he dies for, but loves us so much he was willing to die gladly for us. So as we read this text today, we're going to read it as Christians. We're going to continually look back through the cross to help us understand fully what Jesus means here, the greatest extent of what he's trying to say.
So we're going to be talking about anger and reconciliation. So anger and then our broken relationships and how we need to mend those. So today is going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to start reading the text. God, we thank you for your grace. Thank you for the gospel that we get to stand before you, being made holy and blameless and above reproach because you died for us, because you actively came to reconcile us to yourself.
I pray that today specifically your Holy Spirit would be at work in us to help us to see, see our hearts, see our anger, see our relationships the way you see them, that you would lay us bare, that you would expose us before you and before your word, that you would graciously and in your kindness lead us to repentance. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to pick up in verse 21. Chapter 5, verse 21. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So Jesus says, you've heard not to murder. He doesn't disagree with that, but he says, you've heard if you murder, you'll be liable to judgment. What I'm saying is that if you're angry with your brother, you'll be liable to judgment. He says it's not just your actions, it's not just this major big sin. You ever notice that in our community groups or when you're talking in the Christian circles and you'll say stuff like, I know I have sin, it's not like I've murdered anybody.
And Jesus is saying that actually isn't really coherent. What's going on in your heart? Are you angry? Are you holding on to anger? Like he sees everything and it all matters. It's not just your actions or your big bad sins.
It's actually what's going on internally. Now, we spent a good bit of time on this in our Killjoy series where we talked about anger and kind of how it's killing us and robbing us of joy. We did a little more time than we can today on kind of a theology of anger. Here's the thing. The Bible tells us that God gets angry. It also tells us that we should, in certain circumstances, be angry.
Romans actually says, be angry and do not sin. So anger is an emotion. It also is an appropriate response to brokenness and sin and legitimate harm that has been caused. Like there are certain things we should be angry about. But the question is, what are we doing with our anger?
How are we responding in our anger? And so Jesus says that when you are angry at someone, realize that that's to be questioned. That's to be examined. That God is going to look at our hearts. That we are liable for judgment in our anger against each other. And specifically here, I think because he's going to use the word brother throughout, that he's specifically helping them see deep, meaningful Christian relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ, but also just relationships with those we're around, that we know personally.
He's going to go further later and talk about loving our enemies, but mostly today it's going to be about our relationships with those in front of us. Okay, let me help you see a picture of this and what Jesus is getting at. Let's read back through this and kind of help us see what he says and then I want to give us a few examples. But I say to you, this is verse 22, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. So that's an internal anger.
Then he says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. So he's increased the judgment, not just judgment, now it's the council, you're going to face more people, but it's, you've acted on it now. You've said something, you've flown off the handle or you've been talking behind someone's back, so it's, you've insulted them. Then he says, whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So it seems there that he's either just gotten more specific, so you're angry and then more specifically a type of anger is insult and more specifically a type of insult is saying you fool.
I think he's also saying that that's internal, it's what you've acted on and then we'll see in a minute that fool, in a lot of ways, kind of has to do with your attitude towards them, your contempt of them. All right. Hopefully in your life, you have known some grandmothers. I want you to think back to, hopefully, hopefully you had your own grandmothers, but also hopefully your life was enriched by other people's grandmothers or other grandmotherly type ladies just kind of making you one of their grandkids. I hope that's happened. It's wonderful when it does.
I hope that you've been invited to as many loving, grandmothery type relationships in your life as possible. I want you to think about the fact that maybe it's your grandmother, maybe it's just some lady that lives on your street. I want you to picture for a minute a sweet, gentle, I mean, makes a mean pecan pie grandmother. We'll still let you eat it if you pronounce it pecan. Like she's sweet, loving, here's what I think, here's what I think we need to see and what I think Jesus is pushing on us a little bit. If you got to know her and got to talking with her, you might find over time that there's a certain group of people that she would never attack, never go out of her way to harm, never murder, but there's a certain group of people that she doesn't have much nice to say about them, isn't really going to give them much time in her life, isn't really going to care about them.
