The Trouble with Forgiveness

[0:00] John 17, that will be one of the key texts that we will be dealing with today. Do you guys ever have these kind of conversations with people that kind of stand out in your mind after several years?

[0:17] You know, just kind of either it's a funny conversation or it's an odd conversation. I have this one when I was in university. I had a friend kind of approach me and basically came up to me and says, you know, you have to forgive me.

[0:36] You have to forgive me. Now, I was totally unaware at the time of any offense that this person had for me, but they were kind of setting me up, right? You have to forgive me.

[0:48] And I simply asked the question, well, why do I forgive you? And he says, well, you're a Christian. I know you're a Christian. You go to church on Sunday. And because you're a Christian, you are supposed to forgive.

[1:04] It's kind of interesting we have that association, even by people who do not know anything about the Christian faith or know very little.

[1:15] If you were to take a survey of what people know about Jesus' earthly ministry, you will hear them tell you, tell me something that Jesus said.

[1:27] Well, turn the other cheek, right? We've all heard that. We've heard forgive as I have forgiven you. We know Jesus stated, forgive them for they do not know what they do.

[1:44] Forgive others their trespasses as your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Since the beginning of time, forgiveness has been a part of, I said the beginning of time, beginning of Jesus' ministry.

[1:59] Forgiveness was something that he spoke a lot quite often. If you and I happen to live in first century Israel, and we asked one of our religious leaders, whether it be a rabbi or a teacher, and you said to him, how many times am I supposed to forgive someone, they would say three.

[2:24] Three is the number of times you shall forgive. And you'd say, rabbi, why three times? Why only three times am I supposed to forgive?

[2:36] And they would generally tell you about Amos 1, which reads, Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because you have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.

[2:54] Basically, in the book of Amos has these judgments. I will forgive you three times, but not four, right? That seems the magic of the number. I shall forgive you three and four no more.

[3:05] So, you would get this understanding that the Pharisees at the time taught that actually forgiveness was optional, but the most you could forgive was three.

[3:18] Their logic simply being, well, God doesn't forgive more than three, so how could we as mortal men be expected to forgive more than that?

[3:29] There's this scene in Matthew 18, Jesus hanging out with the apostles. And Peter asked Jesus this question. He says, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

[3:50] And he says, as many as seven times. Now, we know Peter knows what the Jewish law states. Three times, four no more, right?

[4:02] So, he's kind of saying, you know what, Jesus, I'm a little bit generous here, right? Seven times. I'll forgive my brother seven times. And I bet he's kind of feeling pretty good because he's doubling the number.

[4:15] He's even adding one more to bring it to the quote-unquote perfect number of seven. He's feeling pretty good. But Jesus says something to him in verse 22.

[4:27] And I often wonder if Jesus says this with a smile. He says, I do not say to you seven times, but 70 times seven are you to forgive.

[4:42] Now, for those of you who are challenged like myself in math, right? I grab my calculator. I typed in 70 times seven. And I get 490 times that Jesus calls us to forgive someone.

[5:03] Does that sound right? Does common sense dictate that we should forgive someone 490 times?

[5:14] Right? Should there not be some kind of limit there? That with repeat offenders, there should be some type of barriers erected, some protective force field put around them, so we don't have to be sinned against them anymore?

[5:31] Common sense tells us there should not be 490 times a pardon. I wonder if Peter at this time is asking himself, is it even possible to even count as much as a high number for the offenses?

[5:59] I don't know you, but I try to act like I'm a Jewish rabbi at the time, and I go around and I give notes to people, Dave, you've offended me 18 times this month.

[6:10] Carl, you're up to 47. Save, you're in triple digits, buddy. I don't know what to tell you, right? But they were almost encouraged to take lists of how these offenses were committed to you.

[6:24] But Jesus is driving home this point. Keeping count has absolutely nothing to do with true forgiveness.

[6:36] If forgiveness has been freely given, it cannot be held against the offender. Jesus tells us in Luke 17, The number is not the issue here, but the issue is the freeness and frequency we are to forgive.

