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Ministry of Reconciliation
Part IV
In Review
“When
we started this series on the ministry of reconciliation we probably thought
we’d get one or two sermons out of it, and here we are on number four. And we haven’t even gotten to, which will be
the 5th sermon, on how to reconcile. For when people have conflict, what are the methods, what are the
Biblical methods that explain to us how we are to reconcile? Whether husband and wife, we’re specifically
talking about each other in the Church [Body of Christ], because as I’ve said a
number of times, we have to apply these principles, but it is almost impossible
to reconcile with people in the world. You know, the people you work with just have a different set of values,
they have a different way of doing things. Even though we should try to do these, apply these principles, many
times we can’t. But we are commanded to
do these principles inside the Church. And the first two sermons were about how God reconciles us to him, what
he did through Jesus Christ, and how he tied that into the Passover, because it
was the Passover season. How he sent
Jesus Christ, because we have a corrupted human nature. We are by nature hostile towards God. We are by nature unable to do his Law. And we are by nature the children of
wrath. And yet through the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ, God is reconciling us to him. We went through those Scriptures, how God did that while we were yet
sinners, God did that while we were yet enemies. I spent a great deal of time going through the
Scriptures to show that we truly are by nature the enemies of God, we are an
abomination to God. That God must do
something, we call it Salvation, God must save us, he must reconcile us back to
him. And it’s not something we can
initiate. He has to start the
process. He started the process by
sending Jesus Christ across that chasm between us and him that we can’t breach,
we can’t get across. And then, he gave
us his Spirit, to bring us into contact, into relationship with him. And the problem is, the problem is we all now
have two natures. We have within
ourselves a corrupt human nature that has to be totally recreated, and we have
what Peter called the divine nature…he has given us the divine nature. And so we have two natures warring within
ourselves. And it is because of our
conflict with God that we have conflict with each other. When Christians have conflict with each
other, it’s because one of them or both of them have a conflict with God. And we haven’t dealt properly with that
conflict with God. So, we spent two
sermons showing how, and even that was not enough, I think of all the points I
didn’t make in those two sermons, in understanding how God is reconciling us,
and how he does that, and through Christ, and through his Spirit, and brings us
into relationship with him, so that we become his children. The third sermon, and once again, we only
scratched the surface on that, there could have been two sermons on that one,
easily, was what must we do then, if, since we now know, we understand that we
are reconciled to God, how do we become reconciled to a brother who has sinned
against us, or a sister who has offended us? What do we do? How do we do that? And I went through the same five points,
there were five points in the first two sermons, on why there is conflict
between human beings, and why there is conflict between man and God, and I
showed how God deals with all five of those areas. Then I went through what we must do if we’ve
been offended. There is HUGE responsibility on the offended
person. I went through and showed how
God’s instructions to us as the person who has been sinned against is the exact
opposite of what we naturally do. Our
response to being offended naturally is the exact opposite of how God says to
deal with it. And how as we go through
the instructions as we did, we see that all five of those areas of conflict
must be dealt with by the person who has been offended, before they even go
deal with the offense. They must be
reconciled back to God, they must deal with their own emotions, they must deal
with their own reasons, they must know the difference between vengeance and
justice. We went through all those
different ideas. The idea that anger can
be righteous, and anger can be unrighteous. We went and showed how bitterness is always unrighteous. We showed how a person can be in the right,
become bitter, and end up being in the wrong. We went and showed how the Scripture says we simply tend to gather, say
your husband mistreats you, you tend to gather all your friends around you, and
do nothing but put down your husband, how that now is a sin in itself. So now we’ve added sin on top of sin. I went through and showed that as the
offended person, there is Scripture after Scripture, instruction after instruction
in the Bible about what we must do as the offended person. And that is not the natural way we handle
things. Our natural reaction to being
offended is, ‘You’re wrong, I’ve been
hurt, you had better repent, and you had better fix it.’ And of course that goes back to a couple
core problems we have, and that is, when we are damaged we expect the other
person to heal us. Which means the other
person is always controlling you. Because what if the person won’t repent? What if the person doesn’t do what they’re supposed to, what if the
person doesn’t even understand the offense? It’s amazing how many times a person will offend another person and not
even know they did it, in a moment of anger, a moment of weakness. To just do something in a moment of stupidity
can do something very damaging to another person, and they don’t even know they
did it. And of course we have that core
problem that we have to defend ourselves, the image we’ve made of ourselves. We are corrupted images of God, we are
corrupted images of God. And we defend
our corrupted image, because we see ourselves as gods. And that’s the heart of the problem. We see ourselves as gods, and therefore we
will determine how other people will worship us. We will determine how other people will treat
us. And we have expectations of
them. And when they don’t meet our
expectations we feel we have a right to punish them. So I went through that whole problem and how
all of us have been through that. All of
us have been offended by somebody. And
all of us have gone through those various emotions. And one thing I never even got to, which is a
whole other subject in itself, is when offended, what we many times do is we
impute a motive. In fact, one of the
things we’ll get to, actually how we deal with offense, we must find out what
the person’s motive was. Because
sometimes a person can have, they don’t even know what they did. We have to find out what their motive was. But what we do, is if someone does something
wrong to us, we automatically impute what? ‘They did that on purpose.’ I can remember yelling that at my sisters
when I was little. ‘You did that on purpose!’ And
I can remember them yelling that back to me, ‘You did that on purpose!’ And sometimes it’s like ‘I didn’t
do that on purpose. What are you talking about?’ Right? And so we impute motives. We
didn’t even get into that subject. So
today, I want to talk about the message to the offender, the person who has
committed the sin against a brother, the person who has offended. And remember, we can’t go anyplace without
understanding the ministry of reconciliation, how God reconciles us. We must go back to that. And that’s why the first message, when I
talked about human beings, it was not about the offender. You could be, ‘Well, let’s immediately go to the offender.’ The last sermon on this was to the person
who was offended. Why? The responsibility to the person who has been
offended, according to the Scripture, is to be willing to offer forgiveness,
and to be willing to approach and work with and show patience with the person
who has sinned against you. And we went
through Scripture after Scripture that says do this because it is how Christ
dealt with you. So there was no question
in whether Paul or Peter, both of them explained how this is to be done, and
both of them used the exact same example, ‘This is how God reconciled you, so if
you’re the person who has been injured, if you’re the person who has been
sinned against, here’s what you must do.’ It is not the way we handle things. This is why I said, when I started this
series, this is one of about three very important doctrines in the Church that
we have never fully explored, understood or explained. We haven’t.. And because of that, we’re missing part of the Gospel. You know, the ministry of reconciliation is a
core element of the Gospel. Without the
ministry of reconciliation, we can’t even fully explain the Gospel. So as we understand what God is doing in
reconciling us to him, then we must understand how to apply it to each
other.
