All right, so hopefully you got a handout when you came in for, as we're going through the Peacemaker, which is one of those books that has been a tremendous help to me as I work with people. As a pastor, you work with a lot of people, and a lot of people have conflict, and so helping people resolve conflict, and really one of the big things is helping people resolve conflict among themselves because there's only so much you can do as an outsider. But we have several things here. If you take your Bible, turn to Matthew 18, a quick review as we get a running start on this chapter. We'll hopefully wrap up all the information in chapter 9 where he talks about basically being a an intercessor or being a reconciler, being a reconciler and helping other people be reconciled. Matthew 18, we have the description here by Jesus of how we are to handle church discipline issues. And I filled in the blanks for you from last week. The general principle from Matthew 18 is keep the circle as small as possible for as long as possible. And what that means is the number of people involved should not be more than those people who are part of the problem or part of the solution. So you should not be talking to people to just tell them about the issues that you're dealing with with someone else. You should not be gossiping. You should not be asking that in the form of prayer requests. It really is important to keep the circle as small as possible for as long as possible. The first step we saw was overlook minor offenses. This is just pulled from Love Covers a Multitude of Sins. You do not have to confront somebody every time they sin against you. And I'm glad that that's the case. I'm sorry, I forgot to put the thing up on the thing. Can you all give me just like one second to run back there? I'm sorry. Give me one second. Sorry about that. It's like the only problem when you're your own sound man is when you have to actually push buttons back there. I apologize for that. Okay, Matthew 18, we talk about the process for this. Overlook minor offenses. If someone sins against you, you don't have to actually confront them over this. You can just say, I choose to forgive them without even having to say anything. If it's not an issue, that's the mature thing to do. In fact, most of the time, things stop right there. But what's step two? If you can't overlook it, if it's something that's persistent in their life or something that's causing something between the two of you. then it needs to be dealt with. If every time you look at that person, all you can think of is how they sinned against you, you need to deal with it. Then you're not overlooking it anymore. That's a problem. So what's the next step? One-on-one, right? Go one-on-one. And I think we have it here, it says, talk in private. So really step one is overlook, but then you go one-on-one, so in private. There are times when this is not really doable. We talked about this earlier. If there's sin against you in some serious ways, that could create issues with this being a strategy. Again, we've talked about this already, but generally speaking, the first step is one-on-one. If they will not hear you, if they look at your one-on-one discussion, they say, get lost, this is not an issue, you're overreacting, I didn't do that, or I'm not gonna repent, or anything like that, what's the next step? One or two more. So that's two or three on one. And he made the point last week, which I think is really good. that if you can't come to an agreement here and you say, look, I want to bring other people in on this, you can either do it together and you can say, look, why don't we agree on some people who we think would be impartial in this situation? So by mutual agreement, you can say, why don't we have so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so come along and help us with this? And if you both agree, wonderful. But if they say, I don't want you talking to anybody about this, this stops here, and you say, no, we can't do that. We're not allowed to just... sweep this under the rug. We have to deal with it like Christians. You can bring two or three to deal with this, but just be careful it's not you teaming up on somebody, right? You want to make this... you want them to be there as witnesses. There's all these other roles they can play, but this is to establish the facts That's part of the reason you do this. It is semi-private, is really what you're doing here, because it's not exactly private. I mean, you're involving other people, but you're not doing this in public. In fact, I would encourage you to do this at someone's house. or in a church office. Don't do this at Starbucks, okay? I've been at restaurants before, or at coffee shops, and I've heard people, probably not doing it biblically, but I've heard people having, like, interventions, and it's super awkward. If you don't know what's going on, you're just like, oh, I'm hearing way too much information I don't want to know about. And you can't help but listen, that's the problem, is I don't think I'm the only one who does that, but it's like, and I hear these juicy details, I'm like, how can I not listen to this? This is just so entertaining. It's horrible, but it's true. I mean, we're all that way. I can't stand it. So, don't do this in a public place, okay? Do it in a