[7:13] Which begs this question. Who in the world would commit the same offense seven times in one day and then profess repentance after each time?

[7:30] Think about it. Who would do that? Who would sin against you seven times and come back and ask you to forgive? You know who the person is.

[7:43] It's you. You are that person. Doesn't this perfectly describe our behavior before God?

[7:55] Right? How many times do we sin, we go to God, please forgive me, only to find ourselves, whether it be one minute, one hour, two hours, committing the same offense, right?

[8:09] Whether it be feelings of frustration, anger, gossip, short-tempered. But we always come back, Lord, please forgive me. You know what he does?

[8:23] He forgives us. Right? He always forgives us under these circumstances. And I'll tell you what's so wonderful about this.

[8:34] is that since God's forgiveness sets the standard by which we are to forgive, the standard is blessedly high.

[8:44] Amen? It's blessedly high. And what may seem at first like an impossibly unfair and unattainable standard is absolutely wonderful news to us.

[9:01] Isn't it? Who doesn't want this? Last week, we are in the book of Philemon, and we will conclude tomorrow.

[9:12] But the last couple of weeks, we saw this life of Philemon. And if you weren't here, I'll give you a short background of what's going on. It's a short letter, but essentially, Philemon is a letter written by Paul to a man named Philemon, who's a Christian leader of the church of Colossae.

[9:30] He had this slave named Onesimus. This slave took off with something very valuable to him. I know in our culture, he's a slave who ran away. Yay! He got away.

[9:40] He broke freedom, right? But in the Roman culture of that time, 50% of the population we estimate, historians estimate, would have been slaves.

[9:51] Think of that. 50% of the population. And it came through different means. Some were born into slavery. Some were conquered countries. So in order to keep the peace inside the empire, you had to have strict rules.

[10:06] The rule was, if you're a slave, you're run away. Your owner has every right to put you to death. Simple. So we read in this letter that Tychicus, a friend of Paul, is dropping off this letter.

[10:20] And with that letter is this man named Onesimus. So Onesimus ran away, ran away to Rome to escape from the life of slavery, runs into Paul, hears the gospel of Jesus Christ, repents, is saved, and now is going back to Philemon, asking for forgiveness.

[10:39] Forgiveness. So we asked a question, how are we to receive someone who asks for forgiveness? That's what we looked at yesterday. And I kind of, or last week.

[10:50] It's what every week seems to me. It's just one Sunday after another. It's every day, right? You know, the first question, and we asked the question, is the person repentant? Because often, some people come to us, ask for forgiveness, but they're not necessarily, but we're not going to give them our full trust back right away, right?

[11:10] Sometimes we just don't know what to do. And Paul lays out in Philemon, some of the ways we can ask these questions. So the first is, is the person repentant?

[11:21] Have they truly turned away? Onesimus, by virtue of running away, now coming back under the threat of death, demonstrates that he's repentant. We also look, is the person transformed?

[11:35] Are they a different person? Paul in the letter describes Onesimus as being transformed. And third, the question is, is the person faithful?

[11:47] Have they changed as a person? They're just not going to be different with you. They're going to be different with others as well. So when we look at this, and we say, yeah, I really believe this person is forgiven.

[12:00] There's three things that we do. One, we receive them back in our lives. We should be joyful. When a friend of ours, family of ours, comes and says, would you forgive me? We're to embrace them.

[12:11] Amen? We want that relationship back. We're not going to say, hey, you're welcome in the house, my son, who ran away and took my car. But, six months, you can't touch my car.

[12:23] I got a scooter in the back you can use. And, you can only eat dinner after your mom and I are through. Right? You're kind of setting them in a lower peg. That's not what forgiveness is all about.

[12:35] He's got free reign. He's welcomed into the family. There's no punishment involved. We restore them like the relationship and like the sin had never happened.

[12:46] But, one of the things is, we also accept restitution. People who generally sinned against us, feel bad, and want to pay how they've damaged.

[12:59] Okay, I'm going to take a poll. This poll, I'm going to take right now, you can lift your hand to signify you agree. If someone sinned against you, is this the way you'd like it to go down?