The Message To the Offender
So,
OK, where do we go to start the message to the person who has offended someone
else, the person who has committed the sin? Let’s go to Matthew chapter 18. You know, we went through warning after warning last time, to those who
have been offended. Warning after
warning in the Scripture that says that that could turn into hatred, and it
could turn into bitterness, and when it does, the person who was offended is
destroyed. And yet they’re not the one
who did wrong. But they became wrong,
because of what was done to them. It’s
like the old adage, when I counsel people who have been abused, or people who
have are abusers. It is amazing how many
people who are abusers where abused themselves. And because they were abused, what did they
do? They become abusers themselves. Which is one of the great tendencies, and
that’s why there’s so much said to the person who has been sinned against. But we will never understand this until we’re
first reconciled with God. If we’re not
reconciled with God, we’ll never do any of this. Because we don’t have the strength to do
this, this goes against our natural nature. And our nature is hostile towards God. So here’s where we begin speaking to those who have committed
offense. And we say ‘Oh yea, well I said something, I did something, and that upset that
person, I’m sorry.’ No, before you
ever say “I’m sorry” you need to read this. In Matthew 18, verse 6, Jesus had just taken a little
child and said that we must become like little children to God. And then in verse 6 he says, “But whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for
him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Once again, we’re dealing with problems and
conflicts between Christians here. Because he says ‘whoever causes one of these little ones who
believe in me to sin, it would be better for him for a millstone to be hung
around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’ [btw, that was the ancient Phoenician
naval-merchant marine style execution.] “Woe unto the world because of
offenses! for it must needs be that
offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!” So how serious is it, and remember all of
us have been offended, and all of us have offended. I have been offended, and I have offended
others. And when we offend each other,
what is Jesus Christ’s instruction? When
you offend a little one, which is a fellow-Christian (and most of us are little
ones, I don’t know too many big ones, we’re all pretty small Christians), when
we offend each other, Jesus Christ said, ‘How serious is it? Well, it would be better if someone tied a
big rock around your head, it would be better if you had cement shoes, and you
were taken out in a boat here in the Gulf, and you were thrown overboard, and
you drowned.’ I didn’t make that
up. That’s what Jesus Christ said. When we do that to each other, how does he
feel about it? He’s explaining exactly
how he as our older brother and as the head of the Church feels about when we
do this to each other. He says ‘it’d
be better if someone took you out, you know, the Mafia took you out, fit you in
cement shoes and threw you overboard.’ That’s what would be better than what you have done. [Or what God could do to you, put you in the
lake of fire. One form of death would be
a lot cooler and less painful than the other L] So when
we hurt each other, mistreat each other, then we have done something very
serious in the eyes of God, in the eyes of Jesus Christ.
Going Through Our Five Points Again
1st Point, Seek God
So
now let’s go through our five points, the same five that we’ve been going
through. I have offended somebody,
you’ve offended somebody, how are we supposed to deal with that when it is
brought to our attention that we have hurt or sinned against somebody? You say, ‘Well
what if it’s a false accusation?’ When
we get into how to actually deal with conflict, then there’s ways to deal with
false accusations. But we all want that
right up front, ‘Well, what if it’s a
false accusation?’ Well the
challenge here is, as you’re going to see, is that when someone brings you an
accusation, that you automatically don’t say it is false, but that you
automatically explore ‘What if it is
true?’ Every time someone comes to
you, ‘You really hurt my feelings,’
our initial response is, ‘Hey, I didn’t
do that.’ ‘Hey, that’s your problem. Hey,
why don’t you grow up.’ ‘I’m sorry,
let’s forget about it.’ The moment
we do that, we are not fulfilling what we’re supposed to do as the person who
has committed an offense against another person. So the first point we always start with, is
seek to be reconciled with God. If
someone comes to you and says ‘You have
offended me,’ and your initial reaction is, ‘No I haven’t,’ or defensive, or ‘I’m not going to listen to you,’ or you push them away, then what
you need to say is, ‘Can we set up a time
to talk about this?’ And then you
need to go fast and pray, and seek reconciliation with God. 2nd Samuel 11, and here’s
why.
