Response to Specific Sins, Part 2

Review: The Primacy of Brotherly Love and its Operation in the Presence of Sin

0:04 primarily for the benefit of those who are visiting with us and have not been present in past weeks to sense the drift of where we are going in our Sunday morning studies. Perhaps a few words of review and introduction will be most helpful to them, as well as, I hope, not too tedious for those of us who have been here. In working our way through the words of the Apostle to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 1, we came in our study to verse 15, in which the Apostle indicated that the news concerning the growth and development of the two great Christian graces of faith and love brought great encouragement to his own heart and provoked him to pray with greater fervency for the continuous work of God in the midst of the Ephesian believers. And so, having touched upon this matter of love to all the saints, in Ephesians 1.15, considering a number of factors which have grown out of my pastoral dealings with you as a congregation, I felt it necessary to digress or to amplify on the subject of love of the brethren and, in particular, to consider some areas of biblical directive relative to love of the brethren.

1:29 And so, two weeks ago, we looked at about 30 passages of Scripture, reading them without comment, all of which combined to show that among the graces of the Christian life, love of the brethren stands supreme above all others. Next to unfeigned love to the living God and to his Son, Jesus Christ, there is no grace that stands more supreme in the place of primacy and descendancy than the grace of brotherly love. And therefore, we drew...

2:03 We drew these very fundamental conclusions, having looked at those many passages, that if we are not loving the brethren, we are guilty of gross sin. If we are not growing in love, we are not growing in grace. Thirdly, the presence or absence of brotherly love is demonstrated in the concrete realities of our dealing with men. We grow in love only insofar as we grow in the tangible expressions, as we grow in the tangible expressions, as we grow in the tangible expressions of that love.

2:35 And then, fourthly, this love of the brethren does not grow automatically, nor does it know how to act automatically. So then, the Scriptures are full of exhortations to grow in love. The Scriptures are full of directions as to how love will act. And one of the biggest heresies that was ever spawned on the church was that love needs no directive, that love has its own built-in gyroscopes.

3:03 But it doesn't. Love needs to be directed. Hence, the God who commands us to love Him with the whole heart tells us what it means to love Him and how love will be expressed. The same God who commands us to love the brethren says, and this is what love will do.

3:22 And so, the Scriptures are full of these specific directives concerning love of the brethren. And all of this, of course, is in the context of truth. We are not talking about love. We are talking of love wrenched loose from the sphere of truth.

3:37 But as John says in 2 John 2, he speaks of that lady whom he loves in the truth and for the truth's sake. So all that we say concerning brotherly love and how it acts, it is assumed that we are thinking of love in the context of truth. Now then, we limited our field of study as to how brotherly love will work to this one area, namely, how brotherly love operates in the presence of sinful brothers and sisters. One of the hard realities of the Church of Christ is that even at its best, it is a gathering of imperfectly sanctified saints. And therefore, unless we know how to have our love directed to the problem of the sins of the saints, we will not know, much about the actings of brotherly love. Well then, we divided that general area down into several sub-areas. First of all, we considered love in the presence of the multitude of sins in the saints.

4:49 Those many failures, those many weaknesses, those many shortcomings, they are sins. 1 Peter 4, 8, There is the multitude of sins, but love of the brethren will cast a veil. 2 Peter 4, 9, For love shall cover a multitude of sins. Peter says, have fervent love among yourselves, for love shall cover a multitude of sins.

5:12 If love is not there, these infirmities and weaknesses and shortcomings will be marked, stored up in the memory, dragged out to be broadcast, dragged out to be thrown into the face of our brethren. But if we have fervent love among ourselves, love shall cover the multitude of sins. Now, last week we began to consider a second area in which the brethren have the problem of sin. When it's that general accumulation of weaknesses and infirmities, love covers them.

Responding to Specific Sins: Seeking and Granting Forgiveness

5:46 Now, what about those specific sins? Where one brother sins against another? Where one brother does that which demands acknowledgement of his sin? Well, the Bible gives us a directive.

