Transcript

Luke 17. We’ll be looking at verses 1 through 10 this morning. As we have journeyed through Luke, we see that our Lord who is the truth and, of course, always taught and preached the truth, is constantly going against the flow of the culture, particularly the religious establishment of his day. Over and over and over he’s collision course with the establishment of the day, contradicting them and rebuking them and it happens again in this text. The truth that comes out here is a sense of duty. A sense of duty. I thought about our own culture and the world that we live in and I think it’s very true that in American culture as we have grown out of a Christian consensus in our culture to now a post- Christian era, that we’ve lost the biblical concept of duty in the various aspects of our lives. For example, in the home today, you know, the modern spirit and the modern trend in thinking is that wives should not think in terms of their duty. Wives should not think in terms of their duty to love their husbands. By the way, wives, that’s not something you ought to do, that’s not something that you do if you feel like doing, it’s a duty you have. Christian truth says wives, love your husbands. Women be keepers in your home. Women don’t want to hear today that, “I have a duty to be a keeper of my home.” The home being sound and solid needs a homemaker and a keeper and Satan knows if he can get that to crumble, he can get the culture to crumble. It’s not about your husband. It’s not about your kids. It’s not about you. It’s about your duty, period. We have this plague across our nation of fatherless households because fathers today, so many of them, don’t want to hear and be held responsible for their duty to their families, to their wives, to providing care. It doesn’t matter if they’re not just right and he’s not happy right now, you have a duty. Amen? We’ve lost that sense of duty.

Our government, our President just informed us that he would like to see child care for everyone in America and then 2 years of college for every student in America. It’s all free. I got to thinking about that: sure that sounds great so from the time basically your child is born, they can get 2 meals a day from some government supported institution and then they’ll be covered with 2 more meals all the way through elementary school and high school and all you’ve got to do to get them through 2 years of college is feed them once they get 18 for 2 years. I mean, it’s just really this whole thing of…parents don’t have any duty anymore to sacrifice to take care of their own children. If it gets hard, somebody else is supposed to bail me out. If it’s difficult, somebody else is supposed to take care of me. Well, who is that somebody else? Now, there is a need for some of these things. We certainly believe in a righteous sense of welfare and caring for the handicapped, etc.

Amen. But we’ve grown to this sense of nobody has any duty anymore to care for their own. It’s always somebody else’s fault. We have all of this entitlement because we don’t have any concept of duty anymore.

We were driving into Chattanooga. We drive into Chattanooga a lot these days and there was a billboard up there and on that billboard was a Marine soldier. I’m telling you, he was standing there erect; his uniform was crisp and pressed; he had a stern countenance and resolve in his eyes and he was saluting. Then there was a little caption at the bottom of that billboard, “Commit to something greater than yourself.” I like that. Commit to something greater than yourself, in other words, it’s not just all about you, whiny. There’s something bigger than you in this universe, his name is God. And for that Marine soldier, he’d say, “There is something bigger than just me and my comforts and my convenience. My country needs defending. I have a duty to my country.” Our military has hung onto that and we’ve got a lot of effeminate liberals who want to dumb down our military so we’ll be just like Europe; so that when something happens, we can call on somebody else to defend us because they are too weak to do it. America is exceptional because we’ve hung on to some sense of duty and character and principle. Somebody’s going to have to be a man in the world. We can’t all go weeny around and bow down and pamper and pet and hug everybody and make everything better. There is evil in the world that’s got to be dealt with in a manly sense and that’s going to take duty. I like that billboard. There’s a sense of duty in the military.

