Taking Offense

I had three different subjects I was working on for the sermon. So I went to my wife and I said, which of these subjects would you like to hear about? And she picked this one, which surprised me. But in another way it didn't because of something she said. She said, you know, you haven't touched on this particular subject. You know, we've been here four years and you have hardly touched on this subject. There's other subjects you've covered quite a bit. And she said, so I think we should you should cover this. And I started thinking about it in terms of even what we covered last week, where we talked about our conscience. How our conscience is developed and how important that is to understand that we have to actively participate with God. We have to actively participate with His Holy Spirit that He gives to us in order to have a conscience formed. That this isn't just something that happens, it's not natural, that's actually developed in us with our participation in it.

What I want to talk about today is something that I've seen many, many, many times over the years.

And that is a person in a congregation gets offended by another person. Now, if you're in a congregation long enough, you're either going to offend somebody or be offended. And or both, most of us have been on both ends of that at one corner or another, where you've been offended by somebody, or you offended somebody. And I've seen people become so distraught over being hurt by another church member that they literally left the congregation. Occasionally, it actually causes them to doubt their faith. Because how can a Christian treat another Christian that way? They must not be Christian. Or, you know, they come into the church. Sometimes people, when you come into the church, you have this idea that everybody's perfect, and you find out they're not. And it's like, well, this can't be God's church. These people aren't perfect.

And as I've said many times, just read 1 Corinthians, and you'll be so thankful for the congregation you're in. So what do we do when somebody in the congregation has really mistreated us? We feel mistreated. Now, I say we feel mistreated because part of the process is being able to figure out whether I've been mistreated or whether I'm just being oversensitive, or maybe the person isn't mean. They just don't understand. They don't know what they've done. And that's, there's a lot of things we could talk about. We're going to narrow it on a few things today.

I've talked about forgiveness. I've talked about a number of things in the time I've been here, but I've never gone through this particular passage. What we're going to look at today is Matthew 18. Basically, we're going to do a Bible study on one chapter in one of the Gospels. But it's a remarkable chapter because Christ is talking to His disciples and explaining to them how they are to deal with being offended or being the offender, okay, when you've hurt somebody, when you have somebody upset with you. It's interesting when you go through this and really study it, and you think about even husband and wife, our obligations, and how they are in being the offender and the offended person. Because in a marriage, sometimes you're the offender and sometimes you're the offended. And how are we to deal with that other person as a Christian? And that's why this sort of ties into what I talked about as far as conscience last week. Because remember I talked about conscience isn't based on emotions. You train your conscience, and the emotions follow. If we base our conscience entirely on emotions, we end up in real trouble. What we have to do is base it on an objective standard of God, and that's what develops our conscience. And then, because of that, we're able to actually then emotions follow that. We feel guilty for the right reasons, not for the wrong reasons, and that motivates us to do something right. Or we are sensitive to certain things that we used to not be sensitive to. So let's go to Matthew 18, and let's start our study on Matthew 18. It appears that most of Matthew 18 was actually given at the same time. In other words, he was talking to his disciples, and this is a very sort of a long conversation that goes on here with him discussing these issues. The last part of the chapter is hard to tell whether it was actually given at that time or later, but it's attached. In other words, it's all put together because it's all one concept that he's dealing with. Verse 1 of Matthew 18, and at that time, the disciples came to Jesus saying, who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Now, this is going to start...

Jesus is going to take this in a whole new direction than what you think He's going to do, because the question is, which of us is going to be the greater? You know, who gets the best rewards here, and how do we determine how we get the better rewards?

In the kingdom. And Jesus called a little child to Him and sent Him in the midst of them. Now, I want you to visualize this. You've got this group of men around Him, 12 men, who knows how many other people, but it's basically those men that are having this discussion. And they're saying, who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom? And He looks, and there's a little child, and He says, come here, a little child runs over. And Jesus picks up a little child. And He says, assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted, or you are changed, unless you are converted and become its little children, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

So He brings over a child. Of course, a child is absolutely dependent on adults. A little child is not fighting to be who's in charge because they're dependent on adults to take care of them for everything. They're food, they're very life.

He says, unless you are converted, and of course we understand that that has to do with God's indwelling in the spirit, unless you are changed and you become like this child, totally dependent on God. Totally dependent on God.

And this humility before God, unless you have this kind of humility, you're not going to be in the kingdom of God. And the ones with this kind of humility, and his total dependence on God, and their grasp of that total dependence, He says, they will be the greatest in the kingdom. And then He makes this next statement.

