Three Steps To Restoration - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. There are consequences to sin. You see, there are consequences. You just simply can't think, well, you forgave me and I repent, so everything's great. It is, but it's a process now. And as the relationship gets restored, you have to make deposits into the trust bank.

That's the way it works. 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. 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. 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 that 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 thirty six. 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 him. He taught him 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. In fact, turn now to Galatians, a few pages.

You're right. Chapter six and verse one to reinforce the point. Here, Paul writes to the Galatians, it says, brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, same thing, anybody caught in a sin, you who are spiritual. And by the way, that means from God's point of view, not necessarily yours. You who are spiritual. That means you're walking with the Lord. You, he said, who are spiritual restore.

There's the restoration. Such a one in the spirit of. Gentleness. Each one looking to yourself so that you, too, will not be tempted.

Ah, there it is. Why do I have tears? Why does Paul have tears?

Why would restore someone so gently? Because Paul knows his own heart. The apostle Paul said, I am the chief of sinners. You see, I am the chief of sinners. The apostle Paul completely and totally understands how he stands before his Lord.

We all do. You see, when you understand who you are. And your sin. Some of us don't. Some of us rebuke with a completely different attitude, completely unaware of our own sin. Then I think we fall under these words of our Lord. Turn with me to Luke, chapter six, back to the Gospel of Luke, but this time chapter six in verses 41 and 42. Now, what's interesting about this is when you read this, you would be sure that he is these words are words to a Pharisee.

The Pharisees turned this into art form. They condemned everybody. They loved to rebuke. Their whole point of view was, hey, we catch you doing anything.

We're going to give you the business. But that's not what he's talking to. Verse 20 sets up the quote and turning his gaze toward his disciples, he began to say. This wasn't even the crowd.

This is the 12. Notice what he says in verse 41. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye and you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? He said, or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me take that speck out and that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? Now, Jesus's assessment of us, when we do that, you hypocrite first take the log out of your own eye. Then you'll be able to clearly take the speck out that is in your brother's eye. In other words, if you're going to restore anybody, you better make yourself one of the spiritual ones first.

That's Galatians 6 one. Take the log out of your own eye. You see, now, some of us take that a little bit too far and we say, well, I don't I don't rebuke anybody. And the real reason is because when I do, you're afraid of something, aren't you?

They're going to look at you and say, well, what about you? You did this. You did that. You did this. You did that. What about you?

Who are you to judge me? Well, you've got to be spiritual. You see, you have to, in a sense, walk with the Lord yourself in that. And how does that show up in a rebuke? It shows up with gentleness and tears and humility. Doesn't show up with arrogance and self-righteousness. You see, that's not a rebuke. That's sin in its own right. Someone needs to rebuke that. You see, that's what he is saying. Ideal forgiveness begins with dealing with sin honestly, and ideal forgiveness confronts sin courageously.

It takes tremendous courage to do this. Now, let's go back to Luke 17. And this is a very important part of restoration. In fact, without it, there would never be restoration. Ideal forgiveness and restoration requires the offender to own the sin repentantly. Ideal forgiveness and restoration requires the offender to own the sin repentantly.

Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him.

Now, I need to say one thing about that because of where we've been in the series. You cannot say, well, I don't have to forgive if they don't repent. That's not what Jesus is talking about here.

Jesus here is talking about restoration. OK. In other places where we've already looked, I am to forgive as soon as I am aware someone has sinned against me. Why? Not for them. Not even for the relationship, but for me. What happens if I don't forgive? I begin a seed of bitterness and I become bitter toward that person. And bitterness is a terrible sin because like cancer, it just grows. Boy, you have an unforgiving spirit about something or someone in your life. It just grows and you become bitter about everything.

I can't handle bitterness. I have to forgive for my sake. But if we're going to have a restoration, a relationship, then something is very important has to happen here. And what has to happen is if he repents, if he repents. Now, some of you, I'm not sure you know what repentance means.

So let's just sort of break it down first. The word, again, is compound meta no eo. No eo is a form of the word nous. The word nous means mind. You're thinking. That's what it means in Greek. The nous, the mind, you're thinking. Meta means to change.

So meta no eo. Change your mind. Change your thinking. Change the direction of your life.