Now, we come to a section in Luke 17 where the Lord is talking to his disciples now and what he’s doing, he’s saying, “Okay, you’ve been a part of a religious system; you’ve been a part of a religious culture that was built on one thing, now I’m about to completely collapse all of that. All of that is now obsolete. All the old Jewish religion is finished. I’m the fulfillment of it and I’m bringing in a new type of religious community called the church and we function on different principles, principles of grace. But there is a sense of duty in this new community called the local church that I’m going to be the head of.” So he begins to spell out for these disciples something of Christian duty. Now, there’s many, many more things that could be said but you need to see this teaching of the Lord as Proverbs and what I mean by that, he’s just giving a general principle. There are a lot of sub points that need to be talked about, a lot of situations where you’d apply the principle differently. We’re not going into much of that, okay? He’s just giving the broad general principle. You might call these some foundation stones of duty that the rest of the duties of Christianity build upon. I think what he’s saying is, “These are some foundation so if these aren’t right, you miss everything in my church and in what I’m trying to build.”

I’m going to say this now and I’ve got to be careful how I say it because I sure don’t want to be misunderstood or misquoted. I believe there is a sense in which the Spirit of God had not come upon these men as he began to come upon believers starting with the day of Pentecost. I can’t explain all of that. I don’t have a worked-out thorough theology on that but I believe that it’s probable that at this point in God’s progressive revelation of truth and founding of things, he had not yet put the Spirit on his followers as he would starting at Pentecost. I’m not talking about signs, wonders and miracles, speaking in tongues or flames of fire coming out of the mouth. I’m talking about just the presence of the indwelling Spirit, perhaps, note my words, perhaps was not on them yet as it was going to be on all believers starting at Pentecost from then on. Just keep that thought in your mind. I think that’s why they have some difficulty grasping some of the things. He’s building information in their minds that once the Spirit came on them, would come right into place and into understanding. It’s much like the Apostle Paul spent all those years learning the great truths of God and doctrine in his Jewish religion and once he was converted, boom, all the dots connected. He saw Jesus as the fulfillment of all of it.

So that’s just a thought to keep in the back of your mind as we talk today about the disciples duty and we need to recommit ourselves in the church. There’s a bunch of stuff we do because our Lord said do it. We have duties to perform. That would be a great new church growth method: come to our church where we teach your duties. That’s not the going trend if you hadn’t noticed. It’s not all about you. It’s not all about fun church though I think church is fun. It’s not all about excitement though I think it’s exciting here. There is a potential and essential truth that we need to grasp of our duty to God and Jesus said, “Here’s what it looks like.”

Luke 17, beginning in 1. You’ll be glad to know that I’m definitely going to cut this in 2. Verse 1,

1 He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come,

Now, some translations go out and say “that temptations come.” That’s okay but that’s not the Greek word here. “Temptation” is a different word. I think they went a little too far in taking the translation freedom to put “temptation” here because the word is “stumbling block,” alright?

It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard!

Now, a new thought, I believe, begins right here.

If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you. 7 Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? 8 But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? 9 He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? 10 So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'”

I. The duty to live a good example. It’s your duty. It’s the responsibility that God has given you to live a good example. It’s not an option. You don’t get to come into Christianity and decide, “I’m going to be loose. I’m going to be indifferent. I’m going to express my freedoms and other folks just need to get over it.” Wrong! You don’t have that. You have a duty, Jesus says, to live among your brothers and sisters in your church family, and the world in general, as a good example of a true Christian.

“He says,” in verse 1, “to His disciples, ‘It is inevitable,” that’s the New American Standard word, “that stumbling blocks come.” Inevitable because as long as sin and fallen sinners are in the world, there are simply going to be stumbling blocks. I thought about the word “stumbling block,” looked it up, meditated on it and I’ve come up with this definition. Now, here he’s really personifying this: he means people can be stumbling blocks. A stumbling block is one who makes honoring and obeying God more difficult and dishonoring and sinning against God less difficult. A stumbling block is one who makes honoring and obeying God a little more difficult because they look at you and you’re not doing it or look at me and I’m not doing it and they make dishonoring God and sinning against God less difficult. The stumbling block, of course, has the idea of an obstacle in the path and it trips up your feet as you try to travel down the path of faithful discipleship. Actually, the word is also used as a lure, much like we would talk about a fishing lure. It deceives the fish and he grabs it thinking it’s something else. A stumbling block very often appears as the right way to approach something but they are compromises; they are hypocrites and by following them, you actually end up not being a good Christian but sinning and dishonoring the Lord. It can have the idea of a snare. A snare is a wire that we would use and an animal runs through it and it tightens and catches them. They are snared, if you will. It’s been used for centuries.