Verse 5, whoever receives little children like this one in my name receives me. Now that had to be a startling statement, because remember, He's using the child here as an object. Listen, okay? Now we're supposed to take care of children. So they would have understood that. In the Jewish culture, you took care of children. You didn't abuse children. Children were special. They were a gift from God, and you took care of them. And He said, unless you, as these grown men, unless you become like a child in your dependency on God, and then He said, whoever accepts these little ones. So now He's talking about other children of God. He expands this out. As we're going to see in a minute, this child becomes an object lesson. He says, if you receive them, you receive me.

How we deal with each other in the Church isn't just some kind of social interaction. How we deal with each other is how we understand Jesus Christ. They're related.

They're related. Keep a marker here. Let's go to 1 John 1.

I don't want to get too much out of Matthew 18 because there's so much to cover here, but there's a couple other places we'll go to to fill in a thought. 1 John 1.

2 John 3.

If we say we have fellowship with Him, with Christ, with God, if we say we have fellowship with Him, He says, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, Christ walks in the light of the Father, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. So He says, if we're walking in the light of God, and we have fellowship with Him because of Christ, we have fellowship with each other. When our fellowship is damaged, it is because we're not in proper fellowship with God. You can't separate these things. If we have fellowship with God, we have fellowship with each other.

You know, sometimes I've heard people say it'd be a whole lot easier just if I could live myself, by myself, in my house, and not have to be part of a church because it's so complicated, and it'd be a lot easier to do that than have to interact with other people.

But that's not what we're called to. We're called to an assembly.

Ecclesia. We're called to an assembly. And if we are the family of God, then we are a family, and therefore our interaction, our fellowship with one another, is important. So much so that Jesus Christ tells His disciples, when you take care and you bring in and you have a right relationship with one of these little ones, then you have a right relationship with Me. If you receive them, you receive Me. And the implications of that is, if you don't receive them, you don't receive Me.

If we mistreat each other, we have a problem between us and Christ. And of course, then obviously a problem between us and God the Father.

Let's go back to Matthew 18 now. So this is how He sets up. This is the question. Now, He takes this question in a direction that I would have never thought of this. There's obviously a lot of other things on their minds here.

So He goes to verse 6, "...whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me, so He shifted from the child." You know, I don't know. I sort of visualize He put the child down and the child ran off at this point.

So, okay, this represents those who follow Me, the little ones. The little ones.

Of course, they were little ones too, because He said, you have to be converted and become like this. So He says, you little ones here.

He says, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

I want you to really think about that. I mean, we look at Jesus Christ and the mercy we get from God through Him, we see how He treated people, but understand the gravity of what He says here. And He's not talking to pagans. Boy, when you pagans, when you mistreat my followers, I'm coming after you. He's talking here to the disciples.

He's talking to His disciples. Peter's there. John's there.

And He says, if you treat each other a certain way, you would be best for you. Someone just, you know, it's like the mafia. You know, you just tie your neck up around a big millstone and take you out in a boat and throw you out in the sea. That's what would be better for you.

And that's a pretty harsh statement. Remember, He's making that to us, where His disciples, and how we treat each other. And the longer you're with somebody, the more you're going to have an opportunity to mistreat somebody, and then you're going to do it. And the more opportunity you're going to have for somebody to mistreat you. It's just what happens with you when beings get together. Relationships are messy, aren't they? And so what we have here is Him saying, look, in these relationships, how you deal with these things. He didn't say they were going to happen. He just said, how you deal with them is important. Notice the next verse. Woe to the world because of offenses, for offense must come, but woe to the man by whom the offense comes. You know, offenses, offending each other is just common. Everybody's offending everybody. Everybody offends everybody all the time. But He's talking here, then He says, the little ones, He's zeroing out of those, which are His children, the disciples, you little ones, because those, the disciples there were the little ones too. He says, you have to be converted and become a little one.

So we go from who's going to be the greatest to, have you really offended each other and drive each other so that you have anger and bitterness? Because we're going to go through this and see that a lot of what is said here is not only to the person who is the offender, but the person who has been offended. Because many times the person who has been offended ends up sinning also. That's what slander is. That's what gossip is. It's sin.

And we usually, you know, it's not slander when you sit around and talk about the good things of people. Right? Oh, let's have a great conversation. Let's all sit around and spend the next 30 minutes. Everybody's saying something good about somebody. Everybody gets bored with that real quick, right? But let's talk about all the bad things about people. The crowd grows bigger and bigger and bigger until you mention one of them, then you have a real problem. So, actually, what he's going to talk about here isn't just the person who does the offending.

