There are many questions you are faced with every day.
We are all searching for answers that will make a real difference in our lives.
It's hard to imagine that these answers might be right in front of us.
Get ready to discover answers in the Bible with Bayless Conley.
Hello friend, welcome to the broadcast today.
We're going to be talking about how to gain your brother without losing yourself.
You know, when someone has been offended it can be harder to win them then to take a walled
city.
But Jesus gives us instructions to win an offended brother, an offended sister without
you going down the drain yourself.
So if you've got a Bible why don't you grab it.
We're going to get into the Word of God together.
This is going to be good!
My wife and I are both going to be sharing with you today.
I'm going to start, and then she's going to come up, and then I'll come back up and
close it.
We're both going to be sharing from Matthew, chapter 18.
If you happen to have a Bible or an electronic device that has the Scriptures on it, why
don't you open to Matthew 18, if you would.
And I think some of the things that we're going to share are so important when it comes
to relationships and yet it's some of the most difficult ground to traverse when it
comes to having right relationships with people.
You know, I come, on my dad's side of the family, from good West Virginia hillbilly
stock.
And there is a bit of a stubborn streak that runs in the Conley side of the family.
Uhm, my great, great grandmother, Grandma Steel, uhm, she got in an argument with her
husband, with my great, great grandfather.
Uhm, the family still debates a little bit over what the argument was about.
But I think it had something to do with she didn't want to have any more kids.
And so they got in an argument, and she packed up her stuff, left their little humble abode,
crossed over the dirt road and up the holler where they had a little like a one-room cabin.
And she set up her home in there.
Spent the night.
Next morning she came down and fixed Grandpa Steel's breakfast, tidied up a bit, then
walked back across the dirt road up the holler to her little cabin.
And she didn't say anything to him, didn't speak to him.
And that carried on for the next 20 years.
Until she died, she never spoke another word to the man.
That is not the best way to respond to conflict to just sort of cut people off and to not
talk to them, anymore.
But that's what she did.
And we're going to talk a little bit about responding to conflict and when people sin
against you.
And there are actually some astonishing, shocking words that Jesus spoke when He talked about
what we must do.
And here in Matthew 18 after cautioning the disciples about not giving offense to others,
not sinning against others, He began to teach them on how to respond when offense was given
to them, when others trespassed against them.
And at the heart, at the very core of what Jesus teaches throughout this chapter is rescuing
a relationship, trying to restore a broken relationship.
And He even used the analogy in the context of when someone sins against you: You've
got a hundred sheep, one of them strays; you go after that one sheep and rescue it and
restore it.
And He actually, in this context, was talking about a relationship that was broken, that
you should value it enough that you actually get proactive and go after it to try and redeem
it.
So we're going to pick it up in verse 15.
If you would look there with me, if you would.
Matthew 18 and verse 15,
"Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and
him alone.
If he hears you, you have gained your brother."
Now right there is the goal: to gain your brother… without losing yourself, but to
gain your brother.
Not to gloat over your brother, not to prove that you were right and your brother was wrong,
but the goal is to gain your brother, to gain your sister.
Now he didn't say, "If your brother sins against you, cut him off and never speak to
him again."
In fact, it says, "Go to him."
Jesus said the injured party is the one that should go.
And I know our natural response is, "Wait a minute!
You know, he's the one that sinned against me!
He needs to make the first move.
He knows what he did.
I'm not moving an inch.
He needs to come to me."
No, Jesus said, "If your brother sins against you, you go to them."
And it's always the more spiritual person in a relationship… in a marriage or whatever…
that seeks reconciliation first.
So I think husbands and wives should probably have a race to see who can repent first and
ask for forgiveness first.
It's always the more spiritual one that does it.
But Jesus also says this just because of the value that God places on relationships.
And He said, "Do it between you and that person alone."
No one else needs to know.
Keep it between you.
But sometimes what people do, instead of going to that person alone, they go to everybody
else and talk about what that person did to them: "Well this is what they did," and
so now everybody's got this bad opinion, a tainted opinion.
And what that does is, actually, it makes the breach even wider and makes it all that
more difficult to restore or regain the relationship.
Listen to these words, Proverbs 25 and verse 9.
It says, "Debate your case with your neighbor and do not disclose the secret to another."
Now if he hears you, Jesus said you've gained your brother.
One of the greatest things I've ever learned in my life is that God is smarter than I am.
And, you know, though His way may go cross-grain to my flesh, it's the best way.
You know, years and years ago I had written a book.