[13:14] They sinned against you, they come to you, asking forgiveness, and asking to make it up. Is that what you guys would like to do? In forgiveness? Okay, your hands all should be up, right?

[13:27] I'm going to tell you right now. That's the perfect way, right? Your sin, if they come, they ask you forgiveness, and then they want to make up.

[13:37] And there's a few reasons why. One, it's really easy, right? They've admitted to the sin, they've admitted guilt, so it's not like you need to convince them or have some kind of conversation.

[13:51] You know, in the back of your mind, you actually might feel a little vindicated, right? I knew I was right. You know, there's no stress because there's no confrontation.

[14:03] And the best thing is, you have your friend back, right? They're back. Things can go back to being like they were, and that's the whole idea. Now, the question that I want to address to you today is, what happens if that person doesn't come to you asking for forgiveness?

[14:27] What happens if they don't even acknowledge that there's offense against you? Maybe they don't know they've wronged you. Maybe they do not understand your situation or why you're hurt.

[14:39] maybe they don't even understand that what they did was sin. So the question today that I want to answer is, what happens when the person who hurt us caused an offense and doesn't come looking for forgiveness?

[14:57] What happens when the person who hurt us caused an offense doesn't come looking for forgiveness? That's what I want to answer today. Now, I do so understanding that you've been here for the last couple of sermons.

[15:13] If you haven't, I'm going to talk to you about one specific thing. We have a great motivation to forgive. Like I alluded to earlier in the introduction, as much as Christ has forgiven us, so we are to forgive others.

[15:27] Amen? But our motivation is, we love the Lord. if you are a Christian and Jesus is your Father in Heaven, you love Him, you want to obey Him.

[15:38] You, as a Christian, should have a love for people, love for others, brothers and sisters of the faith. You should have a love for the church, this body.

[15:52] You should have a love for maturity for others. You want to be an example to those who are less mature than you, and ultimately, you want to love for God's glory.

[16:02] Amen? We want to see Christ glorified. So when we've been hurt and when we've been wrong, when we've been sinned against, we realize that there's a barrier against someone who's sinned against us.

[16:18] We aren't looking for them to come to us to prove that we are right. It's because we want God to be glorified. And why? What is at stake on this?

[16:31] Turn with me to John 17, verse 20. John 17, verse 20. As Dave alluded to, we have ushers who are willing to provide you with the Bible. But I want us to really get one specific point from this passage.

[16:47] This is the passage. This is going on the night before Jesus Christ is crucified. crucified. This is Jesus' last prayer, essentially, before he goes to the cross, where he goes to this garden, and he lays out his heart's desire before the Lord.

[17:10] John records it for us, starting in verse 20. Jesus says, I do not ask for these also, but he's talking about these disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

[17:28] So the biggest concern that Jesus Christ has is that the apostles, these men he's been building into for three years are going to take his message, the gospel, to the ends of the earth.

[17:42] Okay? That's the big mission. And he's laying it out and he says, that they may all be one.

[17:53] All right? His mission, my disciples, would all be one. And he says, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.

[18:04] So what Jesus Christ is saying, I need these men to be unified like I am unified with you, my Father. Okay? That's what I need my disciples to be.

[18:16] I need them to be unified so that the world may believe that you have sent me. That's huge. The reason I need my church to be one is so that people may believe that they are of God.

[18:35] The glory that you have given me, I have now given to them. And the glory is the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen? So I'm giving them to it. That they may be one even as we are one.

[18:48] He's reminding them again. As in them and you and me that they may be perfectly one. So that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

[19:03] The whole point of this is Jesus' reputation depends on unity. unity. Got that? Jesus' reputation depends on unity.

[19:15] Guess what unforgiveness does? It destroys unity. Notice the whole story that I began with. The guy knew somewhere in my faith because I was a Christian I had to forgive.

[19:32] That's the standard that Jesus Christ set. Imagine a church that is not unified in Christ. It is not a church.

[19:46] This is huge my friends. All of Jesus' ministry of the gospel of our witness depends on our unity.