There's a lot of instructions here for the person who has been offended and how what they must do. So, he now switches directions a little bit again. He says in verse 8, because he's talking about sin here. You've done something to somebody that's an actual sin. And this is very important to understand. He's not talking about somebody gave you a look you didn't like. Now, we get offended over things sometimes that are absolutely... sometimes, as the offended one, we're actually just being selfish. And that's a hard thing to say, but that can happen. Someone didn't treat me the way I wanted to be treated. Therefore, I'm offended.

So, sometimes being the offended one is because the other person didn't mean it. They didn't know what they were doing. And sometimes you're the offended one because you're being oversensitive.

But he's not going to talk about that here. He just says, I'm talking about when someone's actually done something to you. So, that's a sin. I mean, they lied about you. They stole something from you. They gossiped about you. They did something that was very harmful. You know, they told you they hated you. They did something that was actually harmful and not right according to how we're supposed to treat each other. So, he wants everybody to know in this what he's saying, okay, sin. We have to be very serious about our sins.

And so, he gives this message to everybody involved.

That whether we're the offender or the offendee, we have to be serious about how I contributed to this and if I have. Now, sometimes you haven't. Sometimes someone's just been brutal to you. They've been bad to you. They've been wrong. You didn't contribute to it. That's fine. And then, you know, but sometimes we have to look at ourselves and say, did I contribute? And that's why he says here, if your hand or foot causes you to use this hyperbole, if your hand or foot caused you to sin, cut it off, cast it from you. It's better for you to enter into life, lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, and to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes and be cast into hellfire. Now, you know, in the resurrection, we don't lose our hands or feet or our eyes.

The point he's making here is, and remember this is the context of, you just offended somebody. You brutally treated somebody terrible.

And they're offended by it. He says, you know, it'd be better for you to cut off your hand than to treat somebody that way. Boy, this is... he's really serious about what he's saying here. You know, we expect him to say these kinds of things against pagans. We expect him to say these kinds of things against people committing adultery or getting drunk.

We don't expect him to say these kinds of things about, well, us.

Right? Unless you're one of those... I won't ask for a show of hands. I'm one of those rare people who has never been offended or never offended anybody. And if you are, you're blessed. For the rest of us, including myself, I've been on both ends of that. Okay? So I did both of them.

So he's talking to us as he is talking to his 12 disciples right there. He's correcting them. And he sets this up as a model for how all the disciples later would be, which was us down to us today. So let's go now to verse 10.

Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones. Now, once again, the little ones here, the child was just the object lesson. The little ones are his disciples. Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels will always see my face or the face of my father who is in heaven. For the son of man has come to save that which was lost. Do not despise them. Do we despise each other and not even know it? Can we despise each other and not even know it? Sometimes it's just in a congregation like this, some of you've known each other for 35 years. You take each other for granted. How do we despise each other? Well, let's look at three ways we can despise each other. Once again, someone told me last week I gave a concept sermon. This is a concept sermon. It's a big one. And we can give four sermons in the details. But the concept sermon. How can we despise one another? The most obvious one is in Luke 18. So we'll come back here to Matthew 18, but let's go to Luke 18. Now this is a parable that I read here in a sermon a while back.

And as I said then, the amazing thing about this parable or the way it's written here is because Luke wasn't there. Luke wrote later. He's a Greek. He wasn't a Jew. He wasn't one of the original 12. And he writes later, and he's pulling together all these stories from different people. And he makes little commentaries. I find his commentaries fascinating. And he makes a commentary here about what Jesus said. Verse 9, also, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. So here we have a parable about people who trust in themselves. They trust in their own level of righteousness, and they despise others.

Two men went up to the temple to pray. Now I want to stop there. He didn't say, and one man was a worshipper of the true God, and the other man worshiped Zeus. He didn't say one man was a Jew who practiced before God and prayed to God and did his sacrifices to God, and the other man was an atheist. Both of these men are in the temple. Both are practicing Jews. So if we're going to apply this to the church, both would be members of our congregation. They're both members of the church. So there they are. They're both allowed in the temple. They're both there because they keep the Ten Commandments. One's a Pharisee, one's a tax collector. Tax collectors are despised because they worked for the Roman government. Although if you look at some of the documents from this time period, most people who were tax collectors, there were two kinds. One who liked being a tax collector because they really liked skimming off the top and they were crooked. The other were people that were made to be tax collectors because the Romans had a hard time getting enough crooks. Even a good crook didn't want to be a tax collector because everybody hated you. You had no friends when you were a tax collector. So they literally drafted people and made them be tax collectors. I don't know which one this one was. It's a parable. He doesn't tell us. But I don't think he's a crook because he's in the temple.