Every Sin Committed Against Another Human Being Is
Also A Sin Committed Against God
2nd Samuel chapter 11, you know the story here. I won’t go through all of it, I mean I won’t read all of it, I’ll
explain, you know, 2nd Samuel 11 and 12 is about David. It’s some hot sleepless night for David, and
he’s on the top of his palace, and of course in Jerusalem they have flat roofs,
and the roof itself was actually part of the building. It was a patio. And you would sit on it, walk around on
it. And he’s walking around on the top
of his palace, or either that or the balcony of his palace, and he looks out,
and of course the palace is going to be a little higher than all the other buildings,
and what’s he see? A beautiful woman, at
night, taking a bath, on top of her house. Of course, she thinks nobody can see her. [btw, this was Ahitophel’s grand-daughter,
David’s counselor, one of David’s wise men. And because of this, David knew this girl, probably watched her grow up
and develop into a beautiful young woman. Sins like this don’t often happen in a vacuum.] You know what happened, he invites her, she’s
probably very young at this point, invites her into his home, and she comes up
to the palace, and he seduces her. Now
that’s an abuse. That’s an abuse of his
power and of his manhood. You know, we
can say, ‘Well she went along with
it.’ You know, it’s interesting, the
Bible doesn’t say much about Bathsheba, and it doesn’t even condemn her
much. It does put a lot of
responsibility on David because he was the king, and because he’s misusing his
position. And so he commits adultery. Well, he realizes she’s married, so he brings
her husband, Uriah, back from the front, because he was a soldier, and says ‘Go see your wife.’ He brings him in, makes like, ‘Give me a report, give me a report.’ Of course he’s confused because he knows the
officers give reports all the time, but you know, David does this thing, ‘I would like a report from just a
foot-soldier, so give me a report.’ Uriah
won’t go home to his wife, Uriah is a man of principle, and he says ‘I can’t go back to my wife, my brothers are
out there risking their lives dying in the field for Israel,’ and he won’t
go back. He won’t go into her. So there’s no way, now, to convince him that
his wife’s pregnancy is caused by him. David even goes as far as getting him drunk. Finally David sends him back, and then in one
of the most abusive acts of betrayal you can think of, gave him orders, the
orders he took back to Joab, the commander, was his own death-warrant. He said ‘Send
this man out in the most troubled spot of the battle, and when things get
rough, have everybody retreat but him. Don’t give him the signal.’ And they did, they left the man out
there and his was killed. I mean, David
murdered the man, as much as if he had taken a sword and killed him
himself. And now time goes by. Now this is one of the most abusive things
you can think of. You seduce a man’s
wife, you lie, you steal, you murder a man. And you use your position as king to do it. In all the Bible there is not much more of an
abusive thing than the sins of this man. And it’s interesting that God did not kill him, and there’s a reason why
God didn’t kill him. In chapter 12 God
sends Nathan to him. Now we don’t know
how much time has gone by here, possibly months, but there’s some time that’s
gone by, and David hasn’t repented. And
Nathan says to him, he tells him a great story, he says ‘I have something I need you as king to make a ruling on.’ He said, ‘A
man in the country here that is a very rich man, he has the greatest flocks, he
has land, he has money, this man needs nothing. But he’s such a miser, that he had some friends come to visit, and he
sent some of his servants to a nearby little farm, there’s a family, and they
have one lamb, and it wasn’t kept to be eaten, it was a pet. It was the children’s pet. He stole the children’s pet, and killed it
and served it to his guests.’ Now
the normal penalty for stealing was you had to pay back four times or seven
times, depending on the infraction [four sheep for a sheep, five beef cattle
for a bull]. He jumps right over that. He [David] says ‘this is so dastardly, this is such a planned out act of sin and
aggression, that I say this man has forfeited his life, I want him brought into
the palace, we will have a trial, and he will be killed.’ And Nathan says, ‘You are that man.’ Now at this point, what would have raced
through the mind of David? Now I want
you to remember something, he’s a king. He lives his life with a power you and I couldn’t even imagine. He says something and hundreds of people jump
to it. He has the power of life and
death over everybody in the kingdom, as he showed with Uriah. He has an enormous power. And David could have said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Nathan, I am God’s
anointed, who are you to tell me I’m
wrong?’ He could have said, ‘You know, you know Nathan, you don’t
understand, I have six wives, and they get to fighting, I just needed somebody
new, I’m under stress here. Nathan, you
have no idea, this is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I love her.’ Right? That’s always the excuse for adultery, ‘I love him, I love her. I’ve
never experienced this kind of love with any of my wives, I love this
woman.’ He could have said, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, men die in
battle all the time, you can’t pin that one on me.’ But that’s not what he did. What he did is he said, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ But David understood, and when it was simply
placed in front of him, and this is why God did not kill him, this is why God
gave him another chance. He understood
that his sin against Bathsheba, his sin against Uriah, his sin against his army
[and his sin against Ahitophel’s family honour], I’ll tell you what, I can’t
imagine if his troops found out what he did. Because if they would have, who
would ever trust him again. He sinned
against Israel, he sinned against millions of people. He realized that every sin against a human
being is also a sin against God. Every
time we abuse each other, we are sinning against God. And that’s why if you have sinned against
somebody, what you need to do, is immediately deal with the fact that you now
have a conflict between you and God. And see, we hardly ever go there. We hardly ever go there. ‘Well, you’ve done something wrong to me.’ Even if we say we’re sorry to the person, we
almost never go and deal with the conflict we have between us and God, because,
we just don’t take the responsibility. Now what David found out and realized, there are two kinds of judgments
from God against sin. There’s a
temporary judgment and the eternal judgment. God did not take away from David, by the way, the temporary
judgment. He suffered, he suffered for
the rest of his life. In fact, God told
him ‘There
will be violent conflict in your family for the rest of your life. And the son that’s going to be born from the
union between you and Bathsheba, he’s not going to live, and I’m not going to
heal him. He’s going to die.’ But he also told him, Nathan said, ‘Your
sin is forgiven.’ The eternal
consequence of David’s sin is forgiven. His temporary consequences were not. When you and I sin against each other, there are sometimes temporary
consequences because of what we’ve done to each other. We’re looking for reconciliation with God,
forgiveness from God, and then we’re looking to reconcile with each other. This means we have to take responsibility for
our actions. We must acknowledge our own
responsibility, we must be accountable for what we’ve done.
How Do I Respond When Someone Says I’ve Offended
Them?