semi-private place where you can have frank conversations, honest conversations, and you can do it in a way that is honoring to the Lord. Okay, if we keep going, if they still will not hear you. In fact, Philippians 4, we didn't turn this last time, but Paul actually talks to a couple people there. Let's turn there and look at that passage for just a second. This is an example, and it's one of those examples that is an illustration of just like it's an off-the-hand comment that Paul makes. And it's one of those things where I would have loved to have been present in Philippi when Paul's letter was read to the Philippian church. Because he's sitting there, he's saying all these things, brethren, join in following my example. I've told you there are some who are enemies of the cross of Christ. Therefore, my beloved, verse chapter four, my longed for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved. And then he says, I implore Uriah and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. He says, hey, I know about these two women who are fighting in the church. And so I need you, true companion, help these people to get along. There is a role for two or three people to come and help these people. And this fight was so well known that Paul had heard about it even from where he was writing. So I would imagine there was some cringing going on in the congregation as Paul's letter was read. But anyway, semi-private, that's the goal, two or three together. The purpose being, as you look at Matthew 18, to establish the facts and make sure that what is being said is true. I have said this before, and I'll say it again, that sometimes this happens, and if this person approaches this person, sometimes this person doesn't realize they've been approached about a sin. Okay? Because we are not always good at this. And if I go to Ryan here, and I'm approaching him about something, and I'm like, Ryan, you really offended me by such and such, and he doesn't hear me, or I don't speak as clearly as I need to be, or I'm not using the right language, I might say, hey, it kind of hurt my feelings when something happened the other day. And he's like, oh, that's not a big deal. Okay, I may take that as he's disregarding me. He may not even realize what I really mean by that. So that's why we go to two or three on one where these people can help clarify. Not everybody's a good communicator, right? Some people just struggle to say what they're thinking. So that's why this is important. What's the next step after this? Okay, the church. The church on one. And so this becomes, again, public in the sense of the church church public, not public public, not newspaper public, not inviting cameras in to broadcast on the evening news, but it is church public in the sense that we would tell the church about the sin that is persistent and unrepentant. Okay, this is unrepentant, persistent sin. This is not just a disagreement over, we've talked about this already, but we're talking about serious sin that is unrepentant. And the way this works at Harvest and we lay it out in our constitution is that we would have a meeting where we dismiss all non-members and only members over 18 typically would be allowed in a meeting like this. We would record the meeting for the benefit of the person who we're talking about so that they can hear exactly what was said about them. and we have the meeting and we explain exactly what's happened, we explain the processes, and even these people who were involved in a semi-private kind of situation might be called upon to be witnesses for what happened, to say, yes, that's exactly what happened. And then it doesn't stop here. See, a lot of times people say, this is the meeting where the church votes the person out, and that's not necessarily the case, because what's the next phrase in Matthew 18? It says, tell it to the church, and if he will not, what? If he will not hear the church, what's the implication there? What is the church doing? The church is doing the same thing these people are doing, and the same thing this person was doing. They're pleading with the person to repent. They're praying and they're pleading. So there's a gap. between this meeting where the church is informed, and then the church dismisses this man if he continues to refuse, or woman if they continue to refuse to listen to church discipline, listen to the Word of God, okay? Because at that point they're not acting like a believer. So, last thing here is that you're to treat them like a non-believer, and to treat them like a non-believer know, the church can't decide who's a believer and who's not. That's between them and God. But a church has the obligation to, like, we do not let you join Harvest unless you're a believer in Christ, you profess Christ as your Savior, and you've been baptized. Those are our requirements, okay? And If you are not demonstrating that you are a believer, if your actions do not demonstrate that, the church has the authority to say, I'm sorry, you are not demonstrating this publicly, you're not demonstrating a sensitivity to the Spirit, and a sensitivity to sin and a desire to walk right with God. Therefore, as far as we're concerned, you're not evidence of a believer and you cannot be a member of our church if you're a non-believer. It doesn't make them a non-believer. They