He's in the temple, right? Two men went to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed, thus with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even if this is your tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And none of that was false.

He had never worshiped an idol. He had probably never committed adultery.

The man had kept the Sabbath since he was born and kept it very strictly.

There's nothing he's saying here that's not true.

But remember the problem is he trusts in himself and despises others. And then he says, and the tax collector standing far off.

I'm sorry, it's extortioners, unjust, but I really want to stress, he says, or even at this tax collector. You know, I'm not like this guy. We're both in the temple, but I'm, we might be both in the temple, but I deserve to be in the temple more than he deserves to be in the temple.

And the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to be a sinner. And Christ says, I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified, allowed to have a relationship with God, brought into a relationship with God to live a just life, to obey God. This man went down to his house, justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he humbles himself will be exalted. We despise each other sometimes through our belief that we have a great spiritual superiority.

A second way we despise each other is because someone has mistreated us. Someone did something bad and they never apologized. You know, you really want somebody to apologize, right? And they never got punished. And maybe you're right.

What's really difficult when you're mistreated by somebody is if you're the right one. And nothing happens, or nothing seems to happen. God's doing things, but nothing seems to happen. This person cheated me and I really can't prove it. And they're in the church. And every time I go to church, I sit there and I look and I just keep looking at them. They cheated me.

When they're not there, you know, I tell my wife, good, they weren't there. Maybe they'll leave the church. And the thing is, they didn't cheat you. They sinned against you. And yet nothing seems to happen.

And we can despise somebody because of that. Now, a third way we despise each other, and I want you to listen to this one, because this one's the most common. We despise each other by ignoring each other.

We just ignore each other.

There's people in the congregation that we haven't talked to in six months, because we always talk to the same five people. And, you know, Kim and I try to split up in church because there's no way that we can get to see everybody. And we try to keep track. And, you know, no matter what we do, there's times when I'll say, you know, I haven't talked to this person three months. And Kim will say, I haven't either. So when we're trying to get around, we can't.

But how many times do we only talk to the same people because we're comfortable with them But how many times do we only talk to the same people because we're comfortable with them?

They're the same personality. Or maybe they're just somehow the same, I don't know, they dress the same. Or they're the same age group. Sometimes we only associate with people the same age group. All we have to do is we have to break those barriers down because we're despising each other. That's not what a family is supposed to do. So we have to be careful not to despise the little ones. And everyone in this room is a little one.

Say, we're all little ones. So we have to be careful not to despise each other.

Okay, back now to Matthew 18.

Because now he tells us how God sees us. Verse 12, Jesus says, let me tell you how God sees you as the little ones. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, did he not leave the ninety-nine and go up to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly I say to you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine, did not go astray. Even so, it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Not one of these little ones. But he's driving home this point, little ones, doesn't he? Because this is how God sees us, this little children. He says, let's look at this the way God does.

God doesn't want to lose anyone. So we could be offending each other in terrible ways, mistreating each other, or the other end, angry and bitter towards people because they've done something to us.

And we're not seeing how God sees it. I want all of you to be there. And what are we going to do in the resurrection? Oh, I'm sorry, Father, that person can't be here. Let me tell you, let me tell you what happened. No, Father, that person can't be here. They're a tax collector.

They worked for the IRS. You couldn't let them be here.

Oh, I'm sorry, God. This person really was mean to me. They can't be here.

So he wants us to look at God's way. This is a huge... How does he get here? I mean, the question they asked him was who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom.

And Jesus takes a child and creates all these lessons.

He's taking them all over the place to where they don't even know where they're going.

And now he's going to get down into how to deal with each other when we are offending and being offended. What are we supposed to do? There are two things we usually do when we've been offended. Either we ignore it, and most of the time we don't let it go, so it just stews on us. If it's something that's not important and you ignore it, hey, good, you're happy. You forget about it. But you stew on it and you stew on it. Maybe it is something important. Maybe the point is they sinned against you. They did something seriously against you. And you stew on it and you stew on it.

Or the other extreme is you just go pick a fight. Right? You just go get in their face.

Neither one works. I've tried both.

Neither works.

And I've had people try both on me. Neither works. Right? It just takes a lot of work to work that through. So here's what he says to do. Verse 15. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he hears you, you have gained your brother. You and I have a moral obligation. We're past Christianity 101 here.

We're in the tough stuff. We're in the tough stuff.