Now, no doubt the primary application of this is the religious Pharisee. Jesus is saying, “Your previous religious authorities that you’ve honored and look to, looked good but they’re actually stumbling blocks. They are a snare. They are a lure that entices you into one direction, one viewpoint, one pattern of following God but it’s not true at all. It ends up making you less a good follower of God and ends up making you more of a sinner, not less of a sinner.” So no doubt in all the context of all we’ve been through, Jesus is pointing out primarily those Jewish religious authorities you’ve looked to, they’ve got to be discarded in your hearts and minds. They’re stumbling blocks. They are going down the wrong path. I mean, these Pharisees had in effect developed an entire religious system to cause others to stumble. Now, you could just say false teachers. He’s just talking about false teachers and, you know, the Bible is full of warnings, descriptions and admonitions about false teachers, Old and New Testament. Well, the Jewish Pharisees where the quintessential example of what a false teacher looks like.

I suppose there is no greater stumbling block than a false teacher and false religion and the closer it mimics true religion, the greater the evil. These Pharisees used the Bible, the Bible of their day, the Old Testament. They used the sacred traditions but not to bless men and not to help men know and honor God but rather to deceive men and entrap them in error and increase their power and control over the people. That’s why among many other rebukes, Jesus says to the Pharisees as recorded in Matthew 23:27-28, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones.” Now, if somebody is saying you’re like dead men’s bones, it’s an insult but it was really an insult, I mean, Jesus really cut these guys because if you touched a dead body, you were unclean spiritually. He didn’t say, “You just touched a dead body,” he said, “You are a dead body. You’re vile and unclean in the eyes of God.” Verse 28, “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” That’s the primary audience. That’s the primary application I think the Lord’s talking about when he’s saying, “Beware of stumbling blocks.”

Now, while this is the primary application, that is the hardened, intentional false religionists who says he serves Christ but for his own gain leads men astray. I think Joel Osteen is a premier example of a false teacher. I don’t think there’s any question about that. A false doctrine. A false Gospel. But look at the glory and esteem and fame and fortune he is amassing. If he preached the truth, he wouldn’t have 50,000 coming to hear him. I wish that would be true. Think with me for a moment about the degeneration of our culture. I was listening to some old Billy Graham sermons the other day and I’m telling you, he preached the Gospel. He pointed out sin. He called it sin. He called men to repent and believe. Again, I wish his methods were a little different at the end but I respect Billy Graham and I thank God for the good he did. Then we degenerated and we had a new national spokesman for spiritual reality, Rick Warren, “Purpose Driven” stuff. And Rick Warren was getting mushy on sin and he got mushy on repentance. I went to his conference where he taught us, “Stop telling people they are sinners.” Friend, if you don’t tell people they are sinners, you haven’t preached the Gospel. And then that wasn’t good enough for the worldlings of the religion of our country so we’ve gone further, now Joel Osteen is the spiritual spokesman for America. Do you see the pattern?

That’s why these stumbling blocks are so dangerous because they are very alluring. Listen, sin never stands still. Listen, any time error comes into the culture, into the church, you don’t talk to the one in error and kind of find a medium ground, you stand over here on truth and call them to repentance to come to the truth. If you start negotiating and compromising with what happens, you just kind of compromise and meet in the middle and then a new group pops up more liberal, more unbiblical and they want to discuss stuff. Sanballat and Tobiah saying, “Come down off the wall, we need to talk about stuff.” What did Ezra say? “We ain’t common off the wall. God has told us what to do. We don’t have time to talk with you and counsel, where about God’s work. You can come up here and join us but we’re not coming off the wall.” Then the next group gets more liberal and more unbiblical and then you can talk to them, “Well, let’s work this thing out,” and then you compromise more and pretty soon the church is the church in name only. It has lost all the substance of sound doctrine and sound practice.