Now
remember when I went through, as the offended person, how before you truly
approach the offender, you must ask and answer ‘How did I contribute to the problem?’ Because many times when we do that, we find
out that the offending person we offended somewhere along the way too, we
helped contribute to the problem. But
you see, we don’t think in those terms, when we’re hurt, we’re wronged. So the offendee, or the person that’s been
offended, must take responsibility, but the offender must really take
responsibility. The offender must say ‘How did I do this? What did I do? I must
be responsible, I must be accountable for what I have done. And if I have sinned, I must do something about it. I must respond.’ You know, in
the end, what kind of people we are, in terms of our Christianity, comes down
to how we respond. Right? God calls you. What do you do? We talk about our responsibility, how we
respond to God. It’s how we
respond. When God gives us his Law, what
do we do? We repent [of breaking it]. What is repentance? It’s a response to God. What is our obedience? It is our response to God. What is our faith? Our faith is our response to God [even though
our faith is bolstered and empowered beyond mere human faith by God’s
indwelling Holy Spirit]. God didn’t call
you because you had great faith in him. You have faith in him because he called you. So even faith is a response, it is our
responsibility. And so when we have
sinned against another person, God is not only going to judge our sin, he’s
going to judge how we respond to the person who we have offended, how we respond
to them. Matthew 5 is very interesting. Matthew
chapter 5, verses 23-24, I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve taken
someone to this Scripture and said, ‘Do
you think this Scripture says, ‘If somebody’s done something wrong to you,
leave your gift at the altar and go deal with it’?’ I bet you half time the
person says ‘Yes, that’s what it
says.’ No it doesn’t. Matthew
5:23-24, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest
that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the
altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and
offer thy gift.” When we go to
worship God, there is a moment when we are either reconciled to God or
not. We come here every week, to be
reconciled to God. We pray every day, to
be reconciled to God. We try to obey God every day, we try to
live by faith to be reconciled to God, to have a relationship with God. And he says there are times when you are
worshipping God, and at that moment, you will remember, maybe because God helps
you remember, that somebody has been offended by you. And now what do you do? ‘Leave your gift there before the altar, and
go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your
gift.’ Now he doesn’t say, ‘First be reconciled to your brother, and
then be reconciled to God.’ The
whole point is, you’re coming to God in reconciliation, you’re responding to
God. And as you respond to God, there’s
a point, you say, in your mind, we have to come to grips with, ‘Wait a minute, if I’m not in reconciliation
with my brother, God expects me to, ok, stop, and go deal with this.’ I’m
coming with my gift to God, I’m coming to worship God, and in that act of
response to his reconciliation, we are now motivated to go reconcile to
someone, who what?---we even think we offended. That’s how important this is. If a brother has something against you, go to the brother. This is the responsibility of the
offender. Now you may go to your
brother, and the brother says, ‘You
didn’t offend me.’ I have that
happen all the time. I’m amazed how many
people call me from here or Austin or Waco and say, ‘I think I may have said something wrong to you,’ and I have no
idea what they’re talking about. And
then they’ll say it, and I’ll say ‘You
didn’t offend me.’ Well, I’m always
amazed when somebody does it, because I think, ‘Wow, they’re doing this: ‘I think I’ve offended somebody, I’d better
go talk to them about it.’ Because
it’s never easy to do that. ‘I think I’ve done somebody harm…have I done
somebody harm? Then I’d better try to go
undo the harm.’ When we are acutely
aware of the reconciliation we have with God, we become acutely aware, and have
a desire to reconcile with those that we’ve hurt. When we don’t, there is a problem between us
and God. When you and I are in a
conflict so deep that it’s separating us as Christians, we create a conflict,
and we open up again the conflict we have with God. It’s why God tells us, in Peter, ‘Guys,
treat your wives right, so that your prayers be not hindered.’ What’s he saying? When we misuse our wives, God says ‘You
have a conflict with me.’ Of
course, wives, it’s the same way. When
you misuse your husbands, you now have a conflict with God, and there will be
problems between you and God. As we
talked last time, there’s sometimes you can’t reconcile with somebody, they
won’t let you. We’ll talk about that
when we get into conflict resolution. But here we’re talking about the attitude. If we don’t have the attitude and approach
down, if we don’t have the understanding down, conflict resolution will achieve
little or nothing. We must come with
this attitude. So, when you have
offended somebody, or when someone comes to you and says, ‘You have hurt me, you’ve offended me, you’ve sinned against me,’ the first thing you need to do, and the first thing I need to do is make sure
we’re reconciled with God. Because if we’re reconciled with God, we
will say, ‘OK, let me put my gift here, and let me go deal with the person who
I’ve offended, let me go deal with the person that I have hurt. Let me go help heal that.’
