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If Your Brother or Sister Sins (Against You)

June 19, 2016 Preacher: Series: For the Life of the Church, For the Life of the World

Scripture: Matthew 18:15–20

Key Truth: When a brother or sister gets lost in sin, we are to pursue them with the full resources of the church both physical and spiritual for the purpose of reconciliation.

 

Introduction:

 

Q: What best indicates to the world what kind of family we are?

“A community capable of protecting the little ones, a community who cares for the lost sheep, is a community that cannot afford to overlook one another’s sins because doing so keeps the community from embodying the life of grace determined by God’s forgiveness through the sacrifice of His son.”

Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew

 

If Your Brother or Sister Sins (Against You): Pursue Unto Reconciliation:

Matthew 18:15-18

“The sinner is taken seriously as a person and is treated, as the sequence shows, with an impressive carefulness. Real lovelessness, wrong judging, is to drop another person altogether, without any attempt at seeking conversations, repentance, or reconciliation at all.”

Frederick Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary: Volume 2: The Churchbook

 

Q: Are you more inclined to seek judgment and punishment or forgiveness and reconciliation when you discover that a brother or sister is guilty of sin?

 

Where Two or Three Are Gathered to Pray for the Lost, Jesus Is Always Present:

Matthew 18:19-20

“Finally, Jesus promises that when two or three gather to pursue the lost to win them, “there am I with [you]” (18:20). The process of seeking reconciliation can be painful. But we do not despair, for the Lord is with us as we work to win our brothers (and sisters) and to guard the purity of the church.”

Daniel M. Doriani, Matthew: Volume 2: Chapters 14-28

 

Q: Who do you know that is currently wandering or lost that you could gather with someone else to pray for their reconciliation and return to Christ and His church?

 

Matthew 18:15-20 teaches us that:

-we are to pursue those wandering or lost in sin with the full physical resources of the church for the purpose of reconciliation

-when we gather to pray for the lost to make use of our spiritual resources, Jesus is present and God responds

“Christians are Christ’s representatives in the world. They are to set an example before the heathen of the power of Christ to save and sanctify. When professing believers treat each other in a manner inconsistent with the Gospel, the world notices and mocks both Christ and His church.”

Brian Schwertley, “Conflict Resolution in the Church: A Study of Matthew 18:15-16”


Benediction:

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

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