Now, I want Grace Life Church to be on the other trajectory. We’re going toward the word of God in doctrine and in practice and here’s where we are: if God does not by his Spirit impress men’s hearts to join us, we’re sunk. We have no appeal to the flesh. If the Spirit of God does not use the word of God to impress on men that says, “Yes, I must be a part of that,” then we have no future. Shipwrecked on God and stranded on omnipotence. You watch God prove he’s true to his remnant. And not just here but around the country and around the world, they are popping up, men who want to go back to the truth and guide the church in the truth.

False teachers. He says beware of these false teachers, these religionists that lead you astray. Now, there’s an additional insight we need to look at in James 3:1. It will be on the screen or should be. James says, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.” So when he talks about teachers here, he’s not talking about a small group leader at Grace Life. I’m convinced he’s not talking about you. He’s not talking about the discipleship leader on Saturday morning. He’s talking about the men in the office of pastor/teacher in the church, the elders of the church. He says, “Let not many of you do that,” because the elders of the church are charged by God with establishing the doctrine and the practice for the church. That’s a very serious matter so he says, “Let not many of you do that because there is a higher standard of judgment because you have a position of much good or much harm if you don’t handle it just right.”

So, well, let me give you this side note: I think it shows you the worth and the value of that position when Paul writes Philemon and Paul tells Philemon, “I’m going to assume the debt of your runaway slave Onesimus. Onesimus has been saved. He’s a Christian now but he did run away from you, Philemon, but I’ll tell you what, Philemon, whatever Onesimus owes you, I’m going to pay it financially.” I love Paul. Then he adds this on, “But by the way, Philemon, you owe me your life. I just thought I’d add that on.” Read it, it’s right there in Philemon. What is Paul saying? Paul is saying, “Yes, I will take care of the financial debt Onesimus owes you but since I brought you the word of God, you can’t calculate what you owe me,” thus what God is saying about the importance of the office of preaching and teaching in the church. So God says, “Let not many of you do that. Be careful about entering that office. You will incur a stricter judgment because you have such a position for good or for evil.”

Now, he says in verse 1, the last part, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!” Now, the word “woe” has the idea of deep grief or denunciation. My friend, you do not want to be the object of the Lord Jesus Christ’s deep grief and denunciation. Jesus hates sin but he especially hates a false leader who helps people sin in his name so he’s saying, “Woe to those stumbling blocks.” Stumbling blocks, while they are inevitable in every age in a sinful world, those who are stumbling blocks will be held accountable for what they’re doing. One might surmise that in the present age that you and I live in, the majority of pulpits look more like stumbling blocks than fateful preachers of the word.

So here we have in this context another strong public rebuke of the Jewish religious authorities of Jesus’ day. In the context of all that he’s already said and already done about these Jewish religious authorities, it’s just inevitable that’s who he’s referring to primarily.

But while this is chiefly pointing to them, is there not an application for all of us in today’s world? Woe to the pulpits manned by those who are hirelings, who are more afraid of the people’s wishes and wants than they are saying, “Thus saith the Scriptures.” When you are unfaithful in the pulpit to preach the word of God as the word of God is written and preach it in the power of the Spirit, you are a stumbling block. Woe to you. Woe to you. Now, no pastor is perfect and every pastor is weak and struggles but there’s a great difference between a man who intends with his heart by God’s empowering to give the people of God the truth and a man who has willfully succumbed to the spirit of the age, to the cultural whims, to bend over things and change things so that he might keep his job and have a better retirement one day. Stumbling block.

Not only pastors but think about parents. Parents, God has given you a position of great good or great evil and I’m one of you. I know the struggle. I know the difficulty and I don’t know a parent here that wouldn’t bow their head in shame and say, “I wish I was doing a better job.” I mean, that’s just the way you feel, isn’t it? “Lord help me.” I think that’s a good spirit to have. But woe to those parents who follow their children, this is happening over and over, who follow their children to unsound churches and to sit under unsound pulpits because the kids like the program better. Are you kidding me? The eternal souls of your family is on the line and you’re picking a place for your children to be taught the things of God and know God and you’re picking a place because the play is more fun? God help us. Give us some men, men of God who lead their families. You’re a stumbling block. You’re a stumbling block.