Point #2, We Have To Give Up Our Need To Control
The Response Of The Other Person---Taking Personal Responsibility
Now,
the second point is, and some of you probably have this written down, so you
remember the points: We have to give up
our need to control the response of the other person. As the offender, what is it you want? If you’ve done something wrong to somebody,
what is it you want? You want immediate
forgiveness and reconciliation, and maybe a little piece of the person
too. ‘OK,
ok, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry, but you really shouldn’t
be this angry.’ That’s not, that is
not an apology. That is a backhanded way
of trying to now correct the person you offended. Now maybe their anger is out of control. And there is a point in time you have to go
deal with, ‘You know, you sinned against
me with your anger.’ But when the
offended person comes to you, that’s not when to do that. When they come to you, you have to give up
the need to control their reaction. What
you have to do, is you must be willing to take ownership and responsibility for
what you did wrong. Now their
contribution may have been enormous. But
you don’t start there. We’re talking
about ‘Where do you start?’ The starting point is, ‘Yes, I see what you’re talking about, I contributed in this way, and
I’m sorry.’ You know, the Bible
talks about confessing. ‘I am sorry’ is not a confession. I’ve seen people say ‘I am sorry.’ And the other
person says, ‘But what are you sorry
for?’ ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry for your feelings getting hurt, and that we
have some kind of problem between us.’ That’s not confession, that’s appeasement. That’s not even an acknowledgement that we
did something wrong. I tell you what, if
that’s the way we repent to God, we have no salvation. What is it we repent to God? We acknowledge that we are sinners, we
acknowledge that we break his Law, and we acknowledge that we have a corrupted
human nature. Right? That’s, repentance is absolute
acknowledgement that my nature is corrupt, it is an abomination. We went through what the word means. That’s how it’s used. And that I am by nature your [God’s]
enemy. That’s what we repent of. See, when our neighbour comes to us and says ‘You’ve hurt me, you’ve offended me, you’ve
sinned against me,’ what we want to do at this point is defend our
corrupted image of ourselves. And that’s
why we have to acknowledge ‘If I’ve
sinned, I’d better make sure here, I’d better look and see if I’ve sinned,
because if I’ve sinned against this person, I’ve also sinned against God. ‘If
I’ve sinned against this person, I’ve also sinned against God.’ And therefore I have a requirement to
repent. The thing is, when we’ve sinned
against a person, we must repent to God, and we must repent to the person we
sinned against. We must confess
that sin, and we must repent of it. That
means you have to listen to that person, and understand the indictment, you
have to understand the accusation. We say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t start
coming here accusing me.’ And there
is a time when we have to deal with a false accusation. That’s another story. But when a brother or sister comes to us and
says, ‘You did this.’ We must stop and say, ‘Explain to me how I did that. Explain to me what happened, explain to me how you feel.’ Now sometimes you may find a simple
misunderstanding. And all you have to
say at some point is, ‘Oh, I get that, I
remember that now, you’re right, I did say that. Ah, it was like half a sentence, there is no
way you could understand what I meant.’ And you explain it, and the other
person goes, ‘Oh, ok.’ It’s amazing how sometimes offenses can be
just dealt with, by simply understanding where the offended person is coming from,
and be willing to acknowledge, ‘Oh, I
contributed to this.’ Now sometimes,
we contributed big-time. We actually
sinned against the other person, we offended them, we lied about them, we
slandered them, we said something terrible to them, we made a promise and
didn’t keep it. We made a business deal
and cheated them. Well there’s times
Christians do terrible things to each other. And we have to deal with those things when they bring them to our
attention. So even as the offender, when
someone approaches you, your first reaction with corrupt human nature, is to
try to control their response. ‘OK, ok,, ‘I’m sorry…you have to forgive me,
if you don’t forgive me you have a problem.’ No, we have to step back, stop trying to control their response, and
be analyzing ‘Where am I responsible,
what have I done? How must I respond to
this person? What is my response? What is my response?’
We Need To Seek God’s Solution Instead Of
Fulfilling Our Own Desires and Expectations
The
third problem we talked about, is then we need to seek God’s solution, instead
of fulfilling your desires and expectations. We must seek God’s solution, instead of trying to fulfill our personal
desires and expectations. Now this is
hard. Because I know my reaction. When someone comes to me, confronts me over
something, it’s hard because my very first reaction is, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, let me explain my side of the story.’ I have to say to myself ‘Don’t do that! Don’t do that!’ because we have to listen instead of
saying ok now you have to meet my expectations, we have to say [to ourselves], ‘Wait, wait a minute, I have to step back a
minute and meet that person’s expectations.’ Remember I gave you a series of questions to ask yourself, if you’re
the person who was offended? Let me give
you a series of questions to ask yourself if you’re the offender. If someone comes to you and says, ‘You’ve offended me.’ This is sometimes why you say, ‘Well explain to me, and let me think about
this.’ Or ‘Let’s set up a time where we can discuss this, because I don’t know
how to work this through.’
A Series Of Questions For The Offender To Ask
Himself
Question # 1, How
Did I Contribute To This?
The
questions you need to ask yourself: Did I sin against this person? Did I hurt them through ignorance? Has there been some kind of miscommunication
between us, and how did I contribute? The first thing you need to ask yourself is ‘OK, did I sin? Let me figure
out what I’ve done here. Was I just
being ignorant? I ignored the person’s
feelings, Here this person was having a
terrible trial, they just found out a relative died, and I’m cracking jokes,
and I hurt the person’s feelings. Wow, I
was insensitive, so I have to deal with that.’ Sometimes it’s just miscommunication,
sometimes we say the stupidest things. So the first thing is: How did I
contribute? Did I slander this
person? Maybe I shouldn’t have said that
about that person. Maybe I shouldn’t
have been so mean to them. You know, I
really did lose my temper with that person. I sinned. That’s the first question we should ask ourselves, instead of defending
ourselves.
Question # 2, How Must I Take Responsibility For My Actions?
The
second question is: How must I take
responsibility for my actions? How must
I take responsibility for my actions? And I tell you what, responsibility sometimes means restitution. We don’t think about that much. You know, if your neighbour, let’s apply this
to someone outside the Church. Your
neighbour comes over and says, ‘Ah, you
know your dog got loose and came over and impregnated my dog, and my dog is a
thoroughbred and your dog is a Hinds 57 mutt. [laughter] You ruined my dog.’ And our reaction might be ‘Come on, they’re dogs, I mean, thoroughbred
dogs, how dumb is that?’ Right? Dogs are dogs. ‘Well,
I’m sorry, I tell you what I’ll do, I’ll patch up that area, and I’ll keep my
dog on a leash so that he doesn’t get over there.’ We think, ‘Good, I made restitution.’ No you haven’t. You fixed how you
damaged your neighbour. Restitution
means you pay for the dog you ruined. That’s restitution. And the
Scripture requires restitution, if we are the offender. It requires restitution. Now, if that person
says, ‘I forgive you, it’s OK,’ wow,
that’s wonderful. If they don’t, you
don’t have the right and I don’t have the right to say ‘Boy, what’s wrong with those people? Charging me $300 for that stupid little poodle, I hate poodles anyways. They’re French, what’d the French ever
do?’ [laughter] No, our requirements, our
desire, understand this, as the offender, our desire should be ‘I will restore to you whatever damage I
have done.’ That’s Christian, that’s
Christian. ‘I damaged your dog, I’ll buy you a new one for $300,’ because you
are responsible for your actions.
Question #3, What
Lessons Can God Teach Me Through This Situation?