[20:01] So when we are not united what do we do? Well if you notice I gave you an outline it's in your bulletin I encourage you to write in some of the words it will help you recall kind of help you follow but there's really just one point to this sermon.

[20:18] So what do we do when someone has caused an offense? We rebuke. Luke 17 3 tells us if your brother sins rebuke him.

[20:32] Now a lot of you guys are thinking wow rebuke that's kind of a heavy word right? Another word we could use is confront. Wow that's still kind of a heavy word.

[20:45] What does that mean? Well rebuke actually means to warn or counsel someone. To let them know in a loving manner you've sinned against me my brother or my sister or my wife or my husband that you have sinned against me.

[21:05] Matthew 18 15 says if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he listens to you you have gained your brother.

[21:19] So they haven't come to us that means we need to go to them. From these two passages we have a pretty explicit commands.

[21:30] if you've been sinned against go tell him his fault. Alright question for you. How does this make you feel?

[21:46] Nervous right? Anybody feels great? Feels great. Who loves to confront right? I can't wait to confront.

[21:56] Well for some of you the idea of confronting someone scares you to death right? Scares you to death. You do not want to confront.

[22:09] Others you can't wait to confront. Right? You just want to deal with it and you want to deal with it now. Well we usually confront in three different ways.

[22:21] There's three responses to confrontation here. The first response I've called the escape response. The escape response is the response to pretend like it didn't happen right?

[22:38] Didn't happen. Ah it really wasn't a sin doesn't matter right? It's to simply refuse to deal with the problem. Now I'll tell you what happens when you do that.

[22:51] When you hang out with that person again and they do that thing that annoys you or bothers you or they sin against you you know what happens bam a bomb goes off right?

[23:03] And then you get really upset with them and you kind of let them have it and they sit there I have no idea why you feel this way right? Because you've been putting it aside and it's like sweeping it under the rug right?

[23:15] And it just gets this big mound under the rug and the reality is they can't help but trip over it right? Generally it comes out with me if you know I've been avoiding talking to you about something maybe I shouldn't tell you because you'll know my tell but sometimes it comes out in sarcasm right?

[23:33] Oh Dave you're never late to a meeting right? you know it just comes out with some of those kind of pithy words and Dave's not late to meetings don't worry but that's how it comes out it just kind of comes out in those side effects and you guys who are married know exactly what I'm talking about right?

[23:55] Just those kind of jabs that you do to your husband or your wife so that's the first read you escape it you don't want to deal with it until it comes up again it can be like a nuclear bomb the second way is to run away it's called the flight right you may do this by ending a friendship quitting a job you might file for divorce or even leave a church because you do not want to deal with the issue that is there the problem with doing this this only postpones the proper solution to the problem and actually only make things work I think to leave for a temporary time is fine in order to organize your thoughts to pray and to think about it but it's not a biblical response to doing this so that's called the escape response we have both denial and flight the second response is what I call the attack response right this is done by people who are more interested in winning the conflict than in preserving the relationship right they're the people who show up and they've got this yellow page of all the things you've done wrong right and they're coming to get their goods right you've ever received a letter or written a letter like that right you've been so hurt you're just going to write it all out and

[25:20] I'm going to sit down and then you're wondering later how come they're not still friends with me right you see this attitude is seen as people who view conflict as a context or a chance to assert their rights right when we go into attack response we're actually saying we have the situation completely all figured out and I'm going to give you all the answers so you can have it figured out like me all right perfect story I used to live on this condo 19th floor and I had this balcony and I'm out with some friends and the balcony stood out so someone through some stuff on and I'm having dinner and right on the table like all over us I've never done this but man I was ticked so I go up I figure out what floor I'm like counting I go up and I'm like boom boom boom boom boom you know can you believe and