5:58 Having a heart suffused with the love of Christ, we are to deal with these sins, these specific sins between brother and brother, between brother and sister in the family of God. We looked at Matthew 5, 23, a situation in which I'm conscious that I've sinned against my brother. What does love to my brother make me do? It makes me leave everything else and go and acknowledge my fault and seek a reconciliation.

6:28 What do I do if my brother has sinned against me? And he has not yet come and sought my forgiveness. Mark 11, 25 says, When I stand praying, I am to forgive. If I have ought against any, I am to forgive.

6:44 I'm not to wait for my brother to come. I am to receive from God the grace of an attitude of forgiveness. In my heart, I am to extend the spirit of forgiveness. And then, if my brother repents of his sin, I am to gladly and freely confer upon him the word of my forgiveness.

7:07 But I am not to wait till my brother comes crawling to me before I know and experience the spirit of forgiveness in my own heart. When ye stand praying, Jesus said, if ye have ought against any, forgive. And I was meditating on this yesterday and thinking of the review, and the thought came to me from the prodigal son, there's a beautiful illustration of this. You remember, the prodigal was coming back with a full purpose to repent.

7:36 He said, I'll go back and say, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight am no more worthy to be called thy son. But now the scripture records that when the father saw the son, while he was yet a great way off, he ran to the son, and he fell upon his son's neck, and he kissed him. Then the son said, Father, I've sinned against you. I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight.

8:01 Now, had the son not acknowledged his sin, had the father thrown his arms around him and said, Oh, son, it's good to have you back. Had the son pushed his father off and said, Look, I'm not coming back to acknowledge any wrong. I'm coming back to get a few more bucks to go back to the hog pens. The father could not have conferred forgiveness upon that son.

8:24 He could not have said, Son, I forgive you for your evil ways. There had to be the confession, the express repentance of the son before forgiveness could be conferred and the relationship of mutual fellowship restored. But had the son utterly rejected the father's love and the father's concern, the father would go back to that house with a heavy heart, but with the acknowledgement that he had extended forgiveness from his heart. And so it is with our brothers, and with our sisters.

9:01 We must know the spirit of forgiveness in our hearts before they ever come and acknowledge their complaint or before they own their sin when we do as we find in Matthew 18, 15 when we go to them to point out their fault. Now that's basically the area we've covered. Now we want under that second area to look at several other verses this morning. What do I do when my brother, when my brother has sinned against me?

The Inevitability of Stumbling and the Command to Forgive (Luke 17:1-4)

9:31 What do I do when I have sinned against my brother? How does love of the brethren conduct itself in this area? And the passages we want to look at this morning deal with this very fundamental fact or fundamental duty of the necessity of extending full and free forgiveness to the one who has sinned against me. Luke chapter 17, is a key passage, a parallel passage to Matthew 18.

10:03 Now how does love to the brethren conduct itself when the sinning brother has acknowledged his or her sin and asked forgiveness? Luke chapter 17 beginning with verse 1. And he, Jesus, said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come. The context of our Lord's words is this blanket statement, as long as the world is what it is, there will always be provocations to sin.

10:44 It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come. As long as man has a depraved nature and as long as enticements to evil are present and evil is one of the hard-nosed realities of human existence, occasions of stumbling are going to come. Get rid of your starry-eyed idealism that somehow you're going to wake up and find sin has gone off on a journey to some nethermost part of the universe and no longer will bother this planet in which we live. No, no, Jesus said.

11:24 It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come. But, he's going to give some warnings. Woe unto him, through whom they do come. It were well for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were thrown in the sea rather than he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.

11:45 Sin will be present. Face that fact. Accept it in all of its ugliness. It's there.

11:51 But, warning number one, you must avoid being the occasion of sin to others. Offenses will come. Yes, causes for offenses. But don't you be the instrument causing the offense.

12:05 It were better that a millstone were hanged about your neck than you become the instrument by which someone stumbles into sin. That's warning number one. In the light of the inevitability of sin, don't you be the occasion of sin in others. Warning number two, take heed to yourselves if thy brother sin, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him.

12:31 And if he sin against thee, seven times in the day and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. What's the second admonition? The second admonition is this. Just as you're to avoid being an occasion of stumbling, when your brother has stumbled, and in particular, when his stumbling has affected you, never refuse him forgiveness.