The
third question: What lessons can God
teach me through this situation? What
lessons can God teach me about how to treat other people better, how not to do
certain things, how not to sin, how to deal with the situation where somebody
has a false accusation, a situation where a person is angry with me and they
shouldn’t be? What lessons must I
learn?
Question #4, Am I
Being Defensive Because I Feel Threatened?
A
fourth question: Am I being defensive
because I feel threatened?---and that we have to say ‘OK, why am I feeling threatened?’ What image of myself am I trying to defend? It’s natural to feel that way. I feel that way every time someone approaches
me. You try to deal with that feeling of
being threatened. And sometimes you have
to tell somebody, ‘I’m going to have to
think this through, I feel threatened by this, I feel threatened by this.’ But why do I feel threatened? What image of myself am I trying to protect.
Question #5, Am I
Angry Because My Pride Is Injured?
And
then a fifth question: Am I angry
because my pride is injured? Am I angry
because my pride is injured? So a person
comes to you, they say ‘You’ve hurt me,
you’ve done something wrong.’ We
think about it, and say ‘You know what,
you’re right, I did wrong, let me apologize for that, I’m sorry.’ And you hug each other. And then the person walks away. And the next Sabbath they come to church, and
they’re ignoring you. And you say ‘Boy! That person didn’t forgive me, that person is a real sinner, and I’m
offended by it.’ But you have to
understand something. Trust is
earned. And when you and I break trust
with each other, it takes a very, very special person to
restore that trust right away. Most of
the time, it takes time to heal. It
takes time to heal. Proverbs 18, that’s
why Solomon wrote this proverb in Proverbs 18, Proverbs 18, verse 19, so just as we run through this enormous
responsibility on the offended person’s side, how we’re to act, how we’re to
work through the offense, how we can sin. Of course, most of the time when we are offended, we actually sin back. The Bible just talked about it over and over
again. One of the things that destroys
people as much as any other sin, is when you are the innocent person, and you
have been mistreated by a fellow Christian. More people probably have been destroyed spiritually by being the
innocent person who is offended and mistreated and sinned against by a fellow Christian
than anything else, because of the bitterness and the anger and the hatred that
forms. Let’s look at Proverbs 18:19, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” When you’ve offended someone, you must
give them the time to heal. And you must
now continually reach out to the person you’ve offended. You must continually reach out, and sometimes
you must take a little bit of abuse from them, to show that you are truly
sorry, you’ve truly repented, and you are not trying to hurt them in any
way. Trust is earned. And it takes a very special person that when
they forgive, they say, ‘OK, I trust you
again.’ Usually it takes time. We have to understand that.
Fourth
Point: As The Offender, You Must Seek To Help Heal The Other Person’s Damage
Emotions---Developing Sensitivity
The fourth point, is then as
the offender, you must seek to help heal the other person’s damaged
emotions. Remember these same five
points? Remember we said how what’s
remarkable about God, he’s the offended person? And yet all of his actions are actually trying to heal the
offender? God is trying to heal the
offender. God is trying to heal the
sinner. Well in this case, you’re the
sinner, you’ve hurt somebody, you’ve damaged somebody, and they come to
you. We now, try to heal them. We try not to continue to be offensive. And this is what is very important about even
the concept of being offensive. Jesus
Christ offended a lot of people in his ministry on earth. But I want you to understand something, Jesus
never offended anybody because of his meanness. Jesus never offended anybody because he was trying to manipulate them,
because they didn’t meet his expectations. Jesus never offended anybody because he was trying to project his rights
onto others. In fact, if he were to
project his rights onto others, he would have killed everybody on the face of
the earth, because he had the right to do so. By the Law of God he had the right to do so. Jesus never offended people because of his
ego-centrics, because he just didn’t care about other people’s feelings. When Jesus offended people, it was because he
told the truth from God’s viewpoint. And
there are times when we will offend people by telling the truth from God’s
viewpoint. That kind of offense must be
because the people are offended with God, they’re offended with the truth. I’ve seen over the years, many people use
God’s truth as a weapon to offend anybody they didn’t like. Or use it to make them feel superior to other
people. At that point, you’re offending
people for the wrong reason. You know,
there’s a very interesting little story here in Matthew 17, let’s go to Matthew
17. Matthew 17, verse 24, because this tells us a lot about
Christ’s approach. Matthew 17:24-26, “And when they were come to Capernaum, they that
received tribute money came to Peter,
and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? [this was the Temple tax] “He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house Jesus
prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom
or tribute? of their own children, or of
strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of
strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then
are the children free.” Now his argument is, if we are the sons of
God, we shouldn’t have to pay the Temple tax. But he doesn’t talk about tithes here. He’s talking about there was a special Temple tax. And he as the Son, he’s the Messiah, why
would the Messiah have to pay a Temple tax? I’m sure Peter, Peter didn’t respond. I’m sure Peter’s thinking, ‘I’m
not even sure what he’s saying, and usually when I say that, I end up in
trouble. So I’ll just keep my mouth
shut, ok.’ But it is his next
statement that he wants to lead Peter to. First of all he said, “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and
take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth,
thou shalt find a piece of money: that
take, and give unto them for me and thee.” Jesus said, ‘You know Peter, I don’t have to pay a Temple tax, but we’ll pay it
anyways, because we will not offend those people.’ This is the Creator of the universe, the
Creator of the universe said, ‘They won’t understand, so I’ll pay the tax
even though I morally don’t have to.’ Yes, Jesus offended people. But
he always offended them because they were offended with God, he simply told the
truth, and in telling the truth people can become offended with him and
God. Notice though his lifestyle, except
for the truth of God, everything he did, even when he didn’t have to, even when
it was an imposition for him to do so, he acted in ways that would not offend
other people. If the Creator of the
universe, we keep going back to Christ, in the ministry of reconciliation it’s
all about not only the work that God is doing through Christ, but the example
of Jesus Christ. We keep going back to
him. Everything takes us back to what
God is doing through Christ through the ministry of reconciliation. And we go back to, he’s saying, ‘Look,
Peter, you’re going to have to learn a lesson here, and that is, a lot of times
