Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you for the providence of your word, that you have protected it, you have delivered it, you have brought it to us in our day and age in abundance. And Father, we pray that we would not be neglectful of the reading and studying and application of your word, but that we would be found faithful in this regard. And Father, we pray that specifically, that we would apply this to our text this morning, that through the reading as well as the exposition of this scripture passage, Father, that we would know better what you have done for us and what you have required of us to do for you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, Jesus said that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. I'm confident that you've already discovered this is not always easy to do. Loving your neighbor in a manner God requires us to do is difficult. It's difficult for several reasons. Sometimes it's difficult because we make it difficult. Our own sinful attitude towards our neighbor gets in the way of us properly loving him. Other times it's our neighbor who makes it difficult. It's his sinful attitude that makes him hard to love. But sometimes loving your neighbor is difficult because certain acts of love are just plain difficult to do. Our sermon text describes one of these difficult acts of love. Bringing a rebuke to another person is a hard thing to do. going to another person and telling them that they need to correct something about their life is a difficult thing to do. Nobody likes to do that, except for siblings. For some reason, siblings have absolutely no trouble telling their brothers and sisters, calling out behaviors and attitudes that need to be corrected. But for everybody else, this is difficult. Now, it may be a little bit unexpected that you would hear me say that issuing a rebuke is an act of love. Since speaking words of correction into another person's life almost always bring pain to that person, it's kind of counterintuitive that we would think that we are showing love to that person by bringing pain into their life. And our sermon text acknowledges that a rebuke is indeed a painful thing to endure. Solomon refers to it as a wound, yet he says it's a good wound. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, it says in verse six. And my intention this morning with the sermon, today's sermon, is to bring us to an understanding of how the wounds inflicted by a friend, that is a rebuke, are faithful. But I don't want to merely have us understand this topic. I want us to be equipped to participate in this difficult act of love. My hope is that the word of God will penetrate into each one of our hearts, working in such an effectual manner that we would be moved to love others and that we'd be moved for the sake of others. That is to say that you would be willing to inflict faithful wounds on your friend, as well as be inflicted by faithful wounds from your friends. I'm gonna address this topic by defining the biblical parameters of a rebuke. And while I'm doing that, I'm going to show what the Bible says about those who issue the rebuke as well as those who receive a rebuke. So in defining the biblical parameters of a rebuke, let's consider three questions. When should a rebuke be given? How should a rebuke be given? And why should a rebuke be given? The Bible answers the when question in several different passages, but it's always the same answer. It's when your brother is in sin. Luke 17.3, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Or Matthew 18.15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. We don't have the right to rebuke another person for matters that are not sin. This is an important distinction to bear in mind because not every disagreeable matter is an issue of sin. The Bible speaks about some things that are wisdom issues, but not necessarily sin issues. We looked at a few weeks ago, we dealt with a passage, 1 Corinthians 10.23, which reads, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. And we understand this to be saying that there are things which are not sinful, yet wisdom would suggest that they aren't really profitable to engage in. They're not edifying either to ourselves or other people. For example, it's not necessarily sinful for a person to play Angry Birds on his smartphone, but then it's not really edifying either. Wisdom says that there's a better and more productive way for somebody to spend their time. Yet, should you see somebody playing Angry Birds, it would not be proper for you to rebuke them because they're playing Angry Birds. Angry Birds is not a sin. Of course, if the person is neglecting other responsibilities because he's playing the Angry Birds, then there's probably grounds for a rebuke there. But in that case, the sin is not playing Angry Birds. The sin is that he's neglecting his other responsibilities, and that's where the rebuke would be directed. And the point here is that you only rebuke another person on matters of sin. You certainly have the freedom to have charitable discussions concerning wisdom issues, but don't confuse that with a rebuke. A rebuke is a call to repentance, whereas a discussion is just that, it's a discussion. Now the concern many Christians express when somebody begins encouraging the practice of rebuke is that everybody in the church is gonna be condemning one another for every little infraction. It brings to mind images of the Pharisees rebuking the man who's carrying his mat on the Sabbath. And these concerns would be warranted, certainly are warranted, but they would be warranted if the encouragement to rebuke was not set within the context of genuine Christian love. As 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us, our most noble works, if they're not done in love, profit nothing. So yes, if