Change the way you act. That's what repentance is. John MacArthur writes this. He says the Greek word meta no eo behind repent means more than regret or sorrow. It means to turn around, to change direction, to change the mind and the will. It does not denote just any change either, but always a change from wrong to right, away from sin and toward righteousness. That's what it means to repent. See, repentance is not saying, well, I'm really sorry. That might be the first step in repentance. But that might just be words. By the way, some of you have probably lived with someone who has sinned against you and they will say they're sorry and then they never repent.

They start a process, but it never finishes. You see, Jesus isn't talking about just talk. He's talking about repentance. Remember John the Baptist?

They came out, the Pharisees and the Sadducees came up and John really was upset with him and he said, show me the fruit of repentance. Don't come out here and ask me to baptize you and say, oh, I've repented. Show me the fruit that you've changed your way. You've changed your thinking.

You've changed your direction. That's what repentance is. And by the way, do we repent sometimes and still fail?

Sure. That's why Jesus says something amazing and astounding in verse four. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying, I repent, forgive him.

You don't like that, do you? Fool me once. Shame on you.

Fool me twice. Shame on me. That's the culture in which we live. Jesus, that's not the culture in which I operate. That's not me.

By the way, aren't you glad it's not him? How many times you've been involved in a sin and you say, oh, Lord, I'm so sorry. I did that. I'm just and I repent. And you start down the process.

And then what happens tomorrow or next week or next month? Here you are. Now, just imagine if Jesus said, hey, that's been that's too many times. I'm done with you. See, Christians love to be the beneficiary of forgiveness. But we're very reluctant to give it.

We really struggle with giving it. We justify withholding forgiveness. You see, I can't believe you.

They've done this to me. Well, I'm not saying bad about you, but when I compare you to the Lord Jesus Christ, you come up short, really, really short. And he's forgiving. He's a very, very forgiving God. So he says, this is what you do.

It's very difficult for us. It means that we clean the ledger. Now, I have to add one other thing here. If we say they repent, they begin a process and they really begin a process of changing their way. And we forget. Does that negate the consequences of the sin?

Not necessarily. There are always consequences. You see, that's the thing is so tragic about sin. You think you can do it. You think you can get away with it, but you can't. You see, even when you do get away with it, it changes your character on the inside. And you're worse off than we were before. And only time will tell. There are always consequences to the sin. Just because someone forgave you and you repented, say, well, now it's all over.

No, it isn't. I'll give you an example. What is a relationship built on? Trust. By the way, my relationship with God, my trust in God. Trust is a great English word for faith. I trust. Think of someone who has been a friend of yours for years and years and years. Why are some people better friends of yours than other people? Trust. Boy, you've got a good friend. You say, I trust them.

I know what that's like. I had a friend I could say anything to and I trusted him. Trust. So what happens in a marriage?

Well, basically, when you stand before an officiant, what your two of you are saying is, we take the vow that we will now begin to trust each other. And by the way, you trust each other that day. You trust each other more in the next year. You married five years.

You should trust each other more and more and more. But what happens in a marriage when one of the parties commits adultery? The way I use it in counseling is there is a trust bank and you made a lot of deposits in it over all the years and one withdrawal. And when the person committed adultery, they took it all out.

The bank vault is now empty. But the person said, I repent and the other person said, I forgive. But now is the process of repentance, the fruit of repentance. I have to start making deposits of trust back into the vault.

And by the way, sometimes it takes quite a while to regain and restore the relationship the way it was. It surely does. There are consequences. Example that I would use is if I would commit a horrific sin and I'm capable as anyone else of doing something, a sin embezzlement, adultery, something. Immediately, I would be fired. And that's a good thing. Hopefully, I would ask for forgiveness and get it.

That's a good thing. And I would dedicate myself to repenting. But from my perspective, I would never be a senior pastor again.

Ever. Well, how could that be? Well, when I read the pastoral epistles, it says that one of the qualifications for me is I have to be above reproach. Now, I know that's subjective, but it's above reproach.

In other words, you inherently trust me because you don't have any reason not to. But if I stole your money and womanized with people in the church, I got to believe I won't be above reproach in your eyes. And if I ever was, it would take a long time. Some pastors believe that the process goes long enough and they have done it.

Three, four, five, seven, eight years and get restored. And I think that's a good perspective. My perspective is I could never be above reproach in my own eyes. There are consequences to sin. You see, there are consequences. You just simply can't think, well, you forgave me and I repent, so everything's great. It is, but it's a process now.