I was pretty excited about it, and I worked with a company, some people that I knew, to
get it published.
They did all the typesetting.
Back in those days it wasn't all done by computer.
It was the old way to do it.
And they had actually put a rush job on it because there was a big convention coming
up and the guys that were leading the convention said that they really wanted to showcase the
book that I'd written.
They found out what the subject was, and they said, "Look, this is what the church needs."
And so the guys I worked with, they really bent over backwards and worked extra hard
to get it out on time.
And when I got the first copy, I perused it; and to my astonishment, they had changed something
without informing me.
It wasn't a big thing, but they just had added a parenthetical explanation of something
I had said because they felt it wasn't clear.
And I blew my stack!
I got so mad!
I went off on the guy.
I mean, I just went off on him.
I said, "You know, what are you doing?
This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen!
This didn't need to be explained."
And I just got really, really angry.
And to his credit, the guy who is the head of the organization didn't go and talk to
other people about my reaction.
He didn't go talk to a bunch of other people in the industry, said, "Look, don't work
with that Bayless Conley guy.
You know, he's an ungrateful idiot."
He didn't do anything like that.
He came to me, personally.
In fact, I remember over lunch he said, "Bayless, your reaction was really upsetting."
He said, "We worked extra hours.
We bent over backwards.
We gave you extras and did things that you didn't even pay for.
And you zero in on this one thing that you don't like and you get all mad about that
and you go off on me."
He said, "Frankly, I'm offended."
And, you know, when he shared it with me, it's like, "Duh.
Of course.
You're right.
I'm an idiot."
And I just said, "Look, I am so sorry.
You are right.
Will you please forgive me?"
I remember sitting there with our iced teas on the table in the restaurant begging for
his forgiveness.
And he forgave me, and it brought closure to it, and the relationship was actually restored.
We remained good friends and did a lot of work together, you know, throughout the years.
But he did the right thing.
It says, "If your brother sins against you, go to him (go to her) alone and get it sorted
out."
You might say, "Well, what if I go to them and share and they won't listen?
What if it doesn't go well?"
Step 2: Verse 16,
But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that "by the mouth of two or
three witnesses every word may be established.'
All right, you take one or two witnesses with you.
Now a witness is somebody that has seen something, somebody that knows something.
Maybe they saw the event in question.
You know, they are, in a firsthand sense, aware of the transgression.
Or maybe it's just somebody that they have observed a pattern of behavior in that person.
And you can bring them along, and they can say, "Look, you know, you know us; we know
you.
This is something, frankly, that we've seen you do a number of times."
And the idea is that every word may be established.
They realize you are not just spouting off that there is some substance to what you are
saying.
And, again, the object is not just to prove that you're right.
The object is to gain your brother and to restore the relationship.
Now you can also look at it in this sense.
Maybe it's somebody that doesn't have firsthand knowledge of the situation, but
you bring a person along just in case things go south and that it's not well received.
At least that other person can say, "Look, I can testify that he came in a right spirit.
You know, he came in a spirit of humility and laid out the grievance, and there wasn't
animosity.
He wasn't looking for vengeance.
And this guy just refused to hear it."
And sometimes it can be handy to have someone there as a witness to the conversation as
it plays out.
You know, I, as young Christian, I didn't have a lot of Christian friends, at least
my age.
Most of them were ancient.
The Christians that I knew, everybody that went to the church that I was at, they were
all really old.
And I did have a couple people that were close to my age.
And this one person that I really esteemed the relationship… because I'm a new Christian
and I didn't have many people to relate to in my new life.
And, you know, most of my old crew, they all were up to their eyeballs in drugs and illegal
activity and a bunch of stuff that I kind of needed to distance myself from.
And I found out that this new friend of mine had lied to me in order to maneuver me into
a position so they could gain a particular advantage.
And I was just devastated!
And I just…
I talked to them, and they sort of felt that the end justified the means.
I said, "But, bro, I don't feel like I can trust you.
I don't know how to go forward in the relationship.
You know, you don't even think that this is a bad thing.
But, to me, it's everything."
And they just wouldn't see it.
And I said, "Look, what if we call this guy from the church."
I said, "Do you trust him?"
They said, "Yeah."
I said, "Okay, let's do it."
We called this guy up about 10:30 at night… he had a night shift at the local foundry…
and said, "Look, I want to make an appointment with you.
So-and-so and I, we've had bit of a disagreement, and we need somebody to referee."
And he said, "Come to the foundry now."