You should pick a church for your children or your grandchildren based on the pulpit of the church. I’m going to tell you, if the pulpit is right, even if the student program and the children’s program is weak, they’re better off by far. If children’s programs and youth programs were essential, they’re good, we do a lot of work on ours now, but if they were essential, Jesus would have started a children’s and youth ministry but what did he do instead? He preached. He called men like the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul and what did they do? They preached. Do you know what we’ve found? If you preach it right and the Spirit of God works in the hearts of men and women, your kids just kind of do fine. That doesn’t mean we’re sloppy about our program. I’ll compare our children and student program to anybody else’s but we don’t build a church on it.

We had a man in our membership class a few years ago and he said he was interested in our church but he was really looking for the best children’s program for his kids and I told him right there, I said, “You probably picked the wrong church. We’ve got the best one in town but that’s not what, we want you to be built up so you are the main discipler and influencer of your children.” You don’t cart that off to somebody else. You’re not going to entertain kids into the kingdom of God. These young people need to understand we do fun stuff, nothing wrong with that, amen? But they have a duty to Jesus Christ. They have a duty and they need to learn that right here and in your homes. This whole notion of we start playing with kids when they’re in nursery and preschool and in the elementary years and the high school years and the college years, we put all of these wild, entertaining shenanigans on so that we might reach them. Do you know what we’ve done? The stats are in. The facts are out there. 80% + of our kids when they get to college age leave church. Do you know why? Because they are not idiots. They know it’s a game. They know it’s a joke. They want to be told the truth. They need to understand the sense of duty.

Well, we’re talking about being stumbling blocks. Parents, be careful. Don’t be a stumbling block. Pastors, don’t be a stumbling block. What about peers? You’re responsible for those around you that you influence. How often might we discourage others by certain words or deeds or lack of service or lack of faithfulness? My friend, you may very well be a stumbling block. Jesus said, “Woe to you if you’re a stumbling block.” What about your attitudes? Snarly. Critical. Faultfinding about your church pastors or somebody in the church. I’ll be honest, I don’t think we have much of that but, listen, you’re a stumbling block. God may need that very person you said something critical to about your pastor to hear the Gospel next week and they can’t hear it because they hear your criticism in their ear while he’s preaching. God forbid you close off from a person the very means God has ordained to win them to Christ. Do you get what I’m saying? If you want to criticize somebody, come to my house, I’ll give you plenty of reasons to criticize me but don’t hurt people that might need to hear the Gospel. Stumbling blocks among your peers.

Then there are those out-and-out persecutors of the church. There are out-and-out rebels who don’t claim to know Christ and be a part of our faith who want to undermine our doctrine and our teaching. From the President of the United States who glories in what the Bible calls wickedness to the street thug who gives out drugs to a curious junior high school student. All stumbling blocks.

Then, let’s talk about true and faithful Christians. Even true and faithful Christians need a warning from this text. Who can say that he or she has never been a cause for another to stumble? This humbles us, doesn’t it? However, I am convinced that in God’s eyes and in the spirit of this text, there is a real significant difference in God’s eyes between a genuine Christian whose full intent is to honor and serve God but sometimes they fail and may have caused another to stumble. There’s a real difference between that one and the full- out hypocrite compromiser and the full-out rebel who doesn’t even claim to be a Christian and works to destroy Christians and cause them to stumble. The committed Christian may drop a stumbling stone in another’s path but it’s never his pre-meditated intent to do so. But the full-blown hypocrite compromiser and the out-and-out persecutor of Christians, they are stumbling blocks. There is a difference between leaving a stone you didn’t mean to leave and being a stumbling block yourself.