12:57 You have the duty to rebuke him. You have the responsibility to forgive him. Don't be the occasion of causing your brother's sin. Don't refuse forgiveness to your brother who sins and who then repents.

13:17 Now, the precise intent of our Lord in verse 3 is difficult to ascertain. Take heed to yourselves if thy brother sin, and many of the better manuscripts do not have the words against thee. In which case the meaning would be this. If you see your brother committing a specific act of sin, now this is not those multitude or that multitude of infirmities with which he lives and you and I live day in and day out.

13:47 Here is a specific sin. The kind of sin that will cripple his walk with God. The kind of sin that will bring scandal to the name of Christ. A specific violation of the precepts of God.

14:01 Rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. That is, assure him of the divine forgiveness upon his repentance. If that's what our Lord meant, then this would tie in with John chapter 20.

14:16 Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted. The fact that every believer can promise to every other believer, if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse from all unrighteousness. We can pronounce this. We can pronounce the word of divine forgiveness to those who repent.

14:36 However, I think the context indicates that our Lord is assuming it's the kind of sin brought into focus in verse 4. And if he sin against thee seven times in the day, indicating that this sin of the brother is particularly the sin against you, and should he sin against you seven times in the day, seven times in one day, this man does a specific act of evil of which I am the object. I must bear the brunt of that evil. And seven times he comes and says, I repent.

15:15 I'm sorry. What are you to do? Jesus said, Thou shalt forgive him. In other words, there is to be no extent, no limitations placed upon the man the measure of forgiveness that you will extend to your brother.

15:34 Now, is our Lord saying if a man commits the same sin seven times over, well, you'd have reason to seriously question the genuineness of his repentance if he went down the same road seven times, especially in one day. And even though our Lord probably has in mind that there were seven different wrongs, I don't think we can limit it even if he fell before the seven times before the same wrong. I don't see that our Lord puts limitations upon it. When he comes and says, I repent, you're not to take the place of God and say, wait a minute now, if you really repented, how come you sinned against me the second time?

16:11 Now, I'm willing to grant it may be the first time, but I think my limit's three with you. The Lord says if he comes seven times in one day saying, I repent, I acknowledge the wrong, is willing to make amends wherever tangible things can be done to show the seriousness of the repentance, we are not to stand back and say, now wait a minute, I'm going to see if this is going to be an eighth time first. I will hold back forgiveness until you bring forth fruits for repentance for a while, then I'll forgive. There is nothing of that in the text.

16:48 Jesus says you're to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive. Now granted, if this sin you're going to commit is such that it has ruptured the intimacy of your fellowship, you cannot simply, by saying I forgive, expect that a relationship built upon respect and confidence can be restored overnight. That may take some time. Granted.

17:19 Granted. That may take weeks and months. And if the sin was of such a nature that the rupture went very, very deep, that relationship may never be quite the same again. As far as the level of its intimacy and mutual trust and confidence.

The Boundless Nature of Forgiveness: Seventy Times Seven (Matthew 18:21-35)

17:35 But that has nothing to do with the fact that from the heart I have forgiven my brother and I hold no grudge against him. Now what is taught here in a few words in Luke 17 is taught in many words enforced with a vivid parable in Matthew chapter 18. So let's turn to the parallel passage in Matthew 18 What does love do when my brother sins against me, acknowledges his sin and seeks my forgiveness? Verse 21 Following on the heels of our Lord's treatment of this problem of a sin, one brother between another, then Peter came and said unto him, to Jesus, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? And I imagine Peter thought he was quite virtuous in making the number this high. Until seven times? Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother?

18:45 How many times shall I say from the heart I forgive you? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto you until seven times, but until seventy times seven. What's our Lord saying? Here's what he's saying.

19:03 Peter, true forgiveness keeps no record. It has no numerical bounds. Peter, if you've got your little book and you say, all right, that's number four, he's come, he's got three more and then he's going to get it. You show that you never had the true spirit of forgiveness the first time.

19:31 Not until seven times, but Peter, till seventy times seven. In other words, Peter, true forgiveness has no bounds to it. It is to be as extensive as seventy times seven. And then he says, now Peter, I'll show you why this is true.