Maybe she draws that line straight across racial lines. Maybe it's not that well defined, maybe it just has to do with skin tone, but those people don't have much value to her. She's maybe not going to pop off with a lot of racist things, but maybe you just, as you get to know her, you realize there's a whole segment of people that she just isn't going to have anything to do with. Maybe it's not that at all. Maybe there's just a few individuals in her life that you found out you're not even really allowed to talk about in front of her. She'll say stuff like, we don't mention Clara Jones in this house.
That's all I have to say about that. Because there's something that's happened, there's some sort of a relationship, there's something that's broken down. Maybe it's just a type of person. Lazy. Those people with, those people who, every once in a while this stuff just comes out, and here's the thing. All of us know intrinsically, feel the weight of, I'm going to be held accountable for my actions, that all of those who have murdered, every time you watch one of these shows about murders and they talk to the family and stuff, they'll often say, I know one day he's going to meet his maker.
I know one day she's going to have to be held accountable for this. We know that intrinsically. But what Jesus just said was, every murderer on death row is going to have to stand before God and be liable for judgment. But so is every little old lady. She's going to have to walk up and lay her heart bare before God. Every single one of us is going to have to lay our heart in front of him, depending on our attitudes and our anger and our contempt for others.
There's a person you went to school with, very quiet. You don't remember him. You vaguely do. If someone showed you a picture, you might kind of remember. That's just quiet. It was not warm, but friendly, cordial.
Some of you work with this guy now. Like he went to school with some of you and now he's at some of your jobs. Like you, kind, not going to cause any problems. Not going to show up and disrupt anything. It's just, yeah, there, doing his homework, doing his job. but inside, seething with anger towards teachers, friends, boss, family, just eating away at. Not going to hurt anybody.
This person isn't going to show up with a weapon. You knock everything out of their hand. They're almost like going to apologize to you and pile it all back up, but there's something inside of them at work. That's what Jesus is talking about. That little old ladies and kind gentlemen, he's looking at our hearts. He's looking on the inside to see what's going on.
So, let me ask a few questions. Help us see this a little better. But I say to you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Okay, so some of you are like a match. Your anger fires up, fires off, blazes up, and then it's gone. That's it.
You knock the thing over and then you're like, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like that. You, maybe, you just, you, and then you, like you can't, but there's like, he says every time there's anger going on, like that's questionable. Some of you aren't a match. You're like a smoldering coal. Nobody even knows you're on fire. But you're just, inside, you're smoldering.
Every once in a while it flares up. I know, like I have a fire pit in my backyard and sometimes I'll have a fire and then I'll hose it down and I'll go inside and it'll be completely out and I'll come back later and it's caught on fire again because there was stuff still down there smoldering. Some of you, that's the type of anger, that it's a long-term burning anger. So, who do you have bitterness towards? Who do you have anger towards? Whose name makes you just kind of go, who is it you don't want mentioned around you?
Who, what situations and circumstances are you most likely to be set off? Jesus says all that deserves to be questioned, looked at, repented of. He says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. Okay, some of you are good at insults. Some of you aren't good but you give it the old college try and you get in an argument and you're just gonna, you're just gonna say something. You're just gonna take a shot.
Some of you know how to completely destroy someone. The closer you get to them the better you are at it. Some of you, you're not insulting anyone to their face. You just have a whole lot to say about them when they're not around. And he says, that's an issue. That's, don't just think, well I haven't done this big action.
I haven't just actively harmed them. He says, no like, insulting someone. Be liable to the council. And then he says, whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So as I was reading about this, that could just be an example.
He could just be giving you an example. He is not specifically, some of you maybe have heard, don't ever call somebody a fool. Call whatever else you want. But Jesus said, don't say you fool. That's not, like it's either just an example of an insult. One of the commentaries I read said it actually means empty headed person and that it in some ways is more of a tone or a posture than a specific insult.
So really it has to do more with contempt than anything. It's people that you've written off. So can I, let me just tell you how this works for me. Let me be a little honest with you here. Um, so I'm kind of, uh, self-righteous, religious, meaning that I think I can follow rules and do a good job. I'm not overly rebellious.