I said, "Look, you're working.
We can wait until tomorrow."
He said, "No, I put in a lot of extra time.
My boss will give me off."
We went out to the foundry, got there about 11:15 at night, and they provided a little
room for us.
And, you know, I laid the whole thing out; the other person said their piece.
And, you know, I was glad he said, "Look, Bayless is right.
You know, he's a hundred percent right in this.
What you did is wrong."
But he went on to just talk about the value of the relationship.
And he said, "This isn't worth you guys going separate ways over."
And he actually prayed us through.
I remember us bowing our heads and praying in that little coffee room or whatever it
was at the foundry.
And he prayed us back into a right relationship with one another.
I was glad to have an extra person.
And Jesus said, "Look, if they won't hear you, bring one or two more."
Now what if Step 2 doesn't work?
What if it's still not well received?
What if they refuse to hear even with a witness or witnesses there?
Step 3, verse 17:
And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.
But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax
collector.
Meaning a corrupt tax collector.
Now when He said, "Tell it to the church," that doesn't mean you get somebody to stand
up in the pulpit and say, "All right, let it be known to all that Joe Brown borrowed
Max Green's lawnmower.
And when he brought it back, it was broken and there were parts missing, and he has refused
to pay for it."
Save that stuff for Judge Judy.
He's not talking about putting it in the church bulletin; He's not talking about
shaming that person before the church.
But just bring it to those that have been authorized to hear those sort of matters and
judge concerning those sort of matters.
And listen, don't run after me and say, "Okay, Pastor, I…"
We've got people that can hear that stuff and they can help sort it out.
And, again, the whole idea, it's redemptive.
It's not just to be punitive.
Tell it to the church.
You know, even in First Corinthians there's a story of a guy that had gone off the rails.
He had actually taken his stepmother away from his father and was living in open sin
with his stepmother and coming to church… you know, like sitting on the front row.
And Paul writes in First Corinthians, "Look, you guys need to do something.
You need to administer some church discipline and get this thing taken care of."
It was very serious.
And they did.
But it wasn't merely punitive.
It was redemptive.
You read in Second Corinthians Paul brings up the subject again, he says, "Look, the
guy has repented.
Receive him back lest he be swallowed in sorrow."
The guy, he did come to his senses; he did repent.
He did come back to right relationship with God and did want to be reintegrated into the
church fellowship.
So Jesus said, "Step 3: Tell it to the church.
But if he refuses to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a corrupt
tax collector."
One translation says, "Treat him as you would treat someone who does not know God."
And I know some people are thinking, "All right, finally.
You know, cut him off!
Don't have anything to do with him.
Despise him.
This guy's like a heathen."
Well, I don't think it means that.
We're not called to hate the unsaved.
We're called to love them and to try and win them and to minister grace to them.
They may be acting like somebody that doesn't know God, all right, well, I'm going to
endeavor to win that person through acts of kindness.
You know, that's how the Scripture tells us to deal with the unsaved.
It doesn't say God so hated the world that He ground it to powder.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
And, you know, The Message Bible actually takes a fair bit of liberty with this verse.
But I think it captures the spirit of it.
It says this: "If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch.
Confront him with the need for repentance and offer again God's forgiving love.
Now if they remain obstinate and unyielding at this point, perhaps all you can do then
for them is pray."
But that is no little thing, and that's the next thing that Jesus says to do.
Verse 18,
"Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever
you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
"Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask,
it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."
Jesus, in context, is talking about gathering together to pray a prayer of forgiveness.
You've been through the whole process.
So it's going to be you, it's going to be those witnesses, it's going to be the
people that were delegated in the church that are aware of the situation.
You gather together and you pray.
You pray and release that person.
You forgive them, and you pray that they'll come to their senses and that the relationship
can be restored.
And Jesus started off, "Whatever, you know, loose on earth, loosed in heaven."
Well, you know, He uses the same word down just a few verses later because He goes into
this parable of this guy that racks up this huge debt to a king, an unpayable debt.
And when he begs for mercy, what does the king do?
The king has compassion and releases him from that debt.
The word "release" is the same word translated "loose".
In fact, the Old King James Version said, "he loosed him from the debt."
Jesus is talking about a prayer of forgiveness.
I over the years have probably seen just about everything.
Every once in a while something new comes up.
But mostly it's just recycled stuff that happens.
And uhm, not the first time, not the only time it's happened, but there was a situation
where, you know, somebody in the church… and I actually knew all the people involved,
so I got pulled into it, sort of, in the end stage.