19:48 Verse 23. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king. Our Lord's going to enforce this principle with a parable. And you remember the basic facts of the parable.

19:59 Here's the man with a great debt and the king comes to him. Well, let's read the whole parable. The kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king who would make a reckoning with his servants. When he'd begun to reckon one that was brought unto him that owed ten thousand talents.

20:14 For as much as he had not wherewith to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And the Lord of that servant being moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt. He didn't just turn him loose and say, now pay back five bucks a week.

20:40 He released the debt. He said, from now on when you look at me, don't you look at me as you were in the relationship of a debtor. You look at me in the relationship of a grateful subject to a king. But that's all.

20:54 When I look at you, I don't look upon you as Mr. So-and-so who owes me so much. No, no. I release you and I forgive the debt.

21:01 The page in the ledger there in my counting room is torn out. It no longer has any debit. No. It's forgiven.

21:10 And so the man goes away. What happens? Verse 28. He found one of his fellow servants.

21:17 Here's the king to the subject. The king who had all the power of his regal authority behind him to, as it were, put the squeeze on the man. The king condescends to forgive a servant. Now the servant goes out and finds what?

21:32 Not someone beneath him, but a peer, an equal, a fellow servant who owed him a hundred shillings, a pittance compared to what he owed. And he laid hold on him and took him by the throat. Why, this guy was dead in earnest. Somebody's got his hands around your throat.

21:46 You know, he's not just giving you the first letter that comes out of the computer. Will you please pay up? He means business. He's got him by the throat saying, Pay what thou owest.

21:54 So his fellow servant, while he had a little life left in him, fell down and besought him, saying, Have patience with me and I will pay thee. And he would not. But he went and he went and he went and he went and he went and he went and he went and he went but he went and cast him into prison till he should pay that which was due. So when his fellow servant saw what was done, they were exceeding sorry and came and told to their lord all that was done.

22:20 And his lord called unto him and said unto him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all thy debt because thou besoughtest me. Shouldest thou not also have had mercy on thy fellow servant even as I had mercy on thee? If I the king forgave the debt of you, the servant, when there was this distance between us in place of authority and station, should you not to one of your fellow servants have shown this disposition of forgiveness? And his lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due, so shall also my heavenly father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from the heart. And just as Jesus teaches in the beginning of this parable that our forgiveness is to be extensive with no bounds, he says it's to be intensive. It is to be from the heart, no bounds to it, no sham in it. What was the problem with this man?

The Root of Forgiveness: Divine Grace and its Implications

23:30 Well, the problem was this. He had never drunk of the spirit of forgiveness and therefore he had a total inability to forgive others. The king says, ought you not to have forgiven your fellow servant when I forgave you? He says, in essence, look, if you had any understanding and appreciation of what I did for you, I, the king, have forgiven your great, your mountainous debt.

24:01 Walking in the sense of the wonder of that, when your fellow servant came and pled for mercy with his pittance, you would have immediately reasoned, wait a minute, if the king could have brought to bear upon me all the authority of his throne and the rights of that throne to have me cast into the debtor's prison, and yet he freely forgave me, the king to the servant, why, of course, my fellow servant, I can forgive your debt, of course. But his inability to forgive his fellow servant showed that he had never grasped the spirit of the forgiveness that was extended to him. And that's the essential lesson of this parable, so that Jesus says, if you do not forgive your brothers from the heart, you've never drunk of the spirit of divine forgiveness, you've never been forgiven yourself, you'll be delivered to the tormentors. And frankly, I am frightened when I think of the churches all across this country in which I've been, where they have been crippled for years because certain professed brothers and sisters will not forgive one another.

25:26 And yet they claim to be recipients of divine forgiveness? Impossible. Don't get bogged down in the details of the parable. How could the forgiven servant, as it were, have his forgiveness taken back and be delivered?

25:41 This is not a parable to teach the nature of justification. It's a parable to teach the necessity and the reality of the spirit of forgiveness which knows no bounds and flows from the heart of a man, a woman, who appreciates divine forgiveness. That's why in all the exhortations in the epistles, not all, but almost all without exception, every admonition and exhortation to brotherly love is immediately taken back into the context of divine love expressed at Calvary. Let's look at a couple specimen passages.