It's just kind of my, my MO. So, um, when I read the Bible, I'm mostly, other than, by God's grace, realize that he justifies me. I try to justify myself as I read. So, as I was reading through this, uh, whoever murders, okay, I haven't. So, it's like, cool. Uh, but I say to everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable for judgment.
And when I really got to thinking about that, I don't have a very short temper. I used to, um, and I would get angry and punch people. I don't do that, um, as much anymore. Uh, by God's grace, I'm not, I don't have a short of temper. I was thinking about it recently. I thought like maybe I've grown.
It also may just be that I'm not on playgrounds anymore. So nobody's putting their hands on me. Um, so I don't know if we went into the lobby and you started pushing me how I would handle it. But for the most part, in normal adult society, I don't have a big temper. I don't really throw stuff or cuss or anything like that. Uh, sorry, that's, yep, I can't, I don't cuss when I'm angry.
Um, then it says, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. I, I mostly kind of take myself off the hook there because it's like, well, I only sarcastically insult people, but those are my friends. I don't really use words as weapons and arguments. Like I'm, that's not really my thing. Mostly because when I get angry, I don't talk well. Um, so that's not really, I, I don't, I try not to say stuff behind people's backs.
So, so far in this list, I'm kind of like, I'm okay. Uh, and then it says, whoever says you fool. And that I really think is contempt. It's just writing someone off. And this is where Jesus just flays me. Let me, let me give you some phrases from my vocabulary.
He's an idiot. And the way, when that comes out is you're telling me a story about someone who's done something that was what I think an idiot would do. And I do my hand like this to mean you don't have to acknowledge them. He's an idiot. Uh, I, I, this is in my vocabulary. I can't stand him or I can't stand people who, or, and it makes me sick when contempt is the belief that because of our actions, attitude, intelligence, life, circumstances, we're better than someone else.
Now, I don't know where Jesus called you out. That's where he called me out. I don't know if for some of you, you've, you're really good at holding a grudge. I'm not. I don't think that's any particular, I'm not bragging. I don't, I actually think it says that my memory's not that good.
Some of you are very good at holding a grudge. Some of you fly off the handle all the time. Maybe you're quick to repent. Some of you, maybe you're, you, you use words as ballistic missiles. I don't know, but I, I feel like every single one of us at some point on here, there's something as Jesus begins to unfold our heart that begins to show up. But it keeps going.
So, okay, so he starts this sentence with so, meaning in light of the fact that all of this makes you liable for judgment, in light of the fact that if your attitude of anger continues, you stand held accountable for it, in light of that, so, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother and then come offer your gift. So what he's saying is if you're, if you're bringing your gift to the altar and these were Jewish people he was talking to, so they would have gone to the temple and they would have brought first fruits from there, if they had fields, they would have brought fruit, they would have brought, they could bring wine as an offering, they could bring grain as an offering, most often they were bringing an animal for a sacrifice. They'd bring a goat or depending on their wealth status they would bring like a small bird.
Here's why they were bringing it. If they're bringing a sacrifice they're bringing it to the altar to say, God I have sinned and I need to be forgiven. So he says, if you're going to the altar and you're going to worship, you're going to repent, you're going to stand before God and say, I need you to forgive me because I have fallen short. He says, but if you're doing that and you haven't tried to make restitution with your brother or if you're doing that for some other reason but you realize there's someone who has something against me, he says, go, leave it, stop. God doesn't want it right now, you need to go talk to your brother.
Later in Matthew he's going to say, if you have something against someone else, you need to go to them. So just so you know, if you've sinned against someone, you know they're mad at you or you just know somebody's frustrated with you or if you're frustrated with somebody, the responsibility is on you to start the conversation. As a Christian, we're supposed to go to the people that we have broken relationships with and try to work them out. Go to the people that we know have been hurt by us, go to the people that we've been hurt by and talk to them. You see, Jesus is saying that your relationships with others matter in your relationship with Him.