But yet we all need to learn from this. Verse 2, Jesus doesn’t just say, “Woe,” which is a strong denunciation, he says, “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.” I believe the phrase “little ones” doesn’t just refer to children, it means those young in the faith; those trying to grow and learn and understand. Now, a millstone here was that heavy stone they used, I’d call it a gristmill, that may not be proper for this age but the stone would turn on another stone and it would grind the grain. They would make their flour, make their wheat cakes out of that. It was so heavy it took an animal, usually a donkey to turn the millstone. So Jesus is using this graphic illustration. You ought to take that heavy millstone, tie it around your neck and commit suicide before you’d be a stumbling block to one who’s trying to follow Jesus Christ.

We do know in this day, the ancient Romans would sometimes roll a man up in pliable lead and then throw him in the sea to drown him. Jesus uses this graphic picture of a terrifying drowning and death to point out the seriousness of the judgment he will bring against those who are stumbling blocks to others who are trying to follow him. Here’s Jesus’ point: you have a duty to be a good example to those around you. A duty. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s convenient. Not because church is fun. It’s your duty to be a good example to those around you.

Well, let’s hurry on. I’m going to try to get through this point and then we’ll close for this morning. Secondly, the duty of correcting and restoring sinners. He goes to a different thought. I’m convinced though they do link, it’s a different thought. In the last part of verse 3 he says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” Now, talk about correcting and restoring the sinning because he’s talking about a professing brother or sister who didn’t sin, look, we all sin but he’s talking about one who is sinning and not yet willing to get it right. Are you with me? We all sin. We all have compassion for each other but occasionally someone gets in a rut and in a pattern and they don’t want to listen to anybody and he says, “You have a duty to that person in the church to call them to repentance and get them right.” The phrase, “if your brother sins and then if he repents” is a third class conditional phrase which means it’s not yet a fact. He’s not saying some are sinning, he’s saying if it does happen. It’s hypothetical. One of the points here is that Christian discipleship, now listen to me church, begins and ends in a family with other believers. He’s saying, “You’ve got a responsibility one to another.” You can’t do that unless you collect together in bodies of believers. We don’t just go out into the world and say, “Are you a Christian? Okay, I rebuke you.” No, I tell you, “Don’t do that.” But in the family, you not only have the freedom to do that, you have the duty, Jesus says, to do that, to call them to repentance.

That’s why we talk about baptism being the first step of obedience. The moment you’re converted, you should be seeking baptism. If the church leadership hears your testimony and it seems to be valid, you read your testimony, the church family affirms also that it looks like a valid conversion experience and that’s one God has added to the church, they are baptized as the ordinance that initiates their journey with us as part of the family of believers. They become a part of the family that’s going to love, encourage, care for, sacrifice and, reprove, rebuke and correct each other as needed. That’s what a church is. That’s what a church does.

Real quickly, look over at Acts 2 as we see the church just getting started in the book of Acts. The Spirit of God has fallen in an anointing on the church. God is saving people. Let me just breeze through this. Acts 2:41, we’ll start there, “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added,” added to what? To that local body of believers. There is no such thing as baptism and not connecting to a local church family. That’s why we don’t believe in you getting saved and Uncle Joe baptizing you up in Gatlinburg one weekend. I’m not saying motives were wrong but what church family are you being identified with and connecting with? That’s what baptism is for. It’s the ordinance that is public so it identifies you and connects you to a local church family of believers. “They were added about three thousand souls.” Verse 42, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship.” Fellowship with who? One another in a local church. “To the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Verse 43, “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.” Verse 44, “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common.” Notice again: they are in one family of believers. Verse 45, “and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.” This was a unique situation; a one time situation where they shared their valuables, their property, their finances. It was only a temporary situation and it’s not the standard for today but that just shows, again, the community and the oneness they had as a family. Verse 46, “Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.” Now notice: “The Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

So God adds folks to a body of believers. There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. Christian discipleship is lived out within a local church family the same way that marriage is expressed and lived out by you sharing your life now with another person, your spouse. Being in good fellowship with a local church while it is not essential to the being of a disciple, it is essential to the well-being of the disciple and conversely, to the well-being of the church. You don’t buy a set of car tires to set them in the garage and just look at them. You buy a set of car tires to put on the car so as a whole the car functions. God save you not to be set apart somewhere but to add you to a church family with all of its warts and weaknesses and weirdos and there are some of those around, people that don’t fit. They don’t think like you but they are part of God’s family and that shows the power of the Gospel to bring all these different kinds of people together because what we have that brings us together is radically greater than anything culturally and in personality and style might separate us. It shows the power of God.