Thou shalt not murder. Eh, that's pretty easy. I mean, for most of us. Thou shalt not steal. Eh, most of us. We figured that one out. This is a little tougher here. Okay, the person really did something bad against me. What should I do? Well, if it's not important, you let it go. Because everybody does crazy stuff. We all do super stuff. Sometimes somebody's just having a bad day. And they were just short with you. They just said something, you know, they shouldn't have said. Okay, well, they're having a bad day. We understand that. We've all had bad days, right? But, no, this is something. They did something that's pretty serious here.

And you know that they told you, you know, they were gonna do something and they, you know, hey, I'll pick that up for you. They were gonna get some money and they were gonna get it at Sam's and they came back and said, ah, I didn't get a chance to go to Sam's. You say, where's my 20 bucks? And they say, well, I spent it. I'll get it to you later. And it's six months later and they never give you your 20 bucks back. That's called stealing. Now, here's what we do. We reason that out that that's not stealing. Because, you know, members of a family do that all the time. Brothers and sisters will do that all the time. I'll get you the money later. And, well, wait a minute. It's months later. You still haven't given me that money. I mean, I've heard that. More times I want to care about with people who are in families. Oh, yeah. My uncle did that to me. Took money and never paid it back. And we know that's wrong in the physical family. How much more wrong is it in the spiritual family? That we would actually take someone's money, not pay them back, and figure it's okay. You're my brother. You're my sister. I can do that. So you say, well, no, I should deal with that.

Even if I love my brother, sometimes I should deal with that. Because they've done something wrong. And he says, you go to them. Now, that's a whole other sermon in itself. How in the world do we go to somebody? No, it's easy. I'm just going to go to them, sit her down, and say, you know what? You sinned, you sinner. Repent, you sinner. I'm here with the wrath of God behind me. It's not going to work out very well. You're probably not going to get the results you want. Because what you want is to win back a brother or a sister. That's what you want.

That's why sometimes before you go do this, you have to even question yourself. Am I doing this to win back my sister? Or am I doing this because I want to show her just how bad she is? Because I've already told all of her friends how bad she is.

Why are we doing what we're doing?

You know, this isn't a new concept, by the way, that Jesus is saying. Let's go back to the Torah. It's got a Leviticus 19.

You know, I just thought about it. If Kim asked me to do the sermon, maybe I've offended her somehow. I guess... See, that's the way she is.

I just dawned on me. I'm trapped again. I'm giving a sermon, and on the car and away home she'll say, you know you really hurt my feelings. And there's nothing I can do because I've just given a sermon on it.

I think it's 1917. See, I always catch up too late.

I think it's 1917. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not hate your brother and become a sinner because you're your brother. You should go to your brother and deal with the situation. That's a law. It's a Leviticus. Even in the Old Testament law, God's spirit. God told them, look, you can't go around hating your brother because they did something wrong against you. You have to go to them and say that was wrong.

Otherwise, you're hating them and now you're sinning.

So both parties are wrong.

He says in the next verse, you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. It's easy to love somebody when they're not mistreating you. You know, if you have to go to a brother, there's a couple quick things. Like I said, this is a whole other subject in itself, but a couple things you can write down and think about. Read all of Matthew 18 before you go. Read all of Matthew 18, the whole chapter, before you go to the person.

Read it and think about it. Do not approach the person with the attitude, I'm going to fix you. I'm going to correct you and work this out. Go with the desire to win back, to gain, as it says in Matthew, to gain a brother or a sister. Pick your time and place and words very carefully. And that means, be careful this one. Don't plan out the response you want.

Husbands and wives do this all the time. You plan out what you want the other person to do, then you go in prepared for them to do that, give your spiel, and they don't respond the way you want them to. And it's like, boy, you've got a problem. Well, they didn't even know you had to play a doubt what they were supposed to do. Maybe you should tell them beforehand. I'm going to tell you something that's really bothered me.

What I want you to do at the end is break down crying and throw your arms around me and say, I'm sorry. Then we'll fix this thing. No? Because I have it all planned out.

How is this going to work? And also, in order to resolve a situation, we have to try to see the situation from the other person's viewpoint. Sometimes it's amazing. Someone will say, this person offended me. And you go to the person and they'll say, well, I would just respond to him because you said this to me and it really hurt me. You've offended each other. You've actually offended each other.

So both of you are mad at each other, not realizing there's sort of cause and effect going on here, but nobody intentionally went into this discussion or whatever it was to create offense. 1 Corinthians 9, and we'll go there, but verse 19 through 23, Paul says, I became all things to all people. Now, he doesn't mean there... He says, to those with the law, I was as someone who was under the law, and the Gentiles didn't have the law, I was as someone without the law.