Indicate your relationship to Him. That you can't say, I repent of this thing but actually not try to make restitution. That God, I want you to forgive me for what I said and you're just praying but you're not actually talking to them. Practically for us, we don't take goats to places. Nobody brings a burden here for us to sacrifice it. One of the ways I think this applies to us is that you've sinned against someone and you asked Jesus to forgive you but you don't ever talk to them about forgiving you.
So you're going to pray, God, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. And He's going to say, why didn't you talk to your wife? Why didn't you talk to your friend? Why don't you go reconcile with them? Why don't you go ask them for forgiveness before you come sit with me and talk about forgiveness?
I think that's what Jesus is getting at there. To realize that we can't go to God in repentance without also going to our brother in repentance that we've wronged. To realize that true repentance shows up in the way we live our life. And here's why. I said earlier we were going to look back through the cross. Here's why.
I'm going to show you this is in Colossians. For in Him, this is Colossians 1, 19 through 22, for in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. That's Jesus who is God with us. And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of His cross. And you, that's the church, those are Christians who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds. He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.
As Christians, we believe this. We believe that we were alienated from God, that we were enemies of God, that we had actively rebelled against God and harmed God and completely deserved destruction and wrath, but that God became a man and went to the cross on our behalf to reconcile us, to bridge the gap, to buy us back, to redeem us, to cover all the wrongs that we have done. That's what we say we believe as Christians. That's the centerpiece of our faith. And that's why I think Jesus takes reconciliation so seriously because it's the task He is here to accomplish. He's coming to redeem us and reconcile us back to God.
When I was growing up, I have two brothers. I still do. But I have two brothers. I have an older brother and a younger brother. Now, if you are a middle sibling, don't come up to me after this and say, oh, isn't it worse to be in the middle? You are wrong.
It's great to be in the middle. Being the middle kid is the best. You are confused. I don't know why. Have you ever talked to middle siblings? They're like, oh, being in the middle.
It's like, no, it is amazing. There's so many great things about being in the middle sibling. All right, so my older brother, like if you're the oldest, a couple of things that are problems with that. One is, when do you get to start being free and leaving the house? When you turn 16 or when you are able to get a car or a friend who's also 16 and your parents are like, but if you're the middle, when do you get to leave? When your older sibling turns 16 because your parents do this.
They're going somewhere and you're like, I want to go. And they're like, no, you can't go. And then you go to parents and you're like, he won't take me. And then they look at him and say, take your brother with you. And you think, thanks, my parents are going to bat for me. Do you know what it is?
They want both of you out of the house. It's not that they care about y'all's relationship. They care about some quiet. But like, that's, when I was growing up, I got to hang out with my older brother. Like when I was 13, like just picture this, I get to hang out with my older brother who's driving and go do older brother stuff. Like I did, I was allowed to hang out with him as long as I didn't talk and I was cool with that.
And so he was like, just keep your mouth shut. That's one of the ways I developed my sense of humor, which still I wish sometimes my older brother was with me. Because here's what would happen. We'd go out somewhere and I would just like mumble a joke to him and then he'd be like, shut up. I'd be like, okay. And then I would mumble a joke and he'd go, that's pretty good, say it out loud.
And then I would say it out loud and people would laugh. And he helped me develop a filter. And there are days when I wish he still stood next to me so I could whisper the thing I just thought and him go, please never say that out loud. But then I could come home and my younger brother was like nine and I could immediately go from hanging out with like high school kids and keeping my mouth shut to playing Legos and it just meant I was a good older brother. I could grow up quicker and slower. It was great.
Also, when my older brother did anything, my parents were like, oh my goodness, our first kids are driving. Oh, he's mowing the lawn. Like there's pictures of everything. When he went to college, they were like, he's going to college. And then like, I just, nobody noticed me. I just started driving.
They were like, here are the keys. Go get milk. When I went to college, they were like, bye. Like my parents, like my mom cried when they dropped Logan off at school. My parents were there for like 15 minutes with me. They were like, here's your room.
All right. Here's five bucks. Bye. Bye. When my younger brother left, it was like, our baby's leaving. We're going to be all alone.