can still go to heaven. Right? It's not if they are truly a believer, but the church is required. The scripture tells us that we're to treat them like a, it says here, like a heathen and a tax collector. And that's important because how do you treat a non-believer? Well, you exclude them from, I think I have it here on my notes here. We revoke membership from them. And the reason we do that is it, here's your blank, it prevents the Lord from being dishonored. So you revoke membership from someone. And this is, I mean, we're talking about something that happens not that often. This is not something that happens every week, even every year, even every decade. It happens occasionally when someone who is confronted with their sin doesn't repent, refuses to repent, stubbornly refusing to repent, and is bold in their sin. And in this case, you say, look, you're not acting like a believer. So we revoke membership, and in that case, it prevents the Lord from being dishonored. Romans chapter 2, verses 23 and 24. Does someone have that verse? They want to read that? Yeah, Cassie? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Okay, those who break the law and boast here, they boast in the law, but they break the law, he's saying God is being blasphemed because of your disobedience. God's reputation is at stake here, and if we have people who are members of a local church in good standing and who are living lives that are in direct rebellion against God with a high hand, I'm not saying that they struggle with sin. We're talking about someone who repeatedly disobeys God and walks in sin knowingly, okay? And then secondly, what it does, other believers are protected from being led astray by a bad example. We see this in Romans chapter 16, but also in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Because what's happening in 1 Corinthians 5 is there's a man who is openly living in sexual sin. And Paul confronts him and he says, why are you tolerating this in your church? You can't have that in your church. This is stuff that even the Gentiles, even the pagans don't allow, and you're flaunting this in your church, as if like you're so tolerant or so, you know, oh, that is not something to be happy about. He says, you need to deal with this. And so they do, and in 2 Corinthians, the man responds the right way. This is what's so cool. Read 2 Corinthians, and you see he talks about godly sorrow. And the man expressed godly sorrow for his sin, and he repented, and so there's this restoration. So it's pretty neat to see 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, a confrontation of the sin and the response to the sin. But I don't think enough of us really recognize how easy it is for some, especially young Christians, to be swept away by bad examples if we tolerate sin. If we say, ah, it's not that big of a deal, people will be swept away into that to their own detriment. We do not want to let people just be swept away by sin. We want to protect people from a bad example. And also, number three there, it helps the rebellious person recognize their sin and the seriousness of it, turn from it, and be restored to God. So it's saying, you know, this is serious stuff. The truth is that most of our culture today does not treat sin very seriously. We think of sin as a joke. and people don't even consider the seriousness of the sin that they engage in. So, that's the Matthew 18 pattern. The last thing I wanted to put, as I put this in at the bottom, is the purpose of all this, the purpose of this process is to chasten, okay, not to judge, I think is what I put, or not to condemn. Oh no, chastening out of love, sorry, I put the wrong, it is kind of judging, but it's chastening out of love. The motive here is love for this person. You love that person, you're not going to let them languish in this sin. You love them, you care about them. And chastening, as I've said many times, is not in order to get even with someone. You don't chasten someone to get even with them. You chasten them to draw them back to a relationship. Getting even is judgment or is like punishment. Punishment fits the crime. Again, forgive me if I've used this illustration too many times, but if I hit a baseball through a window, what's the punishment? Would you say paperwork? I was like, how does paperwork work? I don't understand. Pay for it. Yeah, pay for it, right? I don't get my hands chopped off, right? Or I don't have to spend a month in my room. as a kid. I'm saying as a kid, right? Or, you know, this actually is a thing that as parents, parents need to be careful about when you do punishments versus chastening, because there is a time to punish. Like, if they do something, the punishment fits the crime, right? If they break something, replace it. If they do something like this, break a window, the punishment for that window is to rectify, to adjust, to make it correct. You are making them pay for what they did. But punishment, this is not punishment here, this is chastening because chastening is not about there's a loss that needs to be rectified, it's about there is a relationship that needs to be restored. Okay? It's a huge difference. Because if it's a loss that needs to be, this is what happens. If people see this as, instead of chastening, as punishment, what's the