love does not govern your efforts to bring correction to your brother's life, then you will become a modern-day Pharisee. Your rebuke will be nothing more than sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. But when love governs a way that you bring correction to others, then you'll be a blessing to them. 1 Corinthians 13.8 says that love never fails. And that's true even in the context of rebuke. Love never fails. And throughout the remainder of the sermon, I'm going to continue developing the need for love to govern all corrective actions that one Christian might take with another Christian. And so I'm not done expressing the importance of Christian love in this matter. Yet, I thought it proper toward the beginning of the sermon to address the concern that I suspect many of you have and then to affirm that in no way am I encouraging indiscriminate rebukes within the church. If you hear nothing else today, please hear me say that Christian love must accompany every rebuke, else the rebuke itself must be rebuked. Now, a few minutes ago, I read Luke 17.3 and Matthew 18.15. These are the verses that say, if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault. And if you're paying close attention, you might be thinking, both of those verses say, if your brother sins against you, does that mean that I can only rebuke another person if they sin directly against me? Would it be wrong for me to rebuke a person if I see them sinning but the sin's not directed against me, it's directed at somebody else? The answer is no. It would not be wrong for you to rebuke under those circumstances. When you see a brother in sin, whether the sin is against you or the sin is against somebody else, you can call them to repentance. Take Paul's rebuke of Peter as an example of this. In Galatians 2, we read about a time when Peter and Paul were both together in the town of Antioch. And Peter and Paul, as you know, they were both Jews. And of course, Antioch was a Gentile town, full of Gentiles, some of which were Christians. And that really wasn't a problem for Peter and Paul because they understood that the gospel of grace had been given to the Gentiles just as it had been given to the Jews. That is, it wasn't a problem until some Judaizers from Jerusalem arrived in Antioch. And then all of a sudden, Peter began to withdraw from the Gentile Christians. He was succumbing to the peer pressure of the Judaizers. And when Peter did this, others began to follow his sinful example. Galatians 2.13 says, And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with Peter, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. And so Paul rebuked Peter. He rebuked him to his face. He called him out for being a hypocrite. And in this case, Peter wasn't sinning directly against Paul. He was, first and foremost, sinning against God, but the human objects of his sin were primarily, first and foremost, the Gentile Christians. Yet Paul still rebuked Peter on the basis that Peter was acting sinfully. And the point I'm making here is that the sin doesn't have to be directed specifically against you in order to issue a rebuke. Later in this same epistle, in Galatians 6.1, Paul wrote, brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. In other words, if you see your brother in sin, then that's an occasion to demonstrate your love to him. Be a faithful friend by rebuking him. Some people have questioned whether the reference here to you who are spiritual in Galatians 6.1 is intended to distinguish the mature Christian from the immature Christian. And if this was Paul's intention, then what this verse would be saying is, in essence, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are sound in your Christian doctrine and you who are mature in your Christian faith, you should restore him. Or to put it differently, Paul would be saying that if you're not mature in your Christian faith, then you have no business rebuking another person. But that's not what Paul is saying in Galatians 6.1. His reference to you who are spiritual is to be understood as you who have the Spirit of God within you. The distinction he's making here is between believers and unbelievers. It's the same distinction he made to the Corinthian church when they were suing each other in the civil courts. In that case, Paul rhetorically asked, can't you settle these matters amongst yourselves? Why do you need to go to the unbelievers to settle your disputes? You see, a Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. It's the Holy Spirit who leads us into truth. It's the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the spiritual things of God. And it's the Holy Spirit who illuminates our minds so that we can understand the scriptures. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says that the unbelievers cannot know these things because they do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Unbelievers think the things of God are foolishness. So when Paul writes in Galatians 6.1, if any man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one. He's saying, let the rebuke come from within the household of God. Let those who possess the Holy Spirit and are therefore have understanding of spiritual matters, let them be the people who bring correction. Every Christian has been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And this means that every Christian is spiritual in the context of Galatians 6.1. So if you're a Christian, then you have what it takes to lovingly restore a brother who is overtaken and trespass. You have what it takes. But you ask, how do I go about restoring my brother? How do I issue A loving rebuke. Well, I'm glad you asked because that's my next point. The first thing is to know that any faithful wounds that you inflict upon others must be established in the Word of God. Must be established in the Word of God. 2 Timothy 3.16-17 is a passage we often refer to because of its overt declaration that the scriptures are inspired by God. But consider the application this passage has to the issue of rebuking. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And so when it comes to your brother, when it comes to rebuking your brother, using the Bible as a standard of holiness is primary. It's absolutely necessary. And when you do this, it's God who is declaring the person to be in sin. That's the big point. You're not the one coming to your brother saying, hey, I think what you're doing is wrong. Instead, you're coming to your brother and saying, God says what you're doing is wrong. I'm just here as your friend. I'm just here to gently persuade you to consider what God has said, and where necessary, repent of any activity that's sinful. When you keep the Word of God in its proper place, you head off the, who are you to tell me response. You give no grounds to the more holy than thou accusation. If the person wants to argue the point, their argument is with God, not with you. You're just the messenger. Another consideration to the how question is given again in Galatians 6.1, the passage I read just a few minutes ago. You who are spiritual should restore a brother in a spirit of gentleness, it says, gentleness. That means you don't run up to the person and immediately start screaming and yelling in his face. Once again, let me remind you of the importance of saturating your rebuke in Christian love. So you choose your words carefully. You make sure that the person you're speaking to understands that you're approaching him because you love him, because you care for him. Proverbs 12.18 reminds us, there is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health. And your duty to love your neighbor extends not only to the act of bringing correction, but also to the very words you use when doing so. Make sure the words that you use promote health and are not the piercings of a sword. A biblical rebuke doesn't need to be contentious. It doesn't need to devolve into a knock-down, drag-out fight. Proverbs 20, verse 3 says, it is an honor for a man to keep away from strife, but every fool will be quarreling. So when you bring correction to your brother, be honorable about it. Avoid making it a matter of strife. You can help achieve this not only by making sure that love flows from your verbal communication, but also making sure that love flows from your nonverbal communication. Nonverbal communication should not be underestimated in these situations. Your posture, your gestures, your eye contact, your facial expressions, you should be aware of what these are communicating. Somebody once said, I can't hear what you're saying because your actions are so loud. Recognize that the other person's sensitivity to verbal as well as nonverbal communication is going to be turned up to 11. So let your nonverbals demonstrate Christian love. Let your non-verbals demonstrate Christian love. Make sure your brother knows that the wounds you are inflicting upon him are coming from a friend and not an enemy. The wounds of a friend, our sermon text tells us, are faithful. So this is how you rebuke. You do it lovingly, scripturally, gently, compassionately, honorably, And then let me add one more prayerfully. Pray that God will give you the wisdom to speak with your brother. James 1.5 says that if anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. And so pray to God. Pray that he will soften the heart of your brother so that he'll see the error of his way, and pray that God will grant you the wisdom to navigate through a potentially sticky situation with the right words, the right love, the right nonverbal communication, et cetera. So we've answered the when question, we've answered the how question, now let's answer the why question. This is a question I don't want to gloss over too quickly because it's a question all of us have probably asked ourselves a dozen times. Why would I reprove my brother when it's such a touchy situation? When it has such a potential for getting messy? When it's so difficult and such an uncomfortable thing to do? And the quick answer is because God said to. God requires you to love your neighbor, and this is part of loving your neighbor. That's a completely sufficient answer. It's a completely sufficient answer, and we have absolutely no right to demand anything further from God. But in God's grace, He has given us more of an explanation than just simply do this because I told you to do it. In His grace, God has explained how the faithful words of a friend will bring benefits to both the rebuker and the rebukee. And perhaps the most obvious of these benefits is the relationship that the repentant sinner has with God. James 5, 19 through 20 speaks of this. Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the air of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. That's a pretty persuasive reason for stepping outside of your comfort zone, right? It's quite incredible to think that God would allow you and me to be participants in saving a soul from death and in covering over a multitude of sins. That's a great honor. That is a huge motivation for being a faithful friend. But it's not only beneficial to your repentant brother's relationship with God, it's also beneficial to his relationship with you. Listen to Proverbs 9.8. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Proverbs 28.23 says the same thing. He who rebukes a man will find more favor afterward than he who flatters with the tongue. So the benefits of a loving rebuke that lead to repentance are for everybody who's involved in the rebuke process. The rebuker benefits and the rebukee benefits. But what happens if we chicken out? What happens if we don't follow through with an appropriate rebuke? That's what Solomon warns against in verse five of our sermon text. Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed, it says. And I'm gonna explain this verse right now, and I'm asking you to pay close attention to what this verse is teaching us. If you don't read it carefully, you probably won't get the impact that God intends for you to hear from this verse. Verse five is a profound truth that will convict the hearts of many Christians. And I'll admit to you that as I was working through this sermon preparation last week, I fell under the conviction of my own sin. It became apparent to me that when I see a Christian brother who is in sin, I don't always rebuke him like I ought to. I have a tendency to be overly passive in that manner. I'm inclined not to make an issue out of it. Why? because it's a whole lot easier to say and do nothing than it is to call somebody to repentance. What verse five of our sermon text is telling me is that when I do this, I'm, quote unquote, concealing my love for my brother. I'm carefully hiding it away. I'm hiding away those faithful wounds that love requires me to deliver. And consequently, my brother has been deprived of the benefits of my love. my loving rebuke. This is just another way of saying that by failing to provide biblical correction to my Christian brother, I have failed to love him in the manner in which God has instructed me to do. This is convicting because it shows how I've missed the mark of the second greatest commandment. Do you struggle with the same temptation? The same temptation to turn a blind eye to your brother's sin. Let me read Leviticus 19.17 to you. It's saying the same thing that verse five of our sermon text is saying, but it does so in such a manner that it's a more definite expression of this truth. Leviticus 19.17. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. Do you hear what that's saying? It's saying that when you ignore the sin of your brother, God sees that as hatred in your heart. You're expressing hatred to your brother by allowing him to continue in his sin. And that's the exact opposite of what love does. Love seeks to restore the sinner to a right relationship with God, whereas hatred allows the sinner to continue in his sin without any form of intervention. Hatred says, I don't care enough about my brother to try to protect him from the consequences of his sin. I don't care about my brother enough to put myself in a potentially awkward situation. I'd rather he continue down that path of sin so that I don't have to be inconvenienced and I don't have to be in the awkward position of a rebuke. That's what hatred says. and realize that every person who has ever fallen into the quote-unquote big sins had first fallen into the little version of those sins. And perhaps hundreds of times, you have to wonder how many Christians stood by and did nothing as they witnessed those quote-unquote little sins. How many moral tragedies could have been avoided if Christians would be more willing to hold each other accountable to righteousness? How much devastation to families could have been prevented if Christians were more willing to lovingly rebuke the little sins? How many schisms within a church could have been avoided if Christians were more willing to inflict faithful wounds when they hear murmuring and complaining and grumbling? When we consider the destruction that inevitably follows in the wake of sin, it's no wonder God says that the person who refuses to rebuke his brother is demonstrating hatred towards his brother in his heart. That's not a hyperbole. That's not an exaggeration to grab your attention. It's the truth. It's the gospel truth. And I mean that literally. It's the gospel truth. Sharing the gospel is often thought of as evangelizing to unbelievers. But there's more to sharing the gospel than just evangelism. When you bring a biblical rebuke to your brother, you're sharing the gospel with him. Not that he hasn't heard it before. And I'm not saying that his sin has caused him to lose the salvation and now you need to go and save him again by preaching the gospel to him. The point I'm driving at here is that when you rebuke your brother, you're placing before him the same gospel of forgiveness that we hold before the unbelieving world. Interestingly, in both cases, there's a rebuke. And that rebuke is designed to lead the sinner to repentance. The gospel of grace that we hold before the unbelieving world says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It goes on to say that the wages of sin is death. That's speaking of, of course, physical death as well as spiritual death. Then it proclaims forgiveness through repentance. It promises that salvation is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And we call this evangelism. We call it sharing the gospel. But aren't we sharing the same gospel message when we rebuke our brother? We call attention to his sin, we encourage repentance, and we hold forth the promises of God's forgiveness and restoration. My guess is that many of us really dislike the word rebuke. It sounds so harsh. It seems like such a severe thing to do. But would it be more bearable if I referred to the rebuke as sharing the gospel? Would that make it more tolerable? Because that's really what a rebuke is. It's the same gospel that justifies the heart of unbelievers that sanctifies the heart of believers. And so calling your brother to repentance is just another way of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to him. And this should give you a certain level of confidence as you enter into a rebuke. If a person you're rebuking is truly a brother in Christ, then he has already come into agreement with the message you're bringing to him. He knows that sin must be repented of. He already has embraced the ministry