They freaked out about everything that he did. I just got to skate. Now, if you want like pictures of your childhood, sure, being in the middle is terrible. I get that. We really, like my older brother's a thousand videos of them just filming him when he's like an infant and they're like poking him and making faces and laughing. We have a video.
I kid you not, my mom pans the camera over to me. This is Chet. He's about nine months old. This is all he does. And then immediately goes back to Logan and is like, tell me a story. And they follow him around for like an hour.
And then there's a thousand videos of my younger brother because he was at home while we were at school. And so if you want like your history to be documented, don't be in the middle. But otherwise, I don't want to hear it because it's great. But here's one of the issues I have being a middle brother. My older brother would pick on me, you know, older brother stuff, smack you because they could get away with it, trick you into eating food, like sawdust. He put sawdust in salt one time and told me it was flavoring.
It was not. It was sawdust. Hold you down and like do the like, see how long they can make their spit go and suck it up before it hits you in the face. You know, good older brother things. And so when my dad would like fuss at my older brother, he would take his time on any amount of him picking on us. He would like try to explain to him how bad it was and how I felt or whatever.
But then when I did it to my younger brother, my dad would look at me and go, don't you know better? He would look at me like, how on earth are you doing this to your younger brother with as many times as if I had to have the conversation with your older brother about doing this to you? And I honestly feel that is the response we deserve when we in the church have broken relationship after broken relationship where we are unwilling to reconcile. That it honestly, it's like God's looking at us going, do you actually believe what you say you believe? Do we? You see, when I say, too much has happened or we're just too different or have you seen what they did or what they said, like it's, the gap between us is just too far.
We can't be reconciled. We can't have a good relationship now. What we're saying, if you are a Christian, is that somehow this gap between you and an individual is further than the gap between you and the God of the universe? The sins that they have committed against you are greater and more heinous than the sins you committed against the creator of everything? That the distance that has to be traveled, that the time that's like, is greater than us and God? You see, if we actually believe that Jesus Christ forgave us of our sins and reconciled us to the creator of the universe, then we can be reconciled with anyone.
That he can actively go to work because the gap between us and other humans is minuscule compared to the gap of infinity between us and God that he bridged through the cross. Here's what I think is happening and two major issues when it comes to this. Here's something I think maybe we argue with. We'll say, yeah, but he was legitimately wrong. Like, the sin is real. And here's what I want you to see.
As Christians, we are more set up than anybody to specifically call out sin, to address it fully, and to forgive. Most of you, your families, if they weren't Christians, operated on one of two systems. Your friends operate on one of two systems. You do something actually wrong or someone does something actually wrong and the system is we acknowledge that it was wrong and we punish because we don't have any other way to acknowledge. Or we acknowledge that it was wrong and we cut ties. They lied.
They actively harmed our relationship. Like, you legitimately acknowledge it. But then what do you do from there? Punish for an amount of time maybe through silent treatment or punish for an amount of time until you feel better or feel like you're over it or just completely write somebody off. The other option is we don't talk about it. We just cover it up, sweep it under the rug because there's no way to handle it.
Christians, we get to walk into every situation and just pull the rug back. Fully and freely address the actual sin that is present knowing we have a broom and a trash can. That Jesus Christ redeems us from sin. Forgave us. We are fully equipped to forgive. To acknowledge sin.
That's what Jesus is doing on the cross. That's what God is doing on the cross. To fully acknowledge it and pay for it. 1 John 4.20 says this. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
John is not mincing words. He was there when Jesus said this on the mountain. He was there when Jesus died on the cross. He was there when Jesus rose again. And John writes a letter to a church and says if anybody says I love God but he hates his brother that's a liar. I want to help us see why.
2 Corinthians 5.17-21 says this. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away behold the new has come. All of this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That ministry of reconciliation in small picture is how we relate to one another but the big picture is that we help other people be reconciled to God. That we actually believe that everyone you know and work with can be redeemed of their sin and reconciled back to God.