attitude? Condemnation, good. What do you say when you're talking about punishment? If it's, I hit the baseball through the window, it breaks the window, what's mom gonna say to me? I'm gonna make you what? Pay for it. So what's the attitude of someone who doesn't have chastening? What are they gonna say to this person? I'm gonna make you what? make you pay for it. You see? It becomes vindictive. If you don't understand that your goal is to restore a relationship, and not to humble them because, let's say they embarrassed you, or something, and that's what you're doing, then you want to embarrass them, or humble them, because an eye for an eye, right? That's not the goal of this. The goal of this is not to punish. The goal of this is to chasten. The goal of this, at every point, this stops as soon, in fact, if you're reading Matthew 18, when does this process stop? As soon as they repent, right? It stops as soon as they repent. At any point it could stop. Just repent and you'll be restored and your relationship is back and you're good. Yeah, Dave. Okay, good question. You are limited if they just walk away. So how we treat this here is we don't have the ability to, some churches, okay, some churches will say you cannot resign or you cannot walk away if you're in the middle of church discipline. I think that some churches have done that. Practically speaking, that's very difficult to do. Because you can't force people. We don't have arresting powers. I can't send someone to, Ryan and I have a dust up. I can't send someone to Ryan's house to arrest him and bring him in before the tribunal. We just don't have that. So it's very impractical to demand that. So practically speaking, how we have done it here is the goal, of course, is restoration. If they desire no restoration and they want to leave, we allow them to resign and move on. And that's happened a few times. When you confront somebody over sin that's unrepentant sin, that's sometimes what they'll do. I mean, I understand the goal is to restore them, and I would prefer that we can stick the whole thing out, but sometimes they don't let me. Does that make sense? Has this process occurred to Harvest? Yes. It's occurred a few times, not very often. We're streaming tonight, so I don't really want to get into details, but that's okay. We can talk personally if you'd like. I often tell stories in very vague terms about things. It's been a long time since we've had to do something like this specifically. But yeah, the goal is always to chasten someone, chasten sounds difficult, but discipline them, to draw them back to a right relationship. And again, we're not talking about somebody who has like, I'm trying to think of a good example. I one time had somebody come to me, and they were new, they were new, and I taught this in intro class. And they didn't stick around, so I'm going to tell this story. The person, the man, had had a problem. He had a big struggle with pornography. And so he, and I knew about this. struggle, and he had told me about it at one point. Anyway, he was very concerned about struggling. He said, I struggle, I struggle, I don't want to sin. He said, but sometimes I fall. Are you saying that if I fall, you're going to kick me out of the church? I said, no, we're not talking about struggling. We're not talking about somebody who is fighting the good fight and is in the trenches and occasionally falls and confesses and admits. We're talking about someone who doesn't care, who says, I don't care what you tell me, I'm going to do what I want to do. So it's a totally different attitude than what what this person was concerned about. So I hope, I'm not trying to scare you and say, if you have a besetting sin, if you have a sin that you struggle with, that you fall occasionally and you really struggle with that, I'm not saying that we're gonna break down your door and kick you out of the church because you haven't gotten victory over that particular sin. This is over unrepentant, high-handed sin towards God. Okay, let's keep going. Was there a question? Sorry. Okay, let's keep going. What do reconcilers do? If you're a reconciler, just a few things here. We'll work through these pretty quickly. What reconcilers are able to do, they're able to help both parties make the decisions to restore peace. So sometimes there's decisions to be made, and when you're in it, sometimes it's hard to see it, and you have other people there that can help see the answers. They may help determine the facts. Determine, there's your blank there, determine the facts. Again, when you're in the middle of something, it really helps to have an outsider listening. And I've often, I think sometimes my wife and I say when we do marriage counseling, sometimes all we're doing is we're just providing an opportunity for people to have a discussion with a third party there. I mean, sometimes we do, I mean, a lot of times we do more, but sometimes that's what ends up happening is there's a discussion that needs to happen and we sit there and we listen and we're like, wait, wait, okay. When he said that, He actually meant this. This is what he's trying to say. And she's like, oh, that's what you're trying to say. And he's like, yeah, that's what I'm trying to say, right? This happens because we're not very good at communicating. People sometimes can't