you do things just because it won’t offend somebody. Not because you have to, but because your
concern is not about offending the other person.’ Jesus never backed down. That’s where you and I have to learn, we
never back down from the truth, we never back down when we know doing the truth
is going to offend somebody. But will
still try to do even that in a manner that brings glory to God. [Comment: Peter was a rough, tough fisherman who had the reputation of having a
mouth on him, as the saying goes, what I would call a crass
fisherman-sailor. Having come off
submarines, I know exactly what that means, and find myself having to repent of
that element of blunt crass-honesty myself. To learn what type of people most of the
apostles were, because they had been fishermen, watch the movie The Perfect Storm. The definition of etiquette found in Emily
Post is that etiquette is merely having behavior that does not offend others,
it’s simply behaving in a manner that does not offend. You see, Peter, who would be looked upon by
the high-class society in Jerusalem as one
of those uncouth fishermen, could offend just by walking into a crowd and
just being Peter, just being himself.] And in the everyday actions of life, we try not to offend. How much more should that be in the Church,
that we try not to offend each other? Because, remember one of our premise statements, in the very first
sermon? “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of
God.” So here as the offender, as
the person who sinned, you’re going to say, ‘How
do I be a peacemaker? I’ve offended this
person, and they’re not letting go of that anger right away, they’re mad at me
for awhile, they’re upset with me, they don’t trust me. What’s their problem?’ Instead of doing that, our response should
be, ‘I offended that person, now what
must I do not to continue the offense?’ What must I do not to pile offense on top of offense? What must I do to help that person heal, I
have damaged that person, I wish to help them heal.’ Now you can’t, and I can’t always heal
each other emotionally. That takes God’s
help. But we already talked about going
to God for healing, if you’re the damaged person. You know, when we went through point four,
when we said you were the offended person, you have go to God for healing of
your emotions, healing of your mind. As
the offender, you want to reach out to that person.
Fourth Point In Our Series, One Of The Major
Reasons For Conflict: Pride
And
then that last point, where one of the major causes of conflict between us and
God and between us and each other is pride. And that means, as he offender, you and I must first seek humility. We must first seek humility before we can
even sometimes solve the problem we have with the person. And this may be the most difficult aspect of
repenting, is humility. Because, you
know, what we do, Genesis 3. Now when we
started in the first sermon, we came on back to certain points, where human
nature became corrupt because of what? They ate of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. So every human being became a mixture of good and evil. And because of that we have conflict with
God, and we have conflict each other, because we are a mixture of good and
evil. Now what happened right after they
did that? Let’s go back to Genesis 3 and
just look at the story. Genesis 3, for they eat of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Now up to
this point there has never been a lie told between a human being and God. There’s never been a lie told between a human
being and a human being, until Satan got to them, and convinced them. They have an immediate change of nature, they see everything differently. Look at verse
6, in Genesis chapter 3, “And when
the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her; and he did eat.” So that’s where we stopped in the first sermon, when we were reading
through this. But let’s read now the
immediate response of this, or what happened from this, the consequence. “And
the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons.” They had no embarrassment
as husband and wife from their own nakedness before this. They were very comfortable with it, it was a
good thing. If God says ‘I
made them male and female,’ and he made them without clothes, and he
introduced them to each other without clothes, and it says, God’s answer was
what? ‘This is very good. I’ve done something very good here.’ And the angels are saying, ‘How do you do this stuff?’ Immediately there’s a change in nature. There’s guilt, there’s wrong thoughts,
there’s confusion. Why? They have established themselves as gods. Up to this point, spiritually, they were
still in the image of God. They are now
corrupted images of God. And as
corrupted images of God, they’re mixing good and evil together, and internally,
inside their own minds and hearts, they’re becoming confused, they’re filled
with anxiety, shame. [Comment: That is why heresy, and when you find a
heretical website, is so dangerous. Because they are a mixture of good and evil, solid truth mixed with real
doctrinal error in the primary doctrines of salvation. There will always be differences in doctrinal
interpretation in secondary areas that don’t affect Salvation, but I’m talking
about primary doctrines, like when one says Jesus was a created being, instead
of being very God, eternally existent. Reading from such a site is like eating from a cake that has had arsenic
mixed with the flour before baking, it’s all poison, even though it still
tastes like cake, it’s deadly. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/What%20is%20Arianism.htm for an example and explanation of this form of ‘good and evil.’] Verse
8, “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day: and Adam and his
wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the
garden.” They needed a relationship with God, and now
their nature is what? So hostile towards
God, filled with such shame and guilt, that they hide from God. See how their nature’s changed? They’re all hiding from God, ‘He’s gonna get us, he’s gonna hurt us,
we’ve been bad,’ and they’re hiding. “The LORD God
called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” (verse 9) Remember it isn’t because God didn’t know
where they were. It’s like the little
child that’s hiding behind the chair, saying, ‘Daddy, find me, daddy, find me.’ They’re out in the open, covering their eyes, ‘You can’t see me.’ ‘Oh, where are you?’ We’ve all played that little game with
children, right? God says, ‘Well,
where are you?’ So he said, “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was
afraid, because I was naked; and I
hid myself.” (verse 10) He has fear,
he never had fear before, you know, shame. He saw new things, he never experienced anything like this before. He said, ‘I
also knew, there’s something wrong with my body, my wife, there’s something
wrong with us.’ There wasn’t
anything wrong with them before that point. “And he said, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I
commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” (verse 11) Now notice the initial reaction. Now pride comes in, ‘I can’t be wrong, the little god that I’ve made myself into, it’s not
my fault,’ lack of taking responsibility is the immediate corrupted human
nature reaction. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” ‘Now
remember, it’s the woman you gave me. You know, ultimately God, you really messed up here. I would never have eaten that fruit, but you