He's given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses that sin against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ meaning we represent him on earth. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him that's Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus reconciled us to himself gives us the ministry of reconciliation and here are two major issues I think that have gone to work that we need to realize when it comes to our relationships with others when we're not willing to reconcile. First one is this we've let some other story become our main story. You see for Christians this should be the story. This is our main story. This is the framework we build our life around that there is a God who we were meant to relate to perfectly that we have rebelled that our sin has broken that but that Jesus has redeemed us and forgiven us and we get to spend an eternity with him and we've been given a ministry of reconciliation seeing other people come to knowing that wherever we work wherever we play wherever we live that we're active in the part of trying to reconcile people to God because this is what God's given to the church.
But some of you some of us we have such anger over politics because we've allowed the American story to outweigh the gospel story. We have such anger we've completely have contempt for other races because we've begun to believe that our family history our genealogy our skin tone has become a bigger story than the gospel story. Some of us have broken relationships with individuals because our personal happiness has become bigger than the gospel. We're actually supposed to understand that reconciliation is one of the primary tasks we're called to both that people would be reconciled to God big picture and in small picture we'd be reconciled back to people.
But when we're unwilling to forgive and unwilling to reconcile it's because we've begun to believe that something else is bigger and more important. And here's the biggest issue with this. If a Christian is not willing to reconcile is not actively trying to reconcile we are lying about the gospel. We're the group of people that stand and say you can be forgiven of anything and you can relate back to God but I'm unwilling to forgive this person and I'm unwilling to have a conversation with them. We are a liar. And we stand lying about the gospel.
That Jesus redeems sinners and welcomes people back to himself and that all of us can be forgiven. Our behavior means that we actually don't believe that. That's what John is saying. That we can't say I hate this person and I love God because that's not how it works. That God actually goes to work in our heart to change us. I think one of the ways this works is not that our forgiveness of others and our relationship status with others saves us.
The Bible would never say that. But it does say things like you'll be forgiven the way you forgive and you'll get the measure with which you measure out and as he keeps going in this passage in Matthew 5 he says this verse 24 leave your gift there at the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to the court lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. I think that's practical advice about how to not go to court with people and try to reconcile quickly.
About how to not go to court with people and try to reconcile quickly. I also think that in the bigger scope of what he's saying here it's an image of do not face the king do not face the true judge when you haven't been actively seeking to reconcile and to work out your relationships don't have a line of accusers
That stand and point to you as a liar who said you believed the gospel but didn't actively try to practice it. And here's what I think it is as the Bible addresses this and on a regular basis we'll be talking about because we forgive the way Jesus forgave
And we reconcile the way he reconciled and we get to join him in this I think it's like income verification so when you go to get a car and they're like no credit check or you go to apply for a house and they say it's no credit check
A lot of times they want income verification some of you went to get a mortgage and you had to give income verification what you were showing them was that this money is in my account and will be continually put in my account
You weren't working you weren't proving it you were just bringing them some pay stubs you were just bringing them some let me show you how it comes in I think that's the way forgiveness it's just proof of how much grace and forgiveness and love
And peace and joy have already been applied to our account by Jesus it just shows it it's just a paper trail if you begin to see somebody who has a life of continually being at peace with those around them forgiving reconciling pursuing
It's just a paper trail it's not earning them anything it's just showing what's in their account that's why it matters that's what it is is that we're showing that infinite grace and infinite forgiveness and infinite joy
Have been applied to me have been given freely to me and so I actually have a well that never runs dry that I can pull from when it comes to loving and relating and forgiving okay let me show you a practical way this
Shows up and then we'll wrap it up for the day as we kind of walk through this we live in the south there are a lot of churches on a decent regular basis I get to talk to people who are just kind of visiting and they'll say yeah we're here we're just
Checking this out and we've got some other ones kind of on our list to check out and here's the truth I have I know a good bit of pastors in the area I have like five to ten churches that I could immediately recommend to people that I think are healthy
Biblical pursuing Jesus pursuing the gospel trying to see people come to know Christ like I'll help you make that list that's the conversation I actually have with people when they say they're visiting and they're going to keep checking out other churches