26:25 Turn please to Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 1. Be therefore imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love. What kind of love? Where do we learn what love is?

26:46 He goes on to tell us, Even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. Paul knows that he has an immediate entrance into the heart of every forgiven sinner. Every true saint has a highway in his heart from there to Mount Calvary. And so he says, As I would lay the highway of love between you and your brother, he said, I ask you to keep in your mind his love to you.

27:26 Walk in love as he loved. Later on in the chapter he does the same thing with husbands. Husbands, love your wives. Well, what's it mean to love my wife?

27:38 As Christ also loved the church and gave himself for the church. Verse 25. What does he do? Well, you see, he does this thing that we're saying.

27:53 He relates the expression of forgiveness and love at the human level to that great expression of God's love to us. It's done again in 1 John 4, 13-16. It's done in chapter 4, verses 7-10. God is love.

28:13 He that loveth is begotten of God. And he says, Hereby know we the love of God, because he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So what does this tell us? It tells us that if we have received divine forgiveness, then we know what it is to have so drunk of the spirit of forgiveness that we are enabled to forgive others.

28:39 And if we cannot forgive others, it's because we ourselves are not forgiven. Hence the words of Jesus, If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses. Why? Because you're still in the state of impenitence.

How to Cultivate a Forgiving Spirit

28:57 You've never drunk of his forgiveness. Now may I answer some very practical questions, and I've already suggested the answer to the first one. How? How may we be brought to this place where if our brothers or sisters sin against us seven times in the day and say to us seven times in the day, I repent, or even if they don't say it, I haven't been able to get to them yet.

29:23 Perhaps their sin has come to me by way of another. How am I to have that disposition of forgiveness extended until it can be conferred? I haven't yet been able to get to them, to rebuke them. How is my heart to be delivered from rancor and bitterness and the desire to take vengeance and the desire to strike back?

29:44 How? Well, the only answer I know to that is the one set forth in these scriptures that I've read. We must drink deeply and often at the fountain of divine forgiveness until our spirits are permeated with the perspectives of that forgiveness. That's why only a child of God can experience what we're talking about this morning.

30:09 You see, the man out in the world who's been wronged and knows he's been wronged and can prove his case in a court of law, he's filled with rancor and bitterness and the desire to take vengeance and he has no reference point to know a spirit of forgiveness that is not native to his flesh but the people of God do. They are constituted the people of God because the King, the Lord of heaven and earth, has condescended in Jesus Christ to extend and confer forgiveness. They don't go around swaggering and talking about my rights with reference to their fellow men because their God didn't talk about His rights with reference to them. They don't go around saying, I want justice done. They're glad there's a God who dealt with them in grace and pity and not in justice. We're talking now about the family of God. We're not talking about the principles that operate out there in God's common grace in society and civil justice.

31:12 I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the family of God. It operates on totally different principles because the root of the Christian ethic is redemptive, not legal. And all the legal demands are poured through redemptive conduits into the life of God's people.

31:35 And so we as God's people are grateful that we have the spirit of forgiveness infused into our hearts and are therefore enabled by the Spirit to extend that forgiveness to others. So in answer to the question, can we be those who meet these directives, drink deeply at the fountain of divine forgiveness, often and long drink deeply there, and then secondly, face honestly the implications and consequences of failure to extend forgiveness in love? There are times when gospel motives don't move us and legal motives can be a check to us. And both of those are legitimate in the life of God's servant. There are times when Jesus warned about the danger of indulging sin because, he says, the path to which it leads is perdition. If thy hand offend thee, cut it off.

32:35 It's better to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell. And so there is this mixture. And if you are not moved sufficiently by gospel motives, and if your spiritual condition is such that you're not moved by those, will you remember this? Jesus said, What so shall my Father do to every one of you that forgives not from the heart?

32:56 Deliver them to the tormentors. Face honestly the implications and consequences of your failure to love unto forgiveness. For the same Bible which says, Those that transgress and abide not in the truth have not God, 2 John 9, also says in 1 John 4, 8, He that loveth not knoweth not God. And that means love operative in the concrete realities of sinning brethren and what I do with them when they sin against me and when I sin against them.

