Three Steps To Restoration - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. There's another factor here though, if your brother sins. That's a word that's not very popular now.

When's the last time on a newscast you heard that word? As I've said on and on, we are a country not of sinners but of mistakers. I just made a mistake. That's all, it was just a mistake. It was a mistake, but it was a sinful mistake. You see, it's sin. And that means this, it can't be excused. It can't be ignored.

It can only be forgiven. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. His name is Simon Wiesenthal. The year was 1944. He was a young prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. And yes, he was a Jew.

As the Allied Army approached, he realized that he would live. And as they swept by the camp where he was, his duties changed and he began carrying supplies to a hospital nearby. There he met a Red Cross nurse who simply asked him the question, are you a Jew?

He said that he was. And she said, follow me. There is a young German officer covered in bandages, barely able to speak, that needs to talk to you. His name was Carl. And when Simon approached Carl, Carl started to confess what was torturing him.

Three times, Simon writes that he wanted to get away and each time Carl would grab his arm. You see, it turned out that he was with a group of German soldiers pursuing some Russians who were in retreat. And the Russians set a booby trap and 30 German soldiers were killed by the booby trap. He said that we were so enraged by what happened to us, we rounded up 300 Jews.

Old, young men, women and children. And we drove them into a house and then we doused the house with gasoline. And then we threw grenades into the house to ignite it. And he said that then what we did is we got into the periphery and any of them that tried to come out, we would shoot to death as they came out of the house. He specifically remembered a mother and father jumping from a seven second story window with a child in their arms.

And he was part of shooting the three of them. He then said this. I cannot die without coming clean. This must be my confession. I am left here with my guilt in the last hours of my life.

You were with me. I do not know who you are. I only know that you are a Jew and that's enough.

I know what I have told you is terrible in the long nights while I've been waiting for death time and time again. I have long to talk about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him. Only I didn't know whether there were any Jews left. I know what I am asking is almost too much for you, but without your answer, I cannot die in peace. Simon Weisenthal said.

I thought about it for a moment and left the room. In 1969, after thinking about this for all those many years. Weisenthal wrote a book called The Sunflower. And when he wrote the book, the idea of the book was to describe this exact situation.

He has a Jewish POW and a German concentration camp. And he invited theologians, philosophers, politicians. To write to him in letter form, and that's what became the book, did he do the right thing? Overwhelmingly, virtually every response he got was that he did the right thing.

By the way, Weisenthal was never really sure. What would you have done? What would you have done? Weisenthal describes in his book how I used to see the mass graves of Jewish men and women just piled on top of each other.

50, 100, 200 at a time and just covered over with dirt. What would you have done? Forgiveness seems to be a much easier topic when it's theoretical. Especially for Christians. When we get into the idea of theology or theoretical, it makes a lot of sense to us.

But what about when it's painfully real? You see, I'm in this series, Forgiveness, the Cornerstone of All Relationships. And after all these years of preaching and teaching the Word of God, I have become a complete and utter realist. I know that no matter what I teach or preach about forgiveness, there will be marriages that dissolve, there will be friendships that collapse, there will be families that unravel, there will be groups that split. I understand that. I've seen it all the years that I've been here.

I also realize that many of you are thinking or have thought in the past or will think in the future. Forgiveness doesn't work. It just doesn't work. I mean, I forgave.

Nothing happened. Or it's been all these years and he or she will never forgive me. I think the problem with that kind of thinking is you have a specific kind of forgiveness in mind. What I would call the ideal of forgiveness. In other words, forgiveness that leads to restoration. In other words, a forgiveness that brings about a reconciliation and then a restoration of the relationship. But there's more to it.

If you're going for restoration. And simply forgiving. No one spoke more clearly on this in a more succinct way than Jesus Christ in Luke Chapter 17. Luke Chapter 17.

The context of the entire chapter is kingdom values for the followers of Jesus. So he jumps from one topic to another. Here he's going to deal with forgiveness. He deals with service. He deals with gratitude.

All kinds of things. He's trying to let his disciples know some very important things. This is light in his ministry. The immediate context, though, of how important it is to get this point comes from one phrase in the beginning of verse three. Be on your guard.

That's Jesus speaking to his disciples. You be on your guard. There's an exclamation point in the English Bible.