[26:23] I still got the stuff on me was like watered down paint and I'm like what in the world guy like I gave you like five minutes to come down and say sorry well it turned out it was this guy who was completely doing it by accident because his baby fell and he went to grab his baby and he didn't notice that the pail fell over right but here I went up thinking I was all right and I had every IDB offended of course the guy offered to you know I thought he had all figured out that is a perfectly evil wicked person that lives above me and they're trying to ruin my dinner let me give you some advice this is advice I have to teach myself all the time never speculate to other people's motives never speculate to other people's motives sometimes it's easy they've done it a hundred times and you know what their motives is but never speculate that's something

[27:31] I have to teach myself sometimes I think I've got them figured out I'll tell you why when we start to speculate to other people's motives and their bad motives this reveals in us a lack of genuine love and concern that's what it means I assumed the absolute worst of the person above me and he was actually a really nice guy but I assumed in that moment but when we're in conflict with someone until we actually get there we speculate right so how does someone who loves to attack well they usually do three ways to solve a problem they will assault they will use force or imitation intimidation they could be verbal attacks they could use gossip or slander against someone they could even threaten physical violence or do anything in order to damage a person financially or professionally right they're going to win that conflict no matter what the cost second way people sometimes go about it's called litigation they're going to sue them right they're going to force the person the courts of law to bend to their will the one thing that lawsuits usually accomplish is they break relationships and often fail to achieve justice people two individual groups

[29:04] I've seen this in a church doing it to one another can actually destroy the church and the third most extreme example to the attack response is called murder right you've been offended so much that you think revenge is needed and you murder someone so the first way that we've talked about is the escape response there's the attack response and today we're going to talk about the biblical response to confrontation to confrontation you see how conflict we're going to look at can bring God glory we're going to look at that going into conflict is not to win it's not to prove ourselves right and it's not to show other people how hurt we've been but before we can do this we need to determine if an offense is actually worth confronting over I really need you to understand a simple point today a simple point you guys ready it's really simple conflict is not bad okay conflict is not bad

[30:20] I know we tend to think that conflict is bad therefore we run away or we do something but God can do something really good rebuking or confronting can be good not just for them but for you as well okay some people choose and I'll tell you why they think that conflict is bad or confronting is so bad some people are really good at forgiving they really are right just release it it's gone they've been sinned against whatever I'm not going to let it bother me but I'm going to tell you what's wrong with that attitude that attitude is underscored by a presumption of innocence that exists right there's conflict between Dave and I Dave has done something to me I'm just not going to let it bother and

[31:21] I'm really right I'm not going to even think about it again but what I'm doing by saying that is I'm actually thinking I was right in that situation and I'm just going to let it go you know really it's Dave I love him I'm not going to let it bother me but there's this presumption of innocence on my part that I think that I am right I have all the right answers I had the right paradigm and I'm believing my own narrative okay and I'll explain why conflict usually happens because of four things one miscommunication one miscommunication right you got your times mixed up hey you're late you know I was here at five oh were you I thought you're supposed to be here at seven right just something and it just bugs you what happens when we have miscommunication we have unrealized expectations that's what it means we have this expectation that someone's going to act a certain way they don't because of miscommunication number two we have different differences in our values our goals and our priorities and this one's really interesting

[32:38] I had a friend who felt like a complete failure in his marriage especially relating to his extended family and they looked down on him and it's troubled him for years and it wasn't until later where I got to know some of the family and they had these quote unquote biblical expectations of everyone in their family but it turns out they were cultural expectations they weren't in fact biblical that they were actually holding him to a set of standards which were quite arbitrary which they didn't take the time to actually communicate to him so here's this guy feeling like a failure trying to make it up to this family all the time but it turned out that they had this criteria that was all out of whack and I remember saying you can't hold anybody to that because those are just your preferences he doesn't even understand what's going on right so we got to watch that so the third thing is why conflict happens is because of competition or time we both you know husband and wife want the same car there's only one car whatever happens to be the most valued event gets the car and the fourth reason why conflict happens is because of sinful habits right we're sinners you see when we choose to deal with issues between one another we will find that one of these four things are generally at the root it's either misunderstanding differences in values or competition over time and resources or sin but the reality is confrontation is not always about the other person confrontation is about us as well and you and I getting it right with God amen that's the whole point in that conflict in that confrontation it's getting it right with God sometimes we do not see what our hearts are about our hearts sometimes conceal our own selfish intent within us sometimes we find justification in our hearts which is not of the

