Scripture reading: Romans 13:8-14.

Sermon text: Matthew 18:15-20.

You’ve heard it before, but it bears saying again: We cannot live this life alone.

Fortunately for us, Jesus, Our Lord, knows our inner longing for relationship. Even in those times when we feel a deep desire to move away from everyone and live our lives in total isolation, something in us reminds us that we were created for relationship.

At our conversion, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts to give us a relationship with God, Our Father. The Holy Spirit moves us to join a congregation of believers to help us live godly lives. At our baptism, we become part of a congregation, but we also become part of the Church, the body of believers from all nations, languages, and time. The Church exists to help us fill our need for godly relationships.

Unfortunately, we all bring more than our strengths and virtues into this sanctuary today. We also bring our faults and warts with us. And just as surely as we need relationships with one another, it’s just as certain that our faults and pride will rise at the worst possible time to bring conflict into the body.

Jesus knew about personal conflicts. The Gospels record Jesus’ family didn’t understand Him and even tried to take Him back home, thinking He was crazy. Jesus’ disciples may have gotten along well at times, but the Gospels also record they spent a lot of time arguing about their positions in His kingdom, putting Jesus in the position of trying to arbitrate their arguments and tamp down their pride. Then, in the worst possible conflict, Jesus lost His life battling the legalism of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Any way you look at it, Jesus knew plenty about conflict.

Today’s sermon passage tells us how Jesus taught His disciples to handle conflict within the body. I’d love to tell you we can use this passage if conflict arises, but I must unfortunately use the word when. We’ve experienced conflicts before in the history of this church, and human nature alone assures we will experience it again. We can allow  conflict to tear us apart, or we can use conflict to strengthen our relationships with one another and draw us nearer to Jesus.

Jesus encouraged His disciples (and us today) to remember our relationship with one another in spite of the hurt we may cause each other. Jesus used the term “brother” to remind the disciples of the deep spiritual and eternal bond we share with other believers. When we confess Jesus as Lord, believing in His resurrection, we become part of an eternal spiritual family that encompasses every believer in all time. We do not live alone, nor do we stand alone in our faith. We can rely on the Church to strengthen us and encourage us in our walk with Christ.

Jesus told His disciples, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” Notice that Jesus used the word “sin” to describe the offense. I believe this reminds us that not every slight someone commits merits the attention we give it. Napoleon once said, “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.” I’d paraphrase this by saying, “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by oversight or ignorance.” In other words, many of the conflicts we think we experience occur only in our own minds by our inferences of what we hear from someone else. It took me many years to reach a major practice in my life: Given the choice between taking offense at something I hear or giving the person the benefit of the doubt by assuming he meant no offense, I’ve learned to take the latter approach. This accomplishes 2 things.

First, refusing to take offense at something I hear keeps me from leaping to the conclusion that the speaker really intended to insult me. At badly as I try to avoid it, I’ve often spoken too quickly and said something that could offend someone. In that case, I have desperately and humbly hoped the person would realize I meant no offense. I cannot hope to receive the benefit of the doubt from someone else if I’m unwilling to offer it myself.

Secondly, refusing to take offense at everything I hear tends to immensely frustrate the people who intentionally tried to offend me. I had rather take amusement at their frustration than spend my time trying to retaliate.

What does this mean? I believe Jesus wants us to understand that not every implied offense qualifies as “sin.” Sin separates us from God and from one another. We should take offense only if someone truly sins against us, not if someone merely says something with which we disagree.

Jesus told the disciples that if someone sins against them, “go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” Jesus tells us not to gossip to someone else when someone sins against us. I know we live in the South, and we live in a small community, and people talk to each other, especially when we think someone has sinned against us. We want to muster the forces, to make certain everyone knows what happened and that they agree with our side of the story. Jesus forbade the disciples from doing this. If someone sins against you, you must approach that person and him alone.

Again, I know we live in the South; I know we don’t like to offend people, especially given our cultural emphasis on courtesy and kindness. However, Jesus knew why He said this. If we do not confront the issues that threaten to divide us, divide us they will. We must maintain honest relationships with one another to maintain the bond of love within the body. At times, I have offended someone unintentionally, only to wonder why that person became distant with me. I had rather someone tell me I’ve offended them and give me an opportunity to repent. As Jesus said, “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” Our relationships are far too important for us to allow offense or sin to separate us.

What do we do if the person who sinned against us will not repent and ask forgiveness? Jesus told the disciples, “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.” In this command, Jesus reached back into the Mosaic Law. According to the Law under which Jesus and the disciples (all Jews) had lived, “On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness” (Deuteronomy 17:6). The Law required at least 2 witnesses for a capital case. Jesus, understanding the importance of restoring a relationship broken by sin, required at least 2 witnesses to hear the perceived sin and help restore the relationship.

Could Jesus have told us something about the importance of our spiritual bonds with one another with this requirement? I believe so. A capital offense implies a death. In our spiritual relationships, we cannot afford the death of a relationship with another believer.

Jesus then told the disciples, “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.” Implied here is that a true believer will never allow his sin to reach the point of excommunication. True believers will submit themselves to God and take the first opportunity to repent of the sin.

Jesus reemphasized the importance of our spiritual bonds with His next words: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

With these words, Jesus tells us why we must maintain our spiritual relationships.

We cannot expect to maintain an effective witness if we refuse to repent of sin. We believe that Jesus died for our sins and took the penalty for them on Himself. We identify ourselves as Christians by repenting of our sins and accepting Jesus’ full payment of those sins. Our baptism publicly demonstrates both our acceptance of Jesus’ payment for our sins and also our submission to His rule in our lives.

If we sin against one another, we must repent and restore the relationships. Those of us against whom the sin is committed must, as Jesus does, accept the repentance of the penitent and, in love, allow a full restoration of the relationship. We have faith that Jesus accepts our repentance and offers our forgiveness when we pray for His forgiveness of our sins. We must offer forgiveness to those who repent to us of what they have done.

When we forgive one another and restore relationships, we model our own relationship with Christ to the world. The strength of our relationships with one another will reveal itself in the unity of our love for one another. (See John 17 for Jesus’ desire for our unity.) When a united congregation prays, Jesus hears and answers the prayers. When a united congregation reaches out to its community, people respond. Jesus promises He will remain in our midst when we gather in His name, unified in repentance and love.

I’m quite certain we’ve all experienced the pain of broken relationships, perhaps through misunderstandings or even through intentional sin against us. When you’re tempted to take offense to an unintentional misunderstanding, recall that Jesus forgave you of your intentional sins, taking their penalty on Himself. When you’re tempted to sin against someone else, recall Jesus’ commandment as St. Paul told the Romans: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). We must love each other and all those around us. Our love will proclaim the gospel of Jesus more than any words we can say. Our unity, in forgiving one another and loving one another, will proclaim to the world that our Savior lives.

We live in a world that celebrates division, dissension, and disunity. We live in a world where people separate themselves from one another by insisting on their rights to sin against each other if they so desire. I challenge you to unite in love, forgive one another, and loose the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives through our repentance and redemption.