And then he puts in parentheses, I mean, I was... They had the law. It was the law unto God, unto Christ. They didn't understand Moses' law. But the point he's making is, I've never given up God's law. But what I'm saying is, Paul says, when I go to people, I understand where they're coming from. I go to where they are. I understand where they're coming from. But if we have a conflict with somebody, we have to go and say, where are you coming from?

Why did you do this? Sometimes that takes some time. We also should do some intercessory prayer. You know, before you go confront somebody, pray about it, ask God to soften your heart and ask God to soften their heart. This man and wife have been dead for many years. I know I told this story a couple of years ago, but he was a deacon and he was a tough, gruff man. And he didn't like something I did. And he came up to me and he's chewing me out. And I'm standing there and he's chewing me out and chewing me out and chewing me out. And one of the elders' wife came up and said, the entire congregation is watching this.

And everybody had stopped because he just, I mean, he's loud, I'm just standing there. And I said, Monday morning at 9 o'clock I'll be at your house. Okay. He said, off he went. Well, he was this great big strong gruff guy. His wife was about, I don't know, five feet tall? Wee little woman. And I'll never forget walking up to that door prepared for battle. Okay. I've had two days to think about this. And I rang that doorbell and a door flung open. He goes, I'm so sorry. I will never do that again. He's just going on and on and on. And I looked into the background and she's looking at me going...

You know, I went in and I sit down and Bill, okay, okay, look. I don't mind you getting mad at me. I don't mind you telling me what's on your mind, but don't ever do that again in front of the congregation. And he said, I won't. And he never did. We became very good friends. Very good friends. And I valued his opinion. And when he got mad and gruff, he didn't bother me a bit. Because whenever we got mad and gruff, it was over at his house. And in the end, we'd have a cup of coffee and she'd bring out cookies. And it was okay. Come on, we're men here.

It's okay.

As I told him, don't you ever treat a woman this way, because it won't work out. But you and I can sit down and work this through.

We have to pray about it. I prayed about it. But his wife had prayed about it, and his wife had chewed on him for two days.

And he had to know her.

She had four sons and him. And she could hold her ground with any of them.

Then he says, let's go back now. So you go to the person, but what if the person doesn't agree? Now, what if their opinion of the situation is different? Sometimes you say, well, I want you to agree with me. I've had situations where I have sat down with people in conflict, and they've talked and talked and talked, and I've said, I don't know what happened here. And we know most of the way you think I'm lying. You know? No, I don't think either of you are lying. I think both of you are telling your viewpoint how you saw it. I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. And since I wasn't there, I can't give you advice except forgive each other. And sometimes I've had people say, oh, okay. You know, they shake hands, and a few weeks later they forgot it. I've had other people not like each other for years. In fact, they never reconciled. Because it's like, you've got to get that person to understand how evil they are. No, you've got to get that person to understand how evil they are. Well, the problem is, I wasn't there.

I don't know. I believe both people are telling the truth from their viewpoint. Sometimes you come back and say, okay, we've done the best we can. Uh... Okay. At a minister I knew years ago, and years later he said, I've got to tell you something, I need to apologize for you for something. Why? And he brought up something I had even forgotten. But at the time he did something I didn't remember. But later he says, it bothered me. Sometimes you've got to give people time, too. And of course it didn't offend me because I didn't think anything about it at the time. So what do we do? So, verse 16, But if he will not hear you, take with you one or two more. By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established. Now he goes to Deuteronomy to make his point. There are laws, there's a law in Deuteronomy 19 that says you have to have two or three witnesses. One witness isn't enough. What's interesting is after that, in verses 16 and 17 on Deuteronomy 19, he says, but if you're a false witness, God will find you out. The law was set up so that you could not... It was better for a guilty person to go free than a non-guilty person to be punished. Because if you were a guilty person, you went free. It means God was going to punish you. So don't get too... I've seen people get burdened with, this person got away with something horrible because then they lied about it. Well, remember, God will judge those things in His time. God will judge those things in His time. So we should hold on to them. We have to let those things go. Because one thing you learn when you live long enough, much of this life isn't fair, is it? And that's not all bad because I'm glad God isn't fair with me. He cuts me a lot of slack. He cuts me more slack than I deserve. Well, I don't deserve any. So, you know, anything He cuts me is because He gives it to me. I don't deserve any of it. We take two witnesses. They are witnesses. They are two friends or three friends that you've committed. You're convinced how bad this person is. Well, you know, I've come over to sit down and talk to you because you hurt her feelings. And she's told the three of us, and we agree you're a jerk. And so now there's four of us here to tell you what a scumbag you are. That's not what this says. They have to be witnesses. They have to have people who actually have knowledge of what went on, that were there, that saw it. There's no way to make judgments when there's two people that are both saying, and there's no witnesses. Of course, it's an easy thing to do. I just pray in front of them that if one of them is lying, God will take care of it. I did that one time, and the person never came back to church. We found out who was lying. He's never showed up again. That's an easy prayer. You know, very good. Help these people, and if one of them isn't telling the truth, you take care of it. I think no one even knew what happened to the person. They disappeared, and no one knew what happened to them. I think they left the city. And that wasn't because of me. They weren't afraid of me. I think something happened to that person, and God is what I think happened. Maybe just their conscience.