[34:50] Lord and confronting others going to them in love to discuss the offense may bring about issues in our hearts that need to be addressed that's why confrontation can be a really good thing so notice when I began with Luke 17 and Matthew 18 talking about how we had to go confront we had to rebuke it's a command imperative but I'm going to tell you right now wisdom is needed wisdom is needed why wisdom let's be honest if we brought up every and for you guys who are married you will know this what I'm talking about if you brought up every single sin your spouse did how do you think things would go in the home be terrible right it's kind of interesting at seminary where I go there is a there's another university that they're affiliated with and there's this biblical counseling called soul care and we used to always laugh at the guys that were dating the girls who were taking the counseling classes because they were always talking about the heart's intent well what was your heart intent in ordering the steak over the fish you know it's just because that's what they're kind of getting into because that's the core issue is what is our heart's intent and the reality is we don't always know our heart's intent but sometimes we can go a little crazy with this and I have a friend married and he was taking the course and he meant well he wants his wife to be perfect before the holy spirit but I went over one time and she was a broken depleted woman she could do no right and you could see it on her shoulders and I remember just taking

[36:45] I literally said hey can we go talk and I went outside do you not see that your wife is a broken vessel right now like she is what's called exasperated because you're bringing up every issue of sin that's in her life and I simply asked him who made you the holy spirit that's the holy spirit's role a lot of the times so as much as scripture commands us to confront you know what else scripture tells us let me read you first Peter 4 8 says above all keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins amen proverbs 10 12 hatred stirs up strife but love covers all offenses proverbs 17 9 whoever covers an offense seeks love but he who repeats the matter separates close friends first corinthians 13 7 love bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things and proverbs 19 11 says good sense makes one slow to anger and it is glory to overlook an offense so you've got this friend spouse brother sister mom dad committed this offense these are the things you need to think about so how do you know if confrontation is called for so

[38:21] I'm going to give you four questions to ask yourself to see if it's called for all right the first one is is it dishonoring to God are they doing something that is dishonoring to God sin that is an affront to God cannot be overlooked especially if it can bring disrepute on God's glory and the church they're doing something that affects their Christian witness it needs to be addressed I'm not talking about them insulting a conviction of yours some which may be right but it might not be that serious but it may become so pray for the Lord to prompt them accordingly if they're involved in a scandalous sin you got to bring it up you can't hide it right Romans 2 23 24 says you can boast in the law dishonor God by breaking you who boast in the law dishonor

[39:24] God by breaking the law you're saying you're following after Christ but you're disobeying him in something that you're doing and you have a friend family member that's doing them you need to confront them you need to talk about that it says for it is written the name of God is blaspheme among the Gentiles because of you essentially the Romans had been living the Christian Romans at the time were claiming Christ but living so dishonorably that they were causing blasphemy what a horrible testimony right number two the other second question asked is it damaging to your relationship is it damaging to your relationship and this can be subjective however minor offenses done time and time again can affect relationships can they not remember the point is it's not going to them with an offense but we want to bring harmony to one another could be a simple thing as coming home and your spouse not wanting to listen to you but they want to tell you all about your day you ever been in those situations right you got something to share but they're kind of covering you know and sometimes you just might have to say honey

[40:39] I love you can I share too because some people who are always one sided that other spouse just doesn't feel like they're part of the relationship over time that can be very damaging you might want to tell a friend hey man you're just not listening to me man I've just told you something really big but you've just gone off to the next thing I need you to stay here Proverbs 27 5 6 says better is open rebuke than hidden love faithful are the wounds of a friend profuse are the kisses of an enemy so sometimes it's our closest friends are going to tell us the most meaningful stuff right and it's hard so you have to deal with an issue confront them if it's damaging your friendship if you find yourself not wanting to hang out with them not talking or you feel tempted to gossip about them you got to deal with that right away right third thing question you need to ask is it hurting others is it hurting others it's with you about my friend and his wife right what he was doing was damaging even though he was doing it he thought in good intent and all those things that he thought that he supposed to do when he get married it was actually hurting her and imperiling her and the damage to their relationship would be grandiose so we had to have that talk it also can be we see someone who has uncontrolled anger with their children doing something that's going to damage them it is our duty to sit down and have a talk with them right we love them the reality is