of reconciliation, and the only real obstacle you face is his potential reluctance to admit his own sin. He may stiffen his neck for a period of time, resisting you as he kicks against the goads, but your confidence is that the Holy Spirit resides within him, and therefore he will not kick against the goads forever. God will work upon his heart until he falls on his knees in repentance. And when that happens, your brother will experience the benefits that I mentioned earlier. The restored relationship with God and his enhanced relationship with you. Hence the proverb, rebuke a wise man and he will love you. But the Bible makes it clear that not everybody you rebuke will love you for it. Calling sinners to repentance will reveal the true status of their heart. And you'll find that not every person who professes to be a Christian proves to be a genuine Christian. Some of the people you rebuke will persist in their sin. They'll continue kicking against the goads and you'll never see the humility of repentance. And the Bible tells us that this is the behavior of a fool. Over and over again, the book of Proverbs warns of the fool who rejects instruction and correction. For example, Proverbs 17.10, rebuke is more effective for a wise man than 100 blows on a fool. Or Proverbs 27.22, though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his foolishness will not depart from him. So should you have the experience of rebuking a fool, it might get messy. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. It might get messy. Proverbs 9.8 says that if you rebuke a fool, he will hate you for it. He will hate you. But don't let that persuade you from loving your neighbor. Don't let the fear of the fool's response keep you from the benefits of the wise man's response. And let me remind you what those benefits are. It's restoring your brother to a right relationship with God. It's improving upon the relationship that you already have with your brother. And it's participating in the great privilege of gospel work, the gospel work of delivering a soul from death and covering over a multitude of sins. And finally, Let me encourage each of you to be open to receiving faithful wounds from your friends. Remember how King David persisted in his sin until Nathan rebuked him? At a human level, it was Nathan's rebuke that drove David to his knees. Through this and similar episodes in David's life, he developed a proper attitude towards being rebuked. It's recorded for us in Psalm 141, verse five. This is what David wrote. Let the righteous strike me, it shall be kindness. Let him rebuke me, it shall be an excellent oil, and let my head not refuse it. Let my head not refuse it. What David has written here needs to be the attitude of every true and genuine Christian. If you haven't arrived at this point yet, the point where you're willing to receive the loving correction from a faithful friend, and then ask the Lord to give you the right attitude in order that you can arrive at that position. Ask God to remove from you any elements of pride that would stand in the way of receiving biblical correction. Ask Him to give you a soft and tender heart that refuses to kick against the goads. And ask Him to surround you with faithful friends who will be quick to strike you with kindness and to rebuke you with the excellent oil of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, may we love one another enough to do difficult things for one another. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you have certainly given us the ministry of reconciliation. It is a glorious ministry. It is a mighty work of testimony to the grace that you have revealed to us through your son, Jesus Christ. And Father, you have called us to participate in this ministry of reconciliation. It is indeed a great honor and privilege for, as we consider ourselves and who we are and who you are, we see that we are not only unnecessary for your work to be accomplished on this world, but we are in fact ill-qualified for participating in this work. Yet, because you have redeemed us, because you have given your Spirit to us and placed within our hearts the joy and knowledge and the salvation of Jesus Christ, we are now qualified. because of what you have done for us. And so Father, we pray that we would not disqualify ourselves by appealing to our own comforts and insecurities, as opposed to proceeding and loving people in the manner in which you have called us to do. Father, this requires great strength. You know this, you created us, you know our frame, you know how feeble we are. And so, Father, we pray that you would equip us with the strength as well, not only the desire to do so, but the strength to act upon that desire. Give us the boldness of knowing that the gospel precedes us into all areas of life, and that when we come to our brothers and sisters, that whether they reject us or whether they receive us, that we're being faithful to the calling you have placed upon us. Father, give us the compassion to make sure that our words and our actions and behaviors come through as that which is loving. Give us the wisdom to know when and where and how and why to bring correction into another person's life. And Father, we pray that through the ministry of reconciliation, through the arch participation in this, that you would build the unity and the peace of your church, that you would establish relationships on this earth that continue uninterrupted into heaven for all eternity. And Father, we pray that we would glorify you, that when bad situations get resolved into good situations, that this would be a testimony even to the watching world of the love that resides within the Christian church. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material herewithin, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.