33:31 You see, the Bible doesn't come to us in some detached, unrealistic, idealistic setting. It comes to us in the realism of imperfect saints having to live together in the family of God. And we're going to harm one another. We're going to sin against one another.

33:48 Now we don't do it because the Bible says we will. The Bible says we will because it knows we will and wants to meet us with directives that will lead us back into the place of reconciliation one with another. Well, I'm torn because there's another whole area that I want to touch on this morning. This has been difficult.

Love's Response to Sins Not Directly Against Us

34:14 I never know how far we're getting each day. But there's another area that needs to be touched on because there are some vital passages we've not yet considered. Under the same general heading of love in the midst of sinning brethren, we've seen what love does to that great mountain of little picayune things. It covers them.

34:35 We've seen what love does when I remember I've sinned against my brother, Matthew 5, when my brother has sinned against me, Mark 11, Matthew 18, what we do when the brother who has sinned acknowledges the sin and seeks forgiveness, Luke 17, Matthew 18, 18, 21 and following. Now, what do we do if we're acting responsibly in love when our brother sins but it's not a sin particularly directed against us? Let me illustrate. I see one of my brothers slacking off in the use of the means of grace and I realize he's sinning against his own soul and against God.

35:13 What do I do? Perhaps I'm in his home and I see that he's very churlish with his wife, treats her like a chattel and a servant instead of like a creature in the image of God, like the object of the tender, considerate love of Christ to his church. What do I do? Perhaps in that same home I see a wife who is obviously insubordinate to her husband's headship.

35:37 Or perhaps I see slackness with reference to the children. I see them sinning against their children as well as against God by not disciplining them, by not governing them and ruling them in love. Perhaps I happen to hear in conversation dishonesty in business, some shadiness in business ethics that my brother discloses to me. Or I notice a sharpness in speech in his dealings with others.

36:03 What do I do? The sin is not directly against me. I'm not affected in a direct sense. What is my responsibility?

36:11 And the problem is accented because not only is it not against me but I'm so sinful myself. I can see my brother sinning but I'm sure he sees sins in me. And I'm not an elder charged with the spiritual authority to admonish. What am I to do?

Love Must Rebuke: Leviticus 19:17 and Proverbs 27:5-6

36:30 What does love do in this case? Well, the Bible gives us some principles in answer to that question. And I want you to turn with me to one of the key texts regarding this issue and it's found in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus. Of all places, amidst all the offerings and sacrifices and sundry laws, here's one of the most balanced statements in all of Scripture as to what love prompts me to do and directs me to do in the case of the sin of my brother that is not directly against me.

37:11 Leviticus 19 and verse 17. Leviticus 19, verse 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart. Here is a prohibition to any hatred in the heart.

37:31 Now just leave off the next phrase for a minute. Now down to verse 18. Thou shalt not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the Lord.

37:46 Now here you have this admonition that we're going to look at in a minute or this directive sandwiched between these exhortations to love. Thou shalt not hate thy brother, but thou shalt love him as thyself. Here's an exhortation to love couched in the negative and the positive. Now, what is sandwiched in between it?

38:05 Well, look carefully. Thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor and not bear sin because of him. What does love to my neighbor do if I don't hate my brother in my heart? If I'm seeking to love him as myself, what will I do?

38:24 This text says, Love will move me to rebuke him for his sin and indicating if I don't, I am guilty of the sin of lovelessness by my failure to rebuke. Thou shalt surely rebuke him and not bear sin. If I don't rebuke him, I will be chargeable with the sin of failing to discharge my obligations of love. He'll be charged with the sin he's committed, I'll be charged with my sin in failing to rebuke him.

39:01 So then, any dichotomy in our thinking between love and rebuke should be swept away by a passage like this that says love must rebuke. And failure to rebuke is indeed failure to love. Now, this is precisely what is said in different terms in Proverbs 27, verses 5 and 6. Better is open rebuke than love that is hidden.