I'll usually say okay two pieces of advice check some of these out make your search quicker these are ones that I appreciate secondly don't do that forever because you get in this weird shopper mode with church and you're showing up trying to
Figure out does this meet my needs and it's weird it's not good for your heart that's not the way Christians were intended to work but here's what I know to be true because there are so many churches around here and because I know how people work
If you hang out with our church long enough we will offend you and not just the like American version of offend where we hear a thing and go I'm offended I'm talking like legitimate sin against you we were wrong offend you or and or you will offend us
Sin against us you were wrong offense we will harm you or you will be harmed by us wait that's the same thing we will harm you or you will harm us we sometimes jokingly say that's our mill city guarantee
Like that's how that's going to work we're a group of sinners and let me tell you what's going to happen you're going to have two options when you become have a relationship breaking down when you have frustration between you and someone else
Or someone in your group is really just making it hard for you to even show up because you're so frustrated with them mad at them they continually pop off with offensive things they say stuff that maybe they don't know is offensive sometimes they do
It on purpose sometimes they've actively gone to work to seem to harm you here's what's going to happen or you've done the same and you don't know how to get leave or grow leave go to
Another church they'll show up do you know how excited they'll be if you just show up to another church next week they'll smile at you they'll say how are you doing it's nice to meet you what's your name they'll say come do
This thing come join in this thing like it'll be so easy you can leave or you can grow you can begin to do what the bible actually says christians ought to do and if you leave
And stick with another church it'll be another year maybe two years maybe six months here sometimes it's like two months it didn't take as long you'll have
The same opportunity you can leave or you can actually begin to look like the bible says christians look like which is to have really tough conversations to
Actively have to forgive someone to have to repent of sin some of you I don't know you it's your first second Sunday hanging
Out with us you're here because you chose leave from your other church and as lovingly as graciously I can say this to you I would vote that
You go back and grow and if you need help trying to think through that some of you maybe that was the situation and
You've been here for six months now you're in a group you've been here for a year now here's what I want to tell
You next opportunity you get grow choose grow choose repent choose look like Jesus says we ought to look like so here's what we're
Going to do because we want to look like Christians here's what we're doing today we're going to practice this by practice I mean
We're going to do this first if you are in here and you are not a Christian I want to join Paul in saying
We appeal to you we plead with you we implore you is what Paul says to be reconciled to God I want you to
Know that your sin can be forgiven I want you to know that Jesus does love you he does want a genuine actual personal
Relationship with you I want to implore you repent of your sin and be reconciled to God if you haven't done that yet I
Would love to talk to you about how to do that how to place faith in Jesus how to begin to follow him if
You are in here and you say I am a Christian here's what we're more than we understand that there's going to be pain
There's going to be death before there's resurrection we understand there's going to be death before there's life that we have to acknowledge our
Sin that we have to work it out before we get to be freed from it so we're going to have some conversations in a
Second we're going to start playing some music and we're actually going to We're going to repent of an attitude of contempt where we just wrote somebody off, where there's somebody sitting on the other side of the room here that you just won't talk to anymore because you read something on Facebook and learned that they were an idiot, so you don't have to listen to them anymore. We're going to repent. We're going to ask for forgiveness. We're going to go to people who have hurt us and we never told them. So, some of you, this is going to be, you're going to have to talk to your dad, you're going to have to talk to your kids, you're going to have to talk to your spouse. I've got a few kind of guidelines for us and things I want to address before we do this. First, I want everybody to begin by praying and asking the Holy Spirit,
When we get started here in a minute, I want you to just bow your head and pray and say, Holy Spirit, if there's somebody I need to reconcile with, if there's somebody I have pain with, if there's someone I need to talk to, I need you to tell me. Some of you already know. Some of you don't. Some of you have attitudes towards people that have grown up over time and you don't even realize anymore. I used to work on swimming pools from the time I was like 13 until I was coming out of college. Even beyond that, I worked on them some when I moved here. I would go to people's houses all the time. I would have to go around behind their house and work on stuff. And here's the thing, I am aware that dogs bite people, but I'm not overly afraid of them. So I would go to people's houses, dogs would come out. I'd just kind of, you know, stare them down, make sure they knew I would fight them if they came at me and, you know, could get to work.
