Nonetheless, the theme of love. Jesus will not allow relationships that have been injured or broken and damaged by sin to continue. They must be repaired. There is urgency. from the head of the church to make certain that that which is injured and fractured and broken be put back together. And isn't that in a sense what love is all about, right? Making sure that relationships are not broken for good, broken forever, but that there is a commitment on the part of God's people to make sure, to make certain that relationships come together again and there is love that characterizes those relationships. The problem that we have, of course, is a three-letter word. Tell me what it is. Sin. Sin. And that's what we see in verse 15 of chapter 18. Look at it with me. If your brother sins against you. If your brother sins against you. These are the words of Jesus. He says, go and tell him his fault. Between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. That's the goal, gaining your brother, right? Putting the relationship that's been damaged and separated, as it were, by sin, back together. And it's incredibly interesting to me, as I look at that passage, to see that it's directed at the one who has been offended. If your brother sins against you, you go and tell him his fault. Just the opposite of what you would think, isn't it? You know, if I were writing this or I was speaking this, God forbid. If your brother sins against you, wait for him to come to you and ask for your forgiveness, right? That's what I would have said. even if it takes 20 years or a lifetime. But that's not what it says. If your brother sins against you, go, you go, you who have been offended and sinned against, go and tell him his fault. Whoa! You living on the same planet I am? People just don't generally do that, do they? That ain't natural. But it's what Jesus said we're supposed to do. And he wouldn't tell us to do something unless he knew it was gonna have a good result, right? It was the right thing to do. It was the loving thing to do. So you remember we looked at this. If your brother sins against you, you go and tell him his fault privately. Just you and him, you and her, between you and him alone. Now, brethren, this ought to be happening all the time in your relationships with people. And not just you, but me. It ought to be happening in your relationships with your family members, with your wife or husband, with friends, with co-workers. with people here in the church. This is normal Christian living. This is not out there somewhere. This is normal. This is why Jesus comes in the spirit of love and reconciliation and all the things that he's about. And he says, if your brother sins against you, you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. That's the goal, to gain your brother, to gain what was lost. You lost something with that sin. It drove a wedge in your relationship. It separated you. Have you ever had that happen where somebody has sinned against you or you sinned against somebody and now you sense it's not the same anymore? There's a separation, there's a divide between you and that person. There's something that was lost that needs to be gained. I assure you on the basis and grounds of the words of Jesus, that unless you and I are constantly going to people in the spirit of verse 15, even having to tell them their fault, oh, not immediately, you know, I mean, the moment they sin against you isn't the next moment to go to them and tell them, right? You would want a little slack in the rope, wouldn't you? You would want a little time to pass while they could think about what it is that they did to you. That would just be fair, right? That's how you want your brother or sister to treat you. Give me a little time. And in fact, That's implied in the passage. You don't have to go and tell him his fault immediately. Jesus didn't say that, did he? But go privately if he or she doesn't come to you. and settle up. Ask for forgiveness or receive forgiveness. We talked about that last week too, didn't we? Oh boy, guess what? I brought the money again. I want to see if you learned. Do you remember the illustration? Let's assume that someone here in the church has Sinned against me. Anybody want to volunteer for this exercise? How about if I get a 20? Will that get you? Okay, sin has fractured a relationship between this lady right here, Jessica, and I. And she needs to ask me for forgiveness. She sinned against me. I'm the pastor, right? No. She sinned against me. And so what does she need to do? She needs to ask for what? Forgiveness. You need to ask for forgiveness. Now, Jessica, if you can ask me for forgiveness properly, I'm going to give you this dollar bill. What a motivation, huh? Buy a half a cup of coffee. So how are you going to ask me for forgiveness? Pastor, I'm sorry if I've hurt or offended you in any way, and I would like to ask you for forgiveness. I hope you'll accept my plea. OK. That's almost complete. Now that she said it once, she's thinking about what she just said, and I'm gonna give her a second shot. And if somebody else here has a better thought, I wanna see a hand in just a minute. Go ahead, try it one more time. Pastor, I have sinned against you. You have, okay. And sinned against God. Yes. And I want to ask you to forgive me for that. Yes, thank you. Did you all hear that? Give her a hand. Many of us don't know practically how to do that. The one thing I want you to learn today is how to do that. And I'm actually desperately interested in your doing that because Believe it or not, it is vital to the health of the church, to the health of relationships Your marriage, your friendships, your employer-employee relationships, you name it. All those relationships. It's vitally important. Now, who else would like to try? I've got money. I'm giving away money. So, anybody else want to try this? Oh, your hesitancy is evidence. Yes sir, please. Okay, so