39:31 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are profuse or are deceitful. Better is open rebuke than secret love. And Jesus says this in his dealings with his own in Revelation 2, as many as I love, Revelation 3, I rebuke and I chasten. So then, when I see my brother sin, a specific sin, in the context of 1 Peter 4, 8, by God's grace, I have that love that is covering the multitude of little faults and failures and things that he's working on.

40:10 But here's obviously a sin that he is either blind to or if not blind to it, he is willfully refusing to deal with it. What does love move me to do? Love moves me to rebuke him. Love prompts me to expose his sin to him even though it has nothing to do with me directly.

Restoring a Brother in Gentleness (Galatians 6:1)

40:31 As we'll see next week, God willing, it has much to do with me indirectly. Transfer this passage from Leviticus now over into the statement of Galatians 6, 1. Tie them together and I think you'll see a comprehensive picture of what our responsibility is. Galatians chapter 6 and verse 1.

40:53 Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, and the form of the verb here means he has fallen before a specific sin, not those multitudes of sins that love covers, but he's overtaken in a specific act of sin that may become a habit of sin. If any man be overtaken in any trespass, what are we to do? Ye who are spiritual, and what does that mean? It means ye who are actuated by those principles and attitudes that are born of the Spirit's work in you. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, self-control. You who can go to that brother not out of the hypercritical spirit of a wrathful vengeance type of a context. No, no, no.

42:02 This is not carte blanche to go whacking people to pieces because you've got some of your own frustrations that you want to give vent to on your brethren. No, no. You see the man overtaken in the fault, and you know that this not only brings grief to him, but dishonors his Lord, and in some measure dishonors the family of God, and grieves and quenches the spirit, and actuated by those attitudes born of the work of the Spirit, ye which are spiritual. What are you to do?

42:35 Restore such a one. The word restore means put him back together. It's the word used for mending the nets in the Gospels. Restore such a one.

42:46 Seek to put that limb back in joint. Seek to skillfully and lovingly and tenderly cut out that cancerous growth that has begun to be manifest in his life. Restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Gentleness.

43:10 And all the while considering thyself, looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. What's the overall impression of this text? Well, it's that the person who sees that brother's sin and is intent to help him is motivated by true love. He's not motivated by his jaundiced eye or by a sense that he is somehow the Lord's chief high executioner or the Lord's surgeon general in the church.

43:38 And he's to go around with his scalpel cutting whatever he sees that looks like cancerous growth. No, no. If I happen to have some growths that need to be removed and I did a few years ago, I'm not going to put myself in the hands of a physician who just said, oh, there's a growth somewhere on the back of his head there and here's a scalpel and I'll go at it. No, sir, I want to know that I had someone who handled that thing delicately, who cut only when he had to and only where he needed to and then sewed me up as soon as all the necessary cutting was done.

44:11 Now, that's true with handling the body how much more handling the delicate spirits of men. We're not to leave the sin unrebuked. That is to commit sin against our brother. But when we go, we are to go in that spirit of meekness all the while conscious that we ourselves could fall in that same area and therefore there will be no judgmental spirit, no pharisaical, holier-than-thou spirit.

44:40 But we will nonetheless go and we don't allow the sense of our own weakness to keep us back from going. But if we go in the spirit, we go to set that bone, skillfully to cut out that which is a good thing that is a grief to the Lord and a grief to our brethren. And it's amazing when people have this attitude and if you have it, you may not have the right words. How many times I've struggled as a pastor having to speak to my brothers.

45:11 I remember a few months ago a vivid example of this. I saw in a dear brother an area that's hard to talk to anybody about. It was about his family life. And he just wasn't scripturally disciplining his kids.

45:23 That's all. It was just that plain. I didn't want to talk to him. I said, Lord, I don't want to talk to that brother.

45:30 Sense of duty kept coming back. I tried to pray. You know, there's nothing more spiritual to do when you're supposed to be out doing something than to try to pray. You know.

45:39 You make prayer an excuse for obedience. And I was desperately trying to do this, but I couldn't pray. I might as well have been talking to myself. The heavens were brass.

45:46 There was no spirit of prayer. For to obey is better than to sacrifice and to hearken to the fat of rams. And finally, I just said, Lord, I've got to go. I think my spirit's right.