Except for Cocker Spaniels. If I walked into someone's backyard and saw a Cocker Spaniel, I would like start sweating. My heart rate would start beating and I would be like. And if y'all don't know what Cocker Spaniels look like, they're small and like curly haired, cute, fuzzy little kind of dogs. And I was like, like had something going on. Like I could, like I don't. And it took me a while to remember that when I was growing up, my neighbor had a Cocker Spaniel that used to bite me every time it saw me. I apparently had like bottled that up and forgotten about it. Because I remember leaving someone's house and being like, why did that dog scare me? And then she'd be like, oh well. And then later saw another Cocker Spaniel and was like. And it was like, what is wrong with me? The reason I say that is some of us are going to need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal something to us that has grown up.
And we haven't, we don't know. Some of you, that's going to be your spouse. You're getting along really well. You actually in some ways are flourishing. But there's something that happened that y'all never really talked out. That you never really forgave. And it's begun to change how you relate to one another. Some of you, that's going to be a sibling. Some of that's going to be your children. That you're holding some sort of frustration over something that you never really talked about. And it just affects how you relate a little bit. It's just a misstep every once in a while. But it needs to be spoken about, forgiven, confronted, confessed. So we want to ask the Holy Spirit to show us. We want to listen. If you pray and say, Holy Spirit, who do I need to talk to? And a name comes to your mind. Don't think no. No, I don't. Ask why. Ask how.
Ask what about.
We're going to go to people who have hurt us and we never told them. So, some of you, this is going to be, you're going to have to talk to your dad, you're going to have to talk to your kids, you're going to have to talk to your spouse. I've got a few kind of guidelines for us and things I want to address before we do this. First, I want everybody to begin by praying and asking the Holy Spirit, when we get started here in a minute, I want you to just bow your head and pray and say, Holy Spirit, if there's somebody I need to reconcile with, if there's somebody I have pain with, if there's someone I need to talk to, I need you to tell me.
Some of you already know. Some of you don't. Some of you have attitudes towards people that have grown up over time and you don't even realize anymore. I used to work on swimming pools from the time I was like 13 until I was coming out of college. Even beyond that, I worked on them some when I moved here. I would go to people's houses all the time.
I would have to go around behind their house and work on stuff. And here's the thing, I am aware that dogs bite people, but I'm not overly afraid of them. So I would go to people's houses, dogs would come out. I'd just kind of, you know, stare them down, make sure they knew I would fight them if they came at me and, you know, could get to work. Except for Cocker Spaniels. If I walked into someone's backyard and saw a Cocker Spaniel, I would like start sweating.
My heart rate would start beating and I would be like. And if y'all don't know what Cocker Spaniels look like, they're small and like curly haired, cute, fuzzy little kind of dogs. And I was like, like had something going on. Like I could, like I don't. And it took me a while to remember that when I was growing up, my neighbor had a Cocker Spaniel that used to bite me every time it saw me. I apparently had like bottled that up and forgotten about it.
Because I remember leaving someone's house and being like, why did that dog scare me? And then she'd be like, oh well. And then later saw another Cocker Spaniel and was like. And it was like, what is wrong with me? The reason I say that is some of us are going to need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal something to us that has grown up. And we haven't, we don't know.
Some of you, that's going to be your spouse. You're getting along really well. You actually in some ways are flourishing. But there's something that happened that y'all never really talked out. That you never really forgave. And it's begun to change how you relate to one another.
Some of you, that's going to be a sibling. Some of that's going to be your children. That you're holding some sort of frustration over something that you never really talked about. And it just affects how you relate a little bit. It's just a misstep every once in a while. But it needs to be spoken about, forgiven, confronted, confessed.
So we want to ask the Holy Spirit to show us. We want to listen. If you pray and say, Holy Spirit, who do I need to talk to? And a name comes to your mind. Don't think no. No, I don't.
Ask why. Ask how. Ask what about.