you've sinned against me. By the way, I can sin against you too. Ask my wife, she knows. I'm rather good at doing it, you know. In fact, I have to ask her more for forgiveness than anybody else. Go ahead. You've sinned against me, what are you going to say? My beloved friend, I sinned against you. Out of the simple nature of my heart, I try to come against you, and sinned against you. I completely imagine the offense that you received during this. I pray to my father, asking for forgiveness, but in his name I ask for your forgiveness. Thank you very much. Go ahead, give him a hand. Anybody else? These are good examples. I'll do one more. How about I raise the ante? Up to a five. All these hands go up. Okay, now keep in mind, you run the risk of my not giving it to you if it isn't what I'm looking for, right? Okay, so you've sinned against me in some way, and now you have to what? What are you going to say? This happened to me this week. Okay. I was speaking to our teenage grandson. Yes. And I didn't like what he had done. And I went on and on about trying to correct him. And I started thinking about it for two days, this conversation I had with him. And I felt like I owed him an apology for the tone of what I said, the things I said. I didn't feel like what I said was wrong, but it was the tone. And I asked him to forgive me. I was sorry that I abused that tongue. And he seemed to appreciate that apology. You all hear that? It wasn't even, it was the tone that she was sensitive to. The tone wasn't right. And so she asked forgiveness because her spirit and her tone were, that's worth $5, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Oh good, I've got a little change left over up here. This is vitally important. And you remember last week we also mentioned this, that before you ever go, before you ever confess to another person and ask for his or her forgiveness, there's someone else you have to go to, isn't there? Someone far more important. than the person that you're going to, and that is who? God. Did David sin against Bathsheba by committing adultery with her? Yeah, oh boy. Did he sin against Uriah, her husband, by putting him in battle where he was vulnerable and essentially murdering him? Yeah. But when it came time for him to write that all-important Psalm 51. How did he start? Against thee, O God, against thee only have I sinned. Did he get it wrong? No. Against thee only, in a very relative sense, only against you, God, have I sinned, first and foremost. I have sinned against heaven. I have sinned against my creator. I have sinned against God. I have sinned and done this evil in your sight." So David went to God first, didn't he? And he asked him for... reconciled, as it were, the relationship with God. He made it right with God. And then, once he did that, he went to, what? The person whom he offended. We trust he did that. That is essential. Look at the text again. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But, oh boy. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses." This is, in a sense, speaking the language of importance and priority. Jesus said, look, if your private approach doesn't work, if you don't gain your brother, you've got to escalate the situation. You've got to bring others with you. Preferably elders in the church would be a great first choice, but at a minimum really spiritually mature individuals. You take them with you. Why? Because Jesus doesn't want broken relationships. He doesn't want relationships that are fractured and injured and damaged by sin. He'll have none of that. in his church. And so you bring others with you. There's a lot more we could say about that, but we won't. We'll move on. If he refuses, look, verse 17, to listen to them, then tell it to the church. You see how this thing is escalating from this level to the next level to the next and, as it were, kind of the highest level? These aren't my words. These are Jesus' words. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." Wow, that is really incredible. There are consequences, grave consequences for refusing loves efforts to be reconciled, to have relationships mended. If there's resistance, Jesus said, stay at it, pursue it, bring others with you. If it doesn't work even in a small group of a few people, then it may be that the whole church would need to be involved in the process. The principle is this, I hope you'll just remember this in particular. Relationships damaged by sin must be restored and recovered. Love requires it. Love requires that relationships damaged by sin must be restored and must be recovered. That is essential. First, the recovery of love may require you to confront someone who has sinned against you. That's hard, but all I would say to you is we've got to get over it. We've got to be courageous. We've got to be obedient. We've got to do what doesn't come natural. The recovery of love in this context requires a willingness to confront someone who has sinned against you because oftentimes, as we've considered the offender, won't come to you to seek forgiveness, right? So, Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, then you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And second, the restoration of love may require you to take others with you. And I mentioned to you that elders are a good choice. They're not the only choice. But whoever you bring with you, if you can't resolve something between you and the offender, needs to be spiritually mature, needs to be someone who can be confidential and not share it outside of your relationship together. Because Jesus said in verse 16, if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you. And then third, the recovery of love may require bringing the matter of offense to the church. Jesus said in verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, to the one or two others whom you previously brought along with you, then tell it to the church.