And as the relationship gets restored, you have to make deposits into the trust bank. That's the way it works. Well, the apostles, they get it. They truly get it.

You've got to love them. He says that seven times. By the way, and by the way, I didn't say this, but he does it for you notebook people. He didn't say seven times in the eighth time. You don't have to. It's the same thing as 70 times seven.

It's a perfect number. It doesn't mean, well, this is the eighth time today and you're out. No, it doesn't mean that. He just says you keep on doing it.

The apostles, they get it and they say, Lord, increase our faith. In other words, I can never do that. I just couldn't.

Seven times a day? Come on, I'm only human. That's true. We're also new creatures in Christ. You see, there's something different in our lives. The Spirit of God dwells inside of us.

They make a fundamental mistake. They think in order to do this, they need bigger faith. I need a bigger faith. Jesus, like you missed the point.

Notice what he says. And the Lord said, if you had faith like a mustard seed, smallest seed in his culture, tiny little seed. He said, you would say to the small berry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you. Now, believe me, people, he is not talking about people that have faith.

Move mulberry trees into the ocean. That is not what Jesus is talking about. If you have real faith, the Bible says that you just walk up to a mulberry tree and you say, go to the ocean and it'll go there and it'll prosper. That's not what Jesus means. Jesus knows, by the way, since he's the creator of all things, that the oceans are saltwater.

OK. And a mulberry tree doesn't do well in saltwater. He understands that even if you got it there. What he is saying is this. That's impossible. Unless God does it. You see, Jesus said, you don't need more faith in the New Testament. It's not a matter of how much faith you have. It's a matter of what do you put your faith and trust in? The merit of faith is what do you believe in? Where is your faith? Everybody has faith. An atheist has faith. He has faith in his own judgment. There is no God never will be.

And I'm great. You know, so that's all there is. That's faith. He can't prove that. He just believes it.

But for us, we believe it's the Lord. What are the limitations of the Lord? Well, could the Lord take a mulberry tree and put it in the sea? Yes. Could he speak a mountain into existence?

Sink an island? Yes. He spoke all creation just by speaking. He created. He can do anything. Jesus is telling them, look, you can't do this, but I can. I do it every day with you. How many times does Christ forgive you every day?

How many times? So you have this capacity in Christ. Think of the Apostle Paul.

He was a great example. Paul says, you know what I think about a lot? I think a lot about the cross.

That's what I think about. Remember what he said to Galatians in Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ? Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. He told the Corinthians, you're a new creature in Christ. Paul believed that. Paul also believed that he was a sinner. I am the chief of sinners.

I've done terrible things. You see, Paul also said in Romans 7, sometimes the things I want to do, I don't do, and the very things I don't want to do, I find myself doing. But Paul also said to a whole group of men who were really wanting to grow in Christ, hey, you imitate me as I imitate him. You see, Paul gets it.

Paul thought about this a lot. How much forgiveness have you received? Well, if you were here a few weeks ago, 10,000 talents, 10,000 talents, 200,000 years of forgiveness, of daily wages. The worst someone could sin against you is one six hundred thousandth of that. That's the parable Jesus taught.

So the cost is enormous. Jesus gave it. So I go to the cross. I know how much forgiveness I have, and Paul said, as I think about it then, here's my statement. I can do all things.

How? Through him who strengthens me. You see, I can do all things through him who strengthens me, and people, I want to tell you something. That means forgiving people who have sinned against you. You see, you can't do it on your own, but you can do it through Christ.

Let's pray. Father, it is my prayer that for the people that this passage applies to, that right now they think of the people or the person who has sinned against them, who has sinned against them, and they know in their heart they have not truly forgiven because they know in their heart there is a seed of bitterness. Father, I would pray that they would come to you and pray to you that through Jesus Christ and your spirit you would give them the strength and the will to forgive. Father, for those who know they have sinned against others, I would pray that your spirit would convict them of the seriousness of the sin and that they would pray for Christ's strength and Christ's person and Christ's spirit to take them through the process of repentance, that they change their thinking, that they change their ways, that they change their lives. And as they experience the forgiveness not only of you but of those they have sinned against, they begin one day at a time to put deposits in the trust bank to one day at a time to prove that they have truly changed their lives. Father, we know that all of this is possible because of Jesus Christ. In His name we pray.

Amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

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.