Verse 3, “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him.” Now, one important part of this relationship we have in this local church family is the rebuking of sin and then the follow-up, the forgiveness of the repenters. Rebuking the sinner. He says, “If your brother sins.” He says, “If your brother sins, then there is a duty you have to rebuke them.” In God’s household, certain actions require certain reactions. As a team, we covenant together to pursue righteousness. That’s what we’re about. We’re in covenant together to pursue righteousness and if we’re going to follow out in that pursuit or live out that pursuit, then we will be constantly rebuking, repenting and forgiving one another. That’s not a rare or weird or strange thing, that’s just average, normal, everyday church life. Rebuking. Repenting. Forgiving one another.

Now again, these are Proverbs. Jesus is just giving a broad principle here because under rebuking there may be a number of things like admonishing or exhorting or reproving. But Jesus gives the strong clear word but I think there’s something else going on here. I think he’s saying, “You guys just have a tendency to soft-pedal the seriousness of sin so I’m going to use the word ‘rebuke’ because I want to tell you how I feel about sin. You’ll dumb it down. You’ll tend to excuse it. You’ll tend to say, ‘It’s not that big a deal, we all do it.'” But he said, “I’ve got to combat that so I’m going to use a strong word for the unrepentant sinner like ‘rebuke.'” Listen to this: the word “rebuke” here means this: it means “to mete out what is deserved and what is right.” It means their conduct, it is proper and appropriate, it is right to bring this rebuke against it because sin is that serious. So rebuke is the appropriate, righteous response to unrepented of sin in the church. It’s actually a stern warning. A rebuke has the idea of shaking the person. Getting their attention. Changing their thinking. You see, true love always begins with truth and speaking the truth and in Christians, we not only strive to avoid giving offense, that’s being a stumbling block, by the way, we also are striving to reform those who have offended in the church.

Then he says, “If he repents, you forgive them.” The phrase, “if he repents,” the word “repent” there means “to change one’s mind or one’s purpose.” If you’re talking to them, now look, here’s some of those sub points we don’t have time to go into because Jesus isn’t dealing with all the sub points, just the broad principle but I’m going to deal a little bit with it. If you are dealing with somebody, always in strict confidentiality. Nobody else is to know about it. Always in strict confidentiality. Always with full humility on your part as the rebuker. As a matter of fact, the first thing I would say is, “Brother, I’m no better than you and I struggle too but I wish you would think about your attitude here or think about that action.” Actually, that’s a little more reproof. Rebuke would be more like this, “I’m telling you, that’s wicked and God’s going to judge you and you’d better get it right.” I’ve done that a few times as a pastor, that firm. I did it one time when we had a staff member in adultery but I’ll be honest with you, too many times I failed and have not been as firm as I ought to have been. It’s hard to know sometimes, to be honest.

But if he receives that and says, “Man, that’s right. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be like that. Pray for me and help me,” it’s over. Put your arm around him and say, “Amen brother. Let’s pray together. I’ll help you in any way I can.” Nobody ever, ever, ever should know the conversation ever occurred, amen? That kind of thing happens over and over and over in the family called the local church that is coming together to pursue righteousness together. Jesus said, “This is your duty to call to repentance and correct those who are sinning.” Not a sinner, we’re all sinners but if they’re unwilling to get something right, you might give them a little time, you might watch them a little bit but it’s obvious and clear. Now, we’re not talking about correcting things that you subjectively believe aren’t good, we’re talking about clear biblical violations. That’s part and parcel of what the church is about and what the church does.

Let’s stand in prayer together, alright?