communicate and they need help. And so that's what you're there for as a reconciler. They may give advice on how to deal with the problems. Okay, they may encourage repentance and confession on either side. They may direct parties to scriptures and principles. They may draw from experience to propose or blank is practical solutions. So they may say, hey, you know what works for me is I do this. Or have you ever considered this? If there's a deadlock, they may help resolve a deadlock. So if there's the inability for progress to be made. And if no resolution is reached, they may function as witnesses to the church. during the reconciliation effort. So what happens, options for when the church cannot resolve the issue. He also makes the point that not every issue can be resolved in church. And so there's a few options you have. Number one is drop the matter and give up claims against the other person. You can just say, look, I'm not gonna pursue this anymore. If there's conflict between you and another person and you can't resolve it, you can drop it. And you can choose to be forgiving, 1 Corinthians 6 talks about matters between believers like this. Number two, you can try to persuade the opponent to accept some other form of dispute resolution. So you can say, well, this didn't work, let's try something else. Or number three, he makes the point here that really filing a lawsuit, it really should only be against unbeliever or non-believers and only as a last effort. This is not something you should be doing against believers. 1 Corinthians 6 makes it clear that we are not to take each other to court in matters of civil issues. It's completely different. By the way, this is important. This is not relevant to criminal cases. If a Christian murders someone in your family, it is not against biblical principles for you to take that person or allow that person to be charged. And this is actually set up in our system. I was talking to somebody about this, and this is, I'm not a lawyer, okay, so I don't even play one. I don't pretend to be, but I really am fascinated by this stuff, because there's a lot of biblical concepts in law, and one of them is this. You know when someone is brought up on murder charges, it's not a person-to-person case. It's the state of South Carolina versus so-and-so, isn't it? That's how it's labeled. That's how it's stated. It's the state versus the individual. And that's partly a biblical thing. You're not bringing the person to court. The state has the authority to bring that person to court, and they're the ones who are doing the prosecution. So in these cases, when it's a sexual offense, so if someone sexually abuses you, you're like, well, they're a Christian. I can't take them to court. No, no, no. They have broken the law. You do what's proper in the law. They might even try to manipulate you and say you can't take me to court because you're a Christian and I'm a Christian. Don't listen to that. That's uncalled for and incorrect. Anyway, any questions about being a witness or being a reconciler, helping someone else reach a resolution? I mean, you might have an opportunity to do this in your life. Most people probably won't. But at some point, you might be called on to do it. And when you are, it's important to have the right goals in mind. OK. Yeah, Charles. go to court against a Christian. Let's say it's a civil issue. You and I had a bad business deal together. But I think you can still do it within the confines of the church and have an arbiter who is a Christian, and you keep it out of the court system, but you still handle it in the church. It's not like you just have to lay down and be quiet. Right, I think that, and this is where the church really should have a role to play, is if the church can assess the situation. If Charles and I had a bad business deal, and we both thought we were right. We have chosen to submit ourselves to the local church, and part of that process is the protection but also the accountability that's involved with this. That if I have acted wrongly and the church in this context says, Marshall, you've acted incorrectly, you've acted wrongly, you've acted selfishly or whatever, I need to be submissive to that, as hard as that might be. But it's also the protection of knowing that, I say this often, for wives. Wives are submitting to their husbands, they're trying to be God-honoring, but their husband is being bad, right? Their husband's not being good. They're trying to submit to him, but then what can they do? Are they stuck? They have no alternatives, can they not do anything? Well, if their husband is being abusive, They can talk to their pastor, they can talk to someone in the church who can deal with this husband, and even if she's being taken advantage of or not being treated properly, the men in the church can approach that husband and correct him and deal with him as they should. So there's a role, that's a protection for her as well. So anyway, thank you for saying that. The church really can resolve a lot of issues and we should do that. We should not be taking each other to court because it brings shame on the name of the Lord. He ends the chapter with this idea of creating a culture of peace in the church. And he says, if you're going to create a culture in your church that encourages these things, which