made her, it’s your fault and her fault, not my fault.’ But what happens here is pride, ‘I can’t be wrong, and even if I am wrong,
it’s really not my fault, somebody else made me do it.’ This is where we go. We don’t want to be wrong, but he had to
admit he was wrong, so what does he say? ‘I am wrong, I am guilty with
explanation,’ which in some points of law, you can be guilty, or not
guilty, or guilty with explanation. And
we all want to go before God and say, ‘Guilty
with explanation.’ I’ve actually
gotten with human beings who could never repent, because they blamed God for
their own sins. I’ve actually dealt with
people like that. ‘If God would never have exposed us to Satan, we would never have
sinned. It’s his fault we sinned!’ Ah, I don’t know what to say to somebody
after that. “And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast
done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” (verse 13) ‘And the woman said, ‘Satan, the devil made me do
it, it’s his fault. It’s really not my
fault.’ When someone comes to us, now
remember, they’re being confronted by God. ‘OK, we’ll say, I have to go
apologize to God. But when somebody else
comes to us, ‘OK, you’re right, you’re right, I’ve listened to you, this is
what you said, and you’re right, I shouldn’t have said that, but you know what,
it’s so hard to be around you. You’re
right I did that, but I did it because you just complain all the time and I
can’t stand it. Yes, you’re right, BUT
let me explain to you how bad you are, so that you can understand that I’m
really not bad in what I did.’ We
must take responsibility for our part. Now you don’t take responsibility for someone else’s part. But you must take responsibility for your part. How do we do that? Let’s turn to Philippians 2 here, the last
Scripture we’re going to go to. Philippians chapter 2, how do
we deal with pride? Well there’s another
little series of questions I want you to ask yourself, that I need to ask
myself on a regular basis. And sometimes
I fail. Philippians 2, verse 3, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” ‘let nothing be done through selfish
ambition or conceit, pride, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others
better than themselves.’ “Look not
every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” (verse
4) So if someone comes to you and
says, ‘You have sinned against me.’ You need to ask yourself a couple of
questions in relationship to these verses. 1. One, am I resisting taking responsibility for my actions because of
my need to appear righteous. Do I feel
that confessing will make others loose respect for me? Sometimes we just can’t admit because, ‘Well if I admit it, and they don’t take
responsibility, people will loose respect, that person will loose respect for
me. I can’t admit that I’m wrong.’ Well, the Scripture says we must. 2. Second question, am I resisting taking
responsibility for my actions because I see the other person as spiritually
inferior to me? ‘Yeah, I did something wrong, but let’s face it, do you know who that
person is? They’re really hardly barely
converted. Let me tell you about that
person’s sins, well I knew that person 20 years ago. So let me tell you about that person’s sins.’ And so we don’t take responsibility because
we actually believe, we don’t say it, but we know, in our hearts we believe
that that person is spiritually inferior to us. Am I willing to listen to the offended person, and strive to understand
his or her viewpoint? 3. And then the
last question, am I willing to take the offended person’s interest as seriously
as my own interests? ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, their interests as
serious as my own?’ Isn’t that what
Paul just said? How do you do that? Well, he takes us in the next verse, I’m
going to read this from the NIV, he takes us in the next verse to an example of
how to do this. So he says, ‘OK,
this is difficult, this is hard, so let me give you an example of how to do
this,’ Philippians 2:5-6, reading it from the New International
Version, so in verse 4 [of
Philippians 2] Paul says, ‘You should not look out only for your own
interests, but also to the interests of others.’ ‘OK,
this person says I’ve offended this person, I have my interests, I have my
feelings, I have my ideas. But OK, I
have to hold that person’s interests as equal as mine.’ Well how can you do that? Well Paul says, here’s how you do it. “Your
attitude” reading from the NIV, verse
5, “Your attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ’s,” Oh wow, he takes us right back to, he goes to
Jesus Christ’s example in every one of these cases we talked about, ‘let’s
go back to the example of the Person who has reconciled us to God, let’s go
back to him, his example, his reconciliation is what we do.’ “who being in very the nature of God” it says “in the form of God” in the
King James. But we think of a form like
an outline of something. That word
“form” has much more substance to it than that. And this is the translation, a more literal translation, “he was by very nature God.” You and I by nature are corrupted images
of God, who have received the divine nature as an act of healing. ‘He
was by very nature God, and did not consider it equality with God something to
be grasped, but made himself” it was a decision he made “he made himself nothing, taking the very
nature of a servant.” Yea, he could
have come as the conqueror of the Roman Empire, but he didn’t. He came as a servant, by nature. The nature of Jesus Christ, the divine nature
in flesh, was as a servant, being made in human likeness. “and
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on the
cross.” He says, his point here is,
if the sinless Son of God humbled himself by becoming by nature a servant, a
servant in a human body, when you’ve sinned against somebody, can we not humble
ourselves? Can we not humble ourselves
to confess, and try to bring peace to the person we’ve offended? Can we not do that? Can we not try to do that? We’re back to spiritual poverty here, aren’t
we. The concept we began in the first sermon. Humility and spiritual poverty before God are
the keys to reconciliation, whether you are the person who has been offended,
or you’re the person who has committed the offense. If you’re the person who has been offended,
or if you’re the person who has committed the offense, it still comes down to
that humility and spiritual poverty before God are the keys. Only after understanding the ministry of
reconciliation between God and yourself, carried out through Jesus Christ, only
then can we do what we’re going to discuss the next time. Where everybody wants to go when we talk
about this subject, everybody wants to say, ‘OK,
give us some means and ways to carry out reconciliation.’ Well we covered four sermons that give us
the attitude, the understanding, the example of God. So next time, we can finally now go through
methods, if you will, of reconciliation. [Transcript of the fourth sermon in the six part series on The Ministry
of Reconciliation, given by Gary Petty, Pastor the United Church of God, San
Antonio, Texas. Copyright © The United
Church of God. Source UCG site: http://san-antonio.ucg.org/sermons
related
links:
To
download the whole series on mp3,
“Ministry of Reconciliation” (6 mp3’s) see: http://mediafire.com/?dm82ak6v1c82m
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