And there was a major disagreement that talked about the one person was just unyielding and
so witnesses were called in, actually, people that did have intimate knowledge of the situation;
the person refused to hear.
I happened to have knowledge of the situation, but I came in as sort of the church stage,
and the person still refused to hear it.
Got mad at me, got mad at everybody else involved and actually left the church mad.
I hate it when that happens.
And they actually didn't just leave, themselves.
There was a bit of collateral damage when they left.
They took a few other families in their wake as they went out.
They had believed a lie and wouldn't see the truth of the situation, and they just
left.
And, you know, we grieved over it, you know, grieved over the relationship that had been
broken over the other families that had been fed some things that were actually quite far
from the truth.
All we could do at that point was pray.
And so we gathered together with all of the people that had been involved, and we forgave
the person.
And we just prayed that God would open their eyes, that they'd recover themselves out
of the snare of the devil, as Paul talks about elsewhere.
You know, return to their senses.
And, you know, nothing happened for a week, nothing happened in a month, nothing happened
in a year.
But Jesus said, "If two of you agree, it shall be done."
It may not be done the way we want it to be done; it may not be done on our timetable;
but, my friend, do not scoff.
Things happen in the corridors of heaven when we agree together in prayer.
It was about three years later I was in a store one day; and, low and behold, there's
the person that had caused all the problems.
And I walked up to him and said, "Hey, how are you doing?
I've really missed you!"
And they hung their head down, and it got real uncomfortable for about ten seconds,
and then they looked up at me and said, "Pastor, I need forgiveness."
I said, "You do?"
He said, "Yeah, you know, when I left the church and took the other people with me,
you know, I was mad.
But I realized I was wrong.
Everything that we thought was true, I have come to find out that it was not true.
And myself and the other people I took with me, we were completely in the wrong.
Please, please forgive me."
I said, "Of course."
And we had a wonderful time of fellowship there.
The relationship was restored.
That's a great value!
Now they're not back in church yet, at least at Cottonwood, and I hope one day that that
happens, but some of you may be at a point that all you can do is pray.
Do not underestimate the power of your prayers.
Jesus said God will work.
Somebody says, "All right, but what if instead of repenting for the offense done, the person
starts repeating the offense?"
Well, you know, Peter was thinking the same thing.
Verse 21:
Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and
I forgive him?
Up to seven times?"
Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."
In other words, don't even start counting.
You know, if you start counting up, you're already in trouble.
You've got something lodged in your heart.
In fact, Jesus, in saying this to Peter, was making reference to an event that happened
in the Old Testament.
Peter, being a Jew, would have been very, very aware of what Jesus was saying.
In Genesis, chapter 4, there was a guy named Lamech.
He was the very first man that broke God's principle of one husband, one wife.
Lamech took an extra wife.
He's the first one of the Bible to do it.
His first wife's name meant ornament.
His second wife's name meant shadow.
She was just sort of on the side, in the shadows.
And this guy, Lamech, was a piece of work.
And we find in Genesis 4:23 he's bragging and boasting to his wives.
Listen to what he said.
Genesis 4:23, "Then Lamech said to his wives: 'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of
Lamech, listen to my speech!
For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'"
Jesus making reference to Peter by making that statement.
He's basically saying, "Peter, in the old way, in the old covenant, it was multiplied
vengeance.
But I'm bringing a new way to you.
And the new way I'm bringing is multiplied forgiveness because God places multiplied
value on relationships.
Thank you for watching Answers with Bayless Conley.
Bayless will continue with part two of his message next week.
You know, one of the greatest lessons to keep in mind is how God has dealt graciously with
us.
How Christ has washed away our sins.
How He doesn't count up all of our faults and our failings against us.
And then to endeavor to love other people the same way that God loves us.
I think it's when we forget about God's mercy toward us that we don't extend mercy
toward others.
So some of you that are watching, you need to go back and rethink how merciful the Lord
has been with you.
And then extend that mercy to someone else.
You will be blessed as you do it.
We take special care of the things that are most valuable to us so that they last.
We find the best ideas for successful relationships in the Bible.
In The Ten Commandments for Marriage, Bayless Conley unpacks God's Ten Commandments in
the Old Testament to show why these sacred vows between God and His people can provide
the basis for a stable, lasting marriage today.
Try it out!
It's worth it.
Thank you for watching Answers with Bayless Conley.
For more information and inspiration, visit AnswersBC.org.
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