[42:28] God loves justice and sometimes we may see someone suffering at the hands of someone else we're called to rebuke to confront to bring wisdom counsel Jeremiah 22 3 says thus says the Lord do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed and do not wrong or violence to the resident alien the fatherless and the widow nor shed innocent blood in their place and the fourth reason why we confront is it hurting the offender is it hurting the offender Galatians 6 1 says brothers if anyone is caught in any transgression you who are spiritual shall restore him in a spirit of gentleness keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ the word the word the word that stands out in the word caught in case you did not understand sin is actually an active force

[43:37] Hebrews 12 actually talks about those who are caught in sin and the analogy being used it's like a vine that's growing and it's trying to intertwine the person to hold them back an example my friend let me use his computer one time and I found this porn stashed looking for something right I was just maybe 28 29 at the time and I had a talk with them right that was a hard talk hey brother thanks for letting me use your computer but I came across something you want to tell me what's going on in your life you know if we are open and we really love something we will pick up certain things about our friends that we love and their sin will hurt them their sin will drown them and their sin will try to kill them we need to protect our friends and those that we love this may include doctrinal error moral failure repeated instances of the same offense over and over and over destructive tendencies last couple years had to talk to a friend who was going through a hard time but he loved to have a glass of scotch you know but that glass of scotch never really stopped at one glass of scotch right he was self medicating that was a tough he went through a tragic incident in his life there's one instance which

[45:19] I failed to stop a friend was I had a young friend in my college minister who grew up and he started working out getting really big and he was working at a gym and a lot of women started paying attention to him and started talking to him and it led to into the descent of drug and horrible sexual sin and there was about 20 of us in our group and no one's heard from him since he's just gone down a life of debauchery and we should have asked him to quit working there we knew it was tempting for him he was young so we've asked ourselves these four questions right is it detrimental to your relationship is it detrimental to the Lord is it hurting others and is it hurting defender how do we know when we are ready to do the confrontation one make sure your intention is to glorify

[46:19] God right that's what we talked about from Philemon it's to glorify God number two before you go make sure you get that log out of your own eye right sometimes we want to confront someone yet hey man you're just going to their response hey that's just the pot calling the kettle black man you're doing the same thing if you're that guy don't do it get that log out of your own eye submit yourself to God first three do it gently we're supposed to do it in love the whole idea of Matthew 18 in confrontation is all wrapped in love amen it's gentleness it's kindness we want the best for them we want to see them run one back from their faith to their faith and fourth the goal is reconciliation we don't go to win an argument we're not going to show them how bad they hurt us or how bad they are we want to make them feel bad we're doing it so we can win that friend back right we want that friendship that relationship restored and ultimately we need to pray to God to instruct us on what the most winsome and effective way to approach a particular person at a particular time and to open the way to genuine reconciliation some stuff

[47:35] I wait on there's been issues I've waited on months because I knew I couldn't do it in the way that I needed to before the Lord I love them but it was still my anger my frustration so on this subject the issue often comes out what about non Christians what about those people in my family co workers that are non Christians often when there are family members we have very high expectations of them do we not we expect them to get our faith but often they do not I give you this verse Romans 12 18 which commands us to live at peace with everyone that we can don't push it you continue to push it and they have not been redeemed by God and they haven't experienced forgiveness by the Lord Jesus they just might not get it that's okay do what you can to make that relationship work lower your expectations and continue to pray do not dwell on the past sins or anything thereof else pride will capture you let me pray for you that make sense to you guys

[48:54] I hope that's helpful I know that was a big question that has come up hey I know how to deal with things I thought we'd spend some time what does the Bible call us to do a hard thing to do all right let me pray