I am thankful to say, we've been doing this for a long time at Harvest. We've been promoting peacemaking, promoting handling issues the right way, the biblical way. Not to say we do everything perfectly, but the goal is to deal with issues, not to sweep them under the rug. and to have the right perspective on these. And so he lists this, and I think this is helpful, so I'm gonna give you the blanks as we close this out, okay? The vision of a church that is eager to have peace is eager to bring glory to God through reconciliation. That's our vision, eager to bring glory to God through reconciliation. Remember, the first G is to glorify God. That's our whole point. That's our whole reason we're doing this. It's not to glorify ourselves. It's not to have an easier life. It's not to make our relationship smoother. It's to glorify God, and that's how we do it. Number two, training has to be involved. So that's what we're doing tonight. We've been doing this for weeks. This is like week number 13, 14, something like that. Peacemaking is not natural. so we train our people to respond correctly. We go over these things, we talk about these things, and I try to give examples that are relevant because I want you to see how it works in real life so that when it comes to your way that you can be thinking right thoughts. Number three, assistance. Church leaders help when members cannot solve issues on their own. That's our goal, is to be available to help resolve issues. It should be something that pastors are doing, and we're thankful. We take calls every week to try to help people through trials and conflicts and things. I mean every week, every week we're on the phone or meeting with people trying to help people with issues, and that's part of what we do. Perseverance, church should work hard to resolve relationships, work hard. We should not just say, well, we tried, too bad. In fact, I called a pastor one time, there was a family in our church who was just broken up because their daughter, she and her boyfriend were living together, they were smoking dope all the time, and they were going to this other church in town. and they were unreconciled with their family. And I said, okay, well, let's try to resolve this issue. And so I called the pastor of that church and I said, hey, there's somebody in your church who's been going to your church. Their parents, or the person's parents go to my church, and there's unreconciled issues between the two of them. I'd like for us to sit down and try to resolve this. The couple is living together, they're not married, and they're smoking a lot of marijuana. well, they're smoking, I don't know how much, they're smoking marijuana. They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And he said to me, oh, I don't get involved in personal things. I don't get involved in family disputes. I think that's how he said it. I told Jenna that, do you remember this? I told Jenna, I came home, I said, he said he didn't get involved in family disputes. What does he do? What does he do with his time? How do you, as a pastor, I got really kind of angry. I was like, how do you do that? where you're like, ah, I don't really care. And so as a church, we have to instill a culture where we will work hard to restore relationships, because it is hard. Because sometimes it's thankless. You'll work with somebody, and then both of them will be mad at you. You go into something, and now everybody's angry. And I'm like, well, but I did what I thought was honoring to God. So I did the best we could. Accountability. Church leaders must help members be accountable to what God requires. That's what this is for, again. Restoration. Gladly forgive and restore. We imitate God in this. We gladly forgive and restore. We ought to be people who are known as forgiving people. Yes, if you offend, we deal with it, or you sin against someone, we try to reconcile, but we don't hold grudges, okay? We don't have a long memory. We forgive like God forgives. Stability. We encourage members to see church as their long-term home. This is a problem. People, when they get bad relationships in churches, what do they do? They hop churches. They say, well, I got my feathers ruffled over there. I'm going to go somewhere else where nobody knows my problems. That is not a biblical way to handle your problems. Teaching your kids is a bad way to handle issues. Deal with the problems. Don't just run away from them. And lastly, peacemaking will be a good testimony. of Christ to the lost." Be a good testimony of Christ to the lost. I'm sorry I've gone over a minute or two, so I can't really take any time at the end here for questions, but I'll be happy to do some more next week. We've still got a couple chapters left, I'm trying to think. Well, we've got all the way through chapter 12. So we've got three chapters left and then I'm not sure what we're going to do after this, but we'll, we'll finish this up and hopefully this is helpful to you. I know it's been extremely helpful for me. So let's close in prayer. Father, thank you so much for the challenge you've given us to restore relationships in their church. And I pray that we would take it seriously and desire that we walk in love and that we have good relationships with each other. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you.