There's no punctuation in the Greek text, but the word order is reversed. And that's why the exclamation point is needed. Be on your guard. This is important. It implies something else.

This is hard. Be on your guard. NIV, I think, is translated. So watch yourselves. Jesus is saying something here.

Well, what's he talking about? Well, look back to verse one. He said to his disciples, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they have come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. Then he said it would if he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. Jesus is saying, look, we need to be on our guard against causing others to sin. In this context, he may be referring to young believers. In Matthew 18, he's referring to children clearly because he has the children come to him. And then he says this.

They are probably not parallel accounts, but probably accounts in two different periods of time. But on the other hand, he says you have to be on your guard against the temptation of not forgiving those who sin against you. Don't cause other people to sin, but don't you get caught not forgiving those who sin against you.

Be on your guard. He then gives three steps to the restoration process. How do you get from a sin to a restored process? Jesus said.

Three steps. Ideal forgiveness begins by dealing with sin. Honestly, notice, be on your guard if your brother sins.

Now, that seems kind of obvious to us, but maybe not as obvious as you think. Here's what we're supposed to forgive. Sin. That's what we forgive. Sin.

Now, the reason I say that is. There may be people around you at work every day. There may be siblings in your family, neighbors in your neighborhood. You may be married to one of these people, and they do a lot of things that irritate you. They annoy you and they upset you. But that's not necessarily sin. You see, people can annoy you without sinning. People can upset you without sinning. The problem in that case is not them. The problem is you. You see, it's your problem as a Christian.

When people act like that and it's not sinning, what does that require on your part? Well, how about a few synonyms? How about enduring? How about forbearing? How about patient? How about long suffering?

How about tolerant? You see, that's what we're to be. Some of us get kind of confused with that. And we think that anybody that upsets us deserves our forgiveness.

They don't. In fact, if we take it far enough, we may deserve theirs. You see, you can turn that attitude into sin. Think of Miriam and Moses. She was jealous of Moses. She ended up sinning against Moses because of that jealousy.

Moses hadn't done anything to her. How about Saul and David? Was David sinning against Saul? No. Was Saul upset with him? Yes. Was he irritated by him?

As we know, he threw a spear at him more than once. You see, that has to do with us. There's another factor here, though. If your brother sins, that's a word that's not very popular now.

When's the last time on a newscast you heard that word? As I've said on and on, we are a country not of sinners but of mistakers. I just made a mistake.

That's all. It was just a mistake. It was a mistake, but it was a sinful mistake. You see, it's sin.

And that means this. It can't be excused. It can't be ignored. It can only be forgiven. You see, it can only be forgiven.

C.S. Lewis says it well. He said, Real forgiveness means steadily looking at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse after all allowances have been made, and seeing it for all its horror, its dirt, its meanness, and its malice. Because that's what sin is. It also can't be buried. So many people bury, just bury sin. You can't bury it. Again, it has to be forgiven first.

Mark McMinn says this. We all know the phrase, Time heals all wounds. He then says, But untended wounds do not automatically heal. Time heals clean wounds. He says, But soiled, dirty wounds fester and get infected. He said the same thing happens both in our inner being and in our relationships when we attempt to suppress the sins done to us. If your brother sins against you. Now, I know what you might be thinking. There's a cliche that we live by. Forgive and forget.

Right? You just forgive and forget. Well, first of all, it's hard to forgive, and it's impossible to forget. And I know some of you who are spiritual always come up to me afterwards and say, But there's a couple places in the Bible. And I read them earlier in this series where God forgets. God says, I remember your sin no more.

Okay. Now, what does he mean when he says that? If he says God forgets and never remembers your sin, then why are the scriptures filled with the sins of believers? If God forgot them, why are David's sins in here? He had them written down by the power of the Holy Spirit. He wrote David's sins down. I thought he forgot them. That's not exactly God's God. I don't think he forgets much.

You see, I think there's something else here. It means he does not remember them against us. He never remembers them against us. He does not treat us on the basis of our sins because he forgives. That's what he means.

Gregory Jones writes this. He said, It is largely a mistake to say forgive and forget. For the judgment of grace enables us through the power of the Holy Spirit to remember well. When God promises to blot out Israel's transgressions and remember their sins no more, as he said to Jeremiah, God is not simply letting bygones be bygones. Rather, God is testifying to God's own gracious faithfulness to us. If you're going to have restoration in a broken relationship because of sin, ideal forgiveness begins with dealing with the sin honestly.