45:57 I want to help this brother. I want his good. I don't have any other desire than that. And I didn't go very eloquently or skillfully.

46:05 I fumbled and stumbled and just kind of blurted out what was on my heart. But oh, what a gracious reception I had. Because you see, people sense when you come in the spirit of meekness. When it's paining you and the only thing that's making you cut is love, they sense this.

46:27 And when they do, if they're true children of God, most of the time, you'll find them receiving you. And if they don't receive you, God calls them fools. You go through the book of Proverbs. We don't have time this morning.

46:44 I had a whole bunch of verses here listed to read where it speaks of the virtue of the man who receives rebuke. And again and again, God says, the man who receives rebuke and reproof is the wise man. Listen. When you cut yourself off from the loving rebukes of mom and dad and brothers and sisters in the faith, you're cutting yourself off from one of the great means which God has ordained for your perseverance in the faith.

47:15 And if you cut off the means for perseverance, it may be a sign that there is no real disposition to persevere implanted in your heart by the Holy Ghost. For if the Holy Spirit has effectually drawn you to Christ and put the seeds of divine life within you, and is purposing to bring them to their completion in that day, then He puts within you a disposition to receive all that He has ordained to carry out that work of perseverance. And if one of those means is the loving rebukes of your brethren, one of the surest marks you're a child of God is that you welcome those faithful wounds of your faithful friends. And you embrace their rebukes.

47:58 You don't suddenly draw up and defend yourself and excuse yourself. And spout out your folly by saying how wise you are and you don't need their rebukes. No, no. Love rebukes and Christian grace receives that rebuke.

Practical Directives for Rebuke and Reception

48:13 Now as we close, and I've sort of had to manipulate here because I'm not done and I have to give some wholeness to it. Don't assume that this is your primary task in the plan of God to go around rebuking people. The Bible says even to elders that their first task is not rebuking people and exhorting others but taking care of themselves. Acts 20.28, Paul says to elders, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock. Don't anyone assume that your first task in the kingdom of God is to go around restoring others. You keep your own self in line. That's your first job.

48:50 Secondly, don't ever engage in this activity without prayerful, studied purpose. Don't do that. Aim before you shoot. Think, meditate, pray before you go to the brother or to the sister.

49:08 Thirdly, seek to make your rebuke as receivable as possible. There's two ways to rebuke people. Come to your brother and say, now brother, I've seen you do such and such and that sin and you better repent. Now that all may be true, but if you come and say, brother, you've made it very evident that with all your heart you want to please the Lord and fully conscious that I want to please Him and there are many areas I fall short.

49:32 Have you considered that maybe in this area you accomplish the same thing but oh how different. Don't make, in other words, don't stir up people's flesh unnecessarily. Do you have remaining corruption that can be stirred up by a certain approach? Do you?

49:50 I do. Well, maybe your brother or sister does too. And as you would that others do unto you, even so do unto them. Put a little oil on the sword before you stick it in.

50:01 You don't need to go at people with rusty swords. Then the fourth directive is, when you're on the receiving end, thank God for the rebukes of your friends. Well, as I say, it's been an awkward thing because I've had to condense and close and I'm not done. And I've never yet read a book that tells you how to handle that.

50:29 But oh, is it too much to expect that God will help us to walk responsibly in this kind of love, not the saccharine, unprincipled, sloshy sentiment that says, oh well, everything's fine. And everybody's all right. No, no, no. That faces the reality of our ugly sins against God and one another.

50:53 Love that covers the multitude of those inconsequential things. Love that moves us to go to the brother whom we have offended. Love that moves the brother to come to me. Love that moves me to extend forgiveness long before I have an opportunity to confer it.

51:10 Love that moves me to confer forgiveness when my brother has been and has acknowledged his wrong and has repented. Love that moves us to loving rebuke one to another, restoring one another in the spirit of meekness. This is how love works in an assembly. God never said that love will purge away all sin so that there'll be no need to rebuke.

51:34 But He has said that love will enable us to rebuke in meekness and be a means, an instrument of grace in one another's life. Oh, may we drink deeply of the spirit of divine forgiveness and in that spirit forgive one another. Let us pray.