So we take witnesses, people who are knowledgeable, and they're not there to hang the other person. They are there to what? Gain a brother or sister.

To gain a brother or sister. Now, I want you to notice this is a sin against you. The reason I mention that is, what if you say, Well, I know somebody in the church that they haven't sinned against me, but I know that they have a drinking problem, and they go out every Friday night, and they're getting drunk, and that needs to be dealt with. Well, there are ways to deal with that. You can go talk to the person. They probably won't listen, but you can. That's not against you, personally. But you can still go through this process sometimes.

Because when people come to me and say, I have this problem with this person, the first thing I'm going to say is, well, you have to go talk to them. You have to go talk to them. It's not my place right now to get involved in this.

And so much of the time, if everybody does it right, I don't have to be involved in it. I shouldn't be. The church gets involved, and we'll talk about what that means, only when the situation can't be solved. And that's going to happen sometimes. And that doesn't necessarily mean the people involved are not converted. It means they don't know how to do what they're... You know, some things are... once again, it's complicated.

It's complicated. So we can't always say, oh, I'm a failure. No, it's complicated. All of us deal with things that never quite get solved, right? We all deal with things that never quite get solved. But we learn to be spiritually, mentally, and emotionally healthy in all of us. So what do we do when that doesn't work? And the person says, look, you deserve this. Look. You know, I don't care.

And they continue to treat you this way. It says, and if he refuses to hear them, verse 17, tell it to the church, but if he refuses even to hear the church, let it be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.

What he says is, okay, take it to the church. Usually that means you take it to the elders of the church and the elders of the church try to work it out. There have been a few cases where there was involved so many members of the congregation, you just do it with the whole congregation. Or at least with everybody that's involved, okay, folks, all 30 of us are getting together and we're going to work this out.

And sometimes you have to do it that way. But the bottom line is, you deal with the reality of the situation by going to the ministry. Or it says the church. Sometimes it can be in front of the entire congregation. If it involves the congregation, most cases involve two people. But sometimes it can be bigger than it.

That's the situation. You don't want to have to go there. What you want to do is be able to do this ourselves. The thing is, though, these are instructions by Jesus Christ. We have to do it. We can't stew on it. We can't go to church and look around and say, boy, there's that person over there. I just hate being here. I know of people that haven't heard a sermon in years because all they're doing is thinking about the people that mistreated them.

So they're not getting a blessing from God. And of course the person who may be abusing other people or mistreating other people, they may be continuing to offend other people because nobody's confronting them. But it's how we confront them because we're all little ones. Now occasionally, and I have to say this, you're going to get somebody in the congregation who's not a little one. It's a person who shouldn't be there. Occasionally somebody shows up who should not be here.

And we will ask them to leave. They take advantage of people or they abuse people, and we will ask them to leave. It happens every once in a while. We have to do it. And that's a different situation. Usually people have tried to make something work, and the person is just as honest or mean-spirited or they're committing a crime or whatever it is. But in other words, there's no repentance involved, and they need to go, and we do that. But it's not that often. But I just have to always give that caveat because some things can't be solved, because some people won't let them be solved. So he goes on now. He's not finished yet.

Verse 18 and 19 have misused the times to say that we can keep the Sabbath and we can bind and loose things by disagreeing with them. What the point he's making here is we as Christians, look what he says, Assuredly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bowed in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And 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. Now that last verse isn't concerning Sabbath services. You know, hey, there's three of us together. That constitutes a Sabbath service. We don't have to participate with any other Christians. Now in some cases, that's all there is. I mean, there's only two or three people in a place. I'm not talking about that. But you understand what I'm saying.

That isn't specifically talking about the Sabbath. What it's talking about is how we deal with disagreements with each other. It's talking about how we deal with conflicts. When you make an agreement, God binds the agreement. You know, there's a danger sometimes in people in the church. We will make business agreements with each other, and we will bind them thinking that we can play loosey-goosey with it because, well, they're in the church, they'll understand.

And that's not what He says. Christ says when you bind something between each other, you do a handshake and make a deal, God binds it because you're His children. I mean, right? I mean, if you have children, there's times when it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, everybody shut up. What did you say you would do? Yeah, but no, what did you say you would do? And what did you say you would do? Did you make an agreement on it?

Yes. Go do it. But go do it. Or both face punishment. You made an agreement. Then as they walk away, they sort of shove each other. You know, and I'll think, we're not a lot of different than little kids. That's what He's saying here. So I want to wrap it up how He ends this. Now, once again, verse 21 on is not necessarily part of what was said before. This may be a different situation. It may be the same situation we can't tell. But it says in verse 21, Then Peter came to him.

So it seems like this is another time. So Peter comes to him, and it may be because he's thinking about these things he said. Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me? And I forgive him. Seven times? What a converted guy! Someone mistreat you seven times and you forgive him seven times? You know, I don't know. I'm thinking that's great. That's incredible. I would have said like two. Right? After the second time? Nope, that's it. He says seven times. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is like a man. Or it's like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him and owed him 10,000 talents. But he was not able to pay. His master commanded that he be sold, along with his wife and children, all that he had, and that payment be made.

Debtors' prison was common at the time. And this is a huge sum of money. This is a, you know, let's just put this in some modern-day context. I forget how to add up what a talent is today. It is a million dollars. You owe somebody a million dollars, and you can't pay it. And what do they do? They come and they foreclose on your house, and they take your car. Right? They take everything you have. Here, they can actually take you and put you in debtors' prison.

The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all. But the master of the servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. He didn't make him pay it. He says, I forgive you the debt. I don't want you to suffer. It's gone. Here, I've just written out a receipt for a million dollars. Go get your life together.

But that servant went out and found one of the fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, which isn't near as much as ten thousand talents. That's probably, in today's money, a hundred denarii would be, I don't know, five thousand dollars, something like that. I'd have to figure it out. I don't remember. Let's just say the two are not even close.

Okay, we'll make up a number. A million and a hundred dollars. Okay, we just made up a number here, but this is the point he's making. It's hyperbole. And he said, and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me what you owe. So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, Have patience on me, that I will pay you all. And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow servant saw what had been done, they were grieved, and they came and told their master all that had been done. And when his master, after he had called and said to him, You wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you? And his master was angry and delivered him up to his torturers, so he should pay all that was due him. And then he says this. Wow! That's a very, very interesting concept, isn't it?

But notice how he finishes the parable. He tells you exactly what he means. So my Heavenly Father also will do to you. He's talking to Peter and the disciples here. So he's talking to us. Will do to you if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespass. The point he's making here is that we have to forgive each other. Now once again, we're not talking about someone who came in and killed your children or burned your house down.

I'm not saying we don't have to forgive them, but we can't have a relationship with them. Here he's talking about the things that we do to each other that offend us, that hurt us, that we shouldn't do to each other. He's not talking about these grievous sins, these grievous crimes that you shouldn't even be in the church over. It would be asked to leave the church if you did certain things. But even then, sometimes people do repent. People do repent. And we are required to accept them as members of the kingdom of God.

Sometimes you can't have a relationship with someone. I mean, if someone killed your child and then came into the church, you would have to accept that they will be in the kingdom with you. Now that doesn't mean you can be best friends now, does it? But what if God forgives them and they are going to be in the kingdom? Like I said, you may not be best if you have a relationship now, but you have to accept them.

Because if you don't say, in the kingdom, okay, we'll be brothers. Now, I just don't know how to do this, okay? But if you say, God, if He's going to be in the kingdom, I don't want to be there. You may not be there. That's what He's saying here. So even in the most grievous situation, we have to be open to forgiveness. And the reason why is God forgave us and paid a horrible price to do it. He brings us back to what He started with. If you accept the least of these little ones, you accept me. When we accept each other, we accept Christ. Now, He didn't say you accept each other's sins.

If they sin against you, we're supposed to talk to each other. We're supposed to go discuss it with each other. And if you're committing a sin that's even not against somebody, we should be willing to go and say, Please stop this. Oh, no, we're just gossip about it and tell everybody about it and be happy when their life falls apart and they leave the church. Or do we go say, I love you. I can't stand to watch you do this to yourself. Please, turn to God. Please seek help. Can we do that with each other?

Matthew 18 is one of the most difficult chapters in the entire Bible. And yet it's so important because it's here with these teachings like this that you'll find all through the Gospels. Let me find out what it truly means when Christ said, You have to become my disciples, not students, but imitators of the Master.