Be on your guard. If your brother sins, here's step two, rebuke him. If your brother sins, rebuke him. Ideal forgiveness confronts sin courageously.

By the way, if you've ever done that with someone, you know how much courage it takes. If your brother sins, rebuke him. What does that mean, rebuke? Compound word, Epitomo. Epitomo.

Tomo means something that is honored or valued. Epi means against. In other words, something that is dishonorable. Dishonorable behavior.

That's what sin is viewed as. That's like saying to someone, This is dishonorable. It's dishonorable to God, dishonorable to Christ. It's dishonorable to me. You see, if your brother sins, rebuke him.

Now, some of you like this verse. But if you like it, I don't think you're rebuking anybody. I think you're condemning people. You see, when he talks about rebuking here, it's not punitive. That's not what it is. He's not saying, Boy, if your brother sins, you get him. You see, and you live for that.

You may be one of those people that just like to look around at all the people around you and see if anyone's doing anything wrong so you can get him. There are people that believe they have the gift of admonition. But that's not how it works. Let me look at it.

We'll come back here eventually. I want to look at a couple other verses. First, let's go to the Old Testament. Leviticus chapter 19. Moses writing. Leviticus chapter 19. Just two verses. Verses 17 and 18. And there's a lot of good stuff in those two verses.

Moses writing in Leviticus says this. You shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart. You may surely reprove your neighbor.

Same idea. Notice, you shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart. You may surely reprove your neighbor, rebuke them, admonish them. He says, but shall not incur sin because of them.

Don't let your neighbor influence you in that way. He said, you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Now, notice what he talks about. He says, we're not to hate our brother and we're to love them. In the midst of that love and hate sandwich, the main course is here, you may surely reprove them. In other words, if I love you and you sin, I rebuke you.

If I love you. You see, this isn't a matter of self-righteousness. This isn't a matter of some punitive behavior. This is an act of love. And by the way, when Jesus said rebuke, it's an imperative mood. It's commanded. He said, when someone sins, you rebuke them.

Now, I want to show you a couple of examples here. Turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 20. The book of Acts chapter 20.

And I want to look at verse 31. Paul was speaking for the last time to the elders of the church of Ephesus. This will be the last words they ever hear from him. Paul was in Ephesus for three years.

That church got more of his personal attention than any church. And he's speaking and warning. He keeps saying to these elders, you be on your guard. You be alert. Watch out. Savage wolves are going to come in from the outside, false teachers. They're going to come in as soon as I leave.

You deal with them. But verse 31 is the one I'm most interested in. He says, therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each of you. Three years of admonition.

Three years. And the implication to Paul is he's speaking to the elders. And he said, each one of you for three years, when you sinned, I rebuked you. When you sinned, I rebuked you. Now, this is not self-righteous because we know Paul's not.

This is not punitive. In fact, Paul says, let me explain the context. He says, therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. With tears. You see his attitude? He's heartbroken. He didn't like doing this. This isn't some self-righteous thing.

This isn't punitive. This is with tears. This is with tremendous humility.

You see, Paul says, I don't enjoy this process at all. Who would ever enjoy rebuking and admonishing anybody? Who would enjoy that?

A self-righteous person would. But the Apostle Paul would not. By the way, where did that get Paul with them? Well, look down at verse 36. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And they began to weep aloud and embrace Paul repeatedly and kissing him.

Grown men. Notice he didn't talk about all the things he taught them. He taught them a lot. He talks about how he admonished them.

How he rebuked them for three years. Why would Paul do that? Because Paul, like Jesus Christ, understands the incredible consequences of sin. Sin's horrible. Sin's terrible. Sin is not only the reason our Lord went to the cross and died. But sin is the reason that we have tears in our life. Agony and relationships. Life can become miserable because of sin.

Because there's a principle at play. God has not mocked whatever a man or a woman sows. So shall you reap. There are consequences of sin. And sin not only hurts you, they hurt everybody around you.

Everybody that cares for you. Think of what happens in sin. Think of an alcoholic, abusive husband and father with that sin.

Think of what happens to that marriage and those children that grow up in that household. Think of it. You see, somebody has to stand up and say, I'm going to rebuke it.

You see